Nicholas Dynon is Chief Editor of Defsec New Zealand’s enterprise and national security publications New Zealand Security Magazine, Line of Defence Magazine and Fire NZ Magazine, He is a licensed security consultant and has held business development and communications positions in the border and private security sectors.
Nicholas previously served 14 years with Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection, which included postings to Shanghai (2005-2008) as Vice Consul, and Beijing (2008) and Suva (2009-2012) as First Secretary. He also served in the Australian Army reserve forces as a non-commissioned officer (Royal Australian Corps of Signals) and then commissioned officer (Royal Australian Corps of Transport). He is a graduate of the Royal Military College of Australia.
Nicholas holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the Australian National University and a Master of International Studies with Honours from the University of Sydney. He has had peer-reviewed articles published in The China Journal, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, China: An International Journal, and National Security Journal, and his research focuses on China-West security relations, theories of national power, and the private sector in Aotearoa New Zealand’s national security.
Selected articles (as author)
- Information Domain: New Zealand in the age of information competition, Line of Defence Magazine, Summer 2020/21.
- Introducing the New Zealand Information Domain, Line of Defence Magazine, 05 December 2020 update.
- Contactless Borders and post-Covid travel, Line of Defence Magazine, Winter 2020.
- How powerful is China? Comparing economic, military and soft power, Line of Defence Magazine, Autumn 2020.
- A New Zealand strategy for protecting crowded places from attack, Line of Defence Magazine, Autumn 2020.
- Facilities and Public Spaces conference offers answers to ‘wicked’ problems, New Zealand Security Magazine, October 2019.
- Defsec editor speaks at launch of National Security Journal, Line of Defence Update, October 2019.
- Opinion: Protestors beat hollow victory drum, Line of Defence Magazine, Spring 2019.
- Facial Recognition: the front line of security versus privacy, New Zealand Security Magazine, June 2019.
- New Zealand, China, and the limits of friendship, Line of Defence Magazine, Autumn 2019.
- Behaviour detection at the border: dark art or science?, New Zealand Security Magazine, October 2018.
- Chinese Tech: Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, New Zealand Security Magazine, August 2018.
- Let’s start talking seriously about robots, New Zealand Security Magazine, August 2018.
- Learning from China: ‘Soft war’ and cultural security, Line of Defence Magazine, Summer 2017/18.
- Protecting crowded places from terror attack, Line of Defence Magazine, Spring 2017.
- Opinion: Towards an economics of terror threat in New Zealand, Line of Defence Magazine, Winter 2017.
- The paradox of information sharing at New Zealand’s borders, Line of Defence Magazine, Winter 2017.
- The fog of smokeless war: A cyber security capability for NZDF, Line of Defence Magazine, Autumn 2017.
- Swings and carousels in airport and border security, New Zealand Security Magazine, April/May 2015.
