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.

Morrison’s defence reset
Morrison’s defence reset
The Prime Minister wants a defence force for a region which is “poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly”.
Emerging From COVID: Policy Responses To The Pandemic
Interactives
Emerging From COVID: Policy Responses To The Pandemic
In this new feature, Lowy Institute experts provide policy recommendations for Australia to address issues that are critical to our nation’s — and the world’s —…
Emerging from COVID: Policy Responses to the Pandemic
Policy Briefs
Emerging from COVID: Policy Responses to the Pandemic
Lowy Institute experts provide policy recommendations for Australia to address issues that are critical to our nation's — and the world's — successful emergence from the pandemic.
Global megatrends are coming for the ANZUS alliance
Commentary
Global megatrends are coming for the ANZUS alliance
Originally published in the Canberra Times.
COVIDcast: Hugh White on Coronavirus and Asia’s power balance
COVIDcast: Hugh White on Coronavirus and Asia’s power balance
The latest episode in a podcast to discuss the implications of coronavirus for Australia, the region and the world.
COVIDcast: Hugh White on Coronavirus and Asia’s power balance
Podcasts
COVIDcast: Hugh White on Coronavirus and Asia’s power balance
In this episode of COVIDcast, Sam Roggeveen, Lowy Institute’s Director of the International Security Program, sat down with Professor Hugh White to discuss the connection between…
Canberra vs Beijing: A reply to Alan Dupont
Canberra vs Beijing: A reply to Alan Dupont
We can’t base plans for the future on a chance China may fail. We are yet to internalise how successful it may be.
What’s missing from the Strategic Update
What’s missing from the Strategic Update
Cute but not cuddly – the goal for defence should be to impose unacceptable costs on a predator that tries to attack.
Wuhan lab claims: Is Australia questioning China? Or the US? Both?
Wuhan lab claims: Is Australia questioning China? Or the US? Both?
Leaked claims, supposed intelligence dossiers, angry outbursts. Lowy experts look to make sense of a Covid controversy.
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