Sam Roggeveen

Director, International Security Program
Areas of expertise

Australian foreign and defence policy, China’s military forces, US defence and foreign policy, drones and other military technology. Also, trends in global democracy.

Sam Roggeveen
Biography
Publications
News and media

Sam Roggeveen is Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace, published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.

Before joining the Lowy Institute, Sam was a senior strategic analyst in Australia’s peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, where his work dealt mainly with North Asian strategic affairs, including nuclear strategy and Asian military forces. Sam also worked on arms control policy in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs, and as an analyst in the Defence Intelligence Organisation.

Sam has a long-standing interest in politics and political philosophy, and in 2019 he wrote Our Very Own Brexit: Australia's Hollow Politics and Where it Could Lead Us, about the hollowing out of Western democracy and its implications for Australia. 

Sam writes for newspapers and magazines in Australia and around the world, and is a regular commentator on the Lowy Institute’s digital magazine, The Interpreter, of which he was the founding editor from 2007 to 2014.

Sam also serves as lead editor at the Lowy Institute, and editor of the Lowy Institute Papers.

The United States: More normal and less exceptional than you think
The United States: More normal and less exceptional than you think
The exceptionalist mindset sees vital interests in every corner of the globe – only acts otherwise in practice.
An agenda for the AUSMIN talks
An agenda for the AUSMIN talks
Australia should spend less time worrying about American strength – and more time thinking about its resolve.
Australia has become integral to US war planning
Commentary
Australia has become integral to US war planning
Originally posted in The Australian
Is the US still Australia’s best bet?
Commentary
Is the US still Australia’s best bet?
Originally published in The Australian
The Fix: What has meaning
The Fix: What has meaning
A new Interpreter feature inviting short observations about events, essays or episodes that might otherwise be missed.
Conversations: Military Strategist Mick Ryan on Australia’s Defence Strategic Review
Podcasts
Conversations: Military Strategist Mick Ryan on Australia’s Defence Strategic Review
Military strategist Mick Ryan discusses Australia’s Defence Strategic Review with International Security Program Director Sam Roggeveen in this episode of Lowy Institute…
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