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.

How should Australia respond to Chinese warships’ live fire?
How should Australia respond to Chinese warships’ live fire?
Provocations such as the PLA’s weapons drills are the moments when Australia must channel its unique geographical power.
Why, for Australia, Trump’s treatment of Canada is so troubling
Why, for Australia, Trump’s treatment of Canada is so troubling
The US alliance is far shallower and more transactional than its Australian supporters like to believe.
What I’ll be watching for in 2025
What I’ll be watching for in 2025
Lowy researchers gaze at their crystal balls – with questions, more than answers, for the year ahead.
An ounce of prevention: Nauru deal puts defence spending in a different light
An ounce of prevention: Nauru deal puts defence spending in a different light
Australia’s Nauru deal is a victory for preventive diplomacy, closing off any possibility of a Chinese security presence.
A wonky memento and a China metaphor
A wonky memento and a China metaphor
A scale model kit offers an insight into Chinese manufacturing.
Russia escalates, strikes Ukraine with a new missile, warns West
Russia escalates, strikes Ukraine with a new missile, warns West
Putin wants to target Europe’s commitment to support Ukraine.
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