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.

Helping Indonesia to help ourselves
Commentary
Helping Indonesia to help ourselves
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review.
Who will be the 21st century’s rule maker?
Who will be the 21st century’s rule maker?
Asia needs a new order for the post-American era, and it cannot be a liberal one.
China, Australia, and the gulf between leaders and led
China, Australia, and the gulf between leaders and led
The biggest shift in Australia’s strategic circumstances in a century will test our politics as much as our US alliance.
US-China competition in Asia: Who risks wins
US-China competition in Asia: Who risks wins
Victory in great power games have rested on military might far more than the attractiveness of a leadership model.
Why the day of the party is done
Commentary
Why the day of the party is done
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review.Sam Roggeveen
Our Very Own Brexit: Response to reviewers
Our Very Own Brexit: Response to reviewers
It is the decline of the traditional parties that destabilises our politics, not burgeoning right-wing populism.
Favourites of 2019: The Twitterverse
Favourites of 2019: The Twitterverse
Occasionally inspiring and frequently very funny, Twitter is the great modern meeting point – mostly.
Australia’s Brexit?
Commentary
Australia’s Brexit?
Loss of confidence in political parties could translate into disengagement from our region. Originally published in Inside Story.Sam Roggeveen
When our security makes the neighbours feel vulnerable
When our security makes the neighbours feel vulnerable
Talk of new bombers ignores one important fact about the region: Australia is not in charge anymore.
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