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Robert McKinnon is a Canberra-based nonresident fellow in GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. He specializes in Indo-Pacific strategic and economic issues with transatlantic and global implications. 

McKinnon had a 30-year career in foreign policy, strategic, economic, and intelligence roles in the Australian government. He has held several assistant secretary-level positions in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Office of National Assessments/Intelligence. He served as minister-counsellor to the Australian embassy in Washington, DC from 2007 to 2012 and was a member of the 2018–19 United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Further Practical Measures for the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space. 

McKinnon holds masters’ degrees from the University of London and the University of Queensland.