He is a member of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change and was Chief of the Australian Defence Force from 1998 to 2002. Since then he has worked on strategic leadership issues as a consultant, teacher, and mentor at Oxford University, the National Defense University in Washington DC, and at the Australian National University.

At ANU Chris is Chair of the London Foundation and a Director in the Tuckwell Foundation. He teaches on campus and at the Australian Command and Staff College and has facilitated induction courses for new APS entrants into the Department of Defence. He has also co-facilitated executive education courses for the National Security College on risk.

He is Chair – PTSD Australia New Zealand, which has launched FearLess Outreach to assist all Australians and New Zealanders who have post-traumatic stress or live with people who have it.

He became very concerned about climate change matters in 2006 after which he taken advocacy action to raise awareness of the potential costs of inaction. In 2015 he was an author of a Report for the Climate Council on “Climate Change, Security and the ADF”. The launch of this report preceded a conference on the topic which he co-chaired with Professor Will Steffen.