Sam Roggeveen

Director, International Security Program
Sam Roggeveen
Biography
Publications

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.

This weekend on The Interpreter
This weekend on The Interpreter
Look out for the Weekend Catch-up, and for analysis of the shock British election result.
Four Corners investigation puts spotlight on party decline
Four Corners investigation puts spotlight on party decline
The travails of our major parties are directly impacting our foreign policy. The parties are desperate for funds, which makes them vulnerable to entreaties from wealthy foreign…
Weekend catch-up: China's ambitions, an incident in Myanmar, violence in PNG and more
Weekend catch-up: China's ambitions, an incident in Myanmar, violence in PNG and more
It was a week dominated by debates about China's rise, violence in the Philippines, and a wonderful anecdote about an Australian general and a narrowly avoided diplomatic incident…
Fear of abandonment: A dialogue on Australian foreign policy, past and future
Fear of abandonment: A dialogue on Australian foreign policy, past and future
The overall story of Australian foreign policy is pretty positive. But there's no doubt we dragged our feet at various stages.
Angela Merkel declares independence, sort of
Angela Merkel declares independence, sort of
Trump is clearly making things worse, but the fraying of the US-Germany partnership is a story as long as the post-Cold War era.
China's bid to join the global aviation elite faces huge challenges
China's bid to join the global aviation elite faces huge challenges
Although the experts who are downplaying the commercial significance of the C919 are not wrong, perhaps their frame of reference is too narrow.
100 days of Trump
100 days of Trump
To mark 100 days of the Trump presidency, we've updated our timeline of all Lowy Institute research papers, opinion pieces, media interviews and Interpreter posts.
China launches its second aircraft carrier
China launches its second aircraft carrier
China's carrier program is symbolic of the power shift in the Asia Pacific. Short of an economic or political crisis in China, this shift probably can't be stopped; it can only be…
North Korea: Talks will fail because we have nothing they want
North Korea: Talks will fail because we have nothing they want
Despite the excitement of the last few days, the fundamentals have not changed.
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