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How Australia Can Become Defensively Self-Reliant, The Implications Of China's Military Rise & The Role of the US In The Region

Sam Roggeveen on Curious Worldview - Spotify

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Sam Roggeveen coined The 'Echidna Strategy' -  which is an on the nose metaphor for thinking about Australian Defence policy. 

Echidna’s are a tiny, cute little animals native to Australia. They are essentially harmless, they only eat ants and termites but despite their size and vulnerability, they have evolved this incredible defensive system. Their bodies are covered in long, spiky thorns thereby making them immune to pretty much all types of attacks that might come from animals higher in the food chain. 

So in a nutshell, Sam wants Australia to be more like echidna’s, a threat to nobody, but disastrous to anybody that should attack them. 

In the podcast we discussed Australian defense policy in a changing global landscape. How Australia can become a self-reliant power, the implications of China's military rise, and the evolving role of the United States in the region. 

Sam shares his thoughts on the importance of ambition in leadership, the potential for an Australian-Indonesian alliance, and the strategic mistakes of AUKUS.

Sam worked as an intelligence analyst at Australia's Office of National Assessments before he joined the Lowy institute where he now serves as the Director of the International Security Program, where he leads Australia's defence strategy, US foreign policy and Chinas military development. 

The opening few minutes of this are not the best audio, but after that it kicks into studio quality. This was recorded in person in Canberra, it is my pleasure to welcome Sam Roggeveen to the podcast…

Consider sharing this interview with a mate, colleague, brother, sister, whoever you think might be interested in this as well.

Here is a transcript of the opening exchange from the conversation…

Ryan
Is it correct that you're thinking about writing an Anthropos to probably biography?

Sam
Not quite, no, not an Ange Postecoglu biography, but I have mostly written a long article about Ange Postecoglu that I hope to publish somewhere in the coming year. And it's really an argument about Australia and about a different form of Australian leadership and Australian national character, rather than an article about football. I think he represents something new and interesting about Australia and something maybe a bit more ambitious that we've lacked in the past.

Ryan
What is that that you're looking for? A different type of leadership, that more ambition.

Sam
Yeah, so it's really a question of ambition and the fact that throughout his career he has always pushed aside demands for pragmatism. So pragmatism is a very Australian quality and in many respects is very laudable and important and useful quality. And it's been great in the gradual building of the Australian nation, if you like. It's a really Australian quality that that filters through, I mean, it's there in the Anzacs, it's there in Gallipoli, and it comes through in our politics and so many aspects of Australian life that kind of tie it up with wire kind of approach rather than a high-minded, elevated, utopian approach. And Andrew's not like that. He's always said, no, no, pragmatism is for others. I'm a dreamer. I want to do big things. So when he quit the Australia job, for instance, he said he'd already had huge success. The Socceries had won the Asian Cup.

They qualified for the World Cup. yet, Ange said he wanted to transform the country into a footballing powerhouse in Asia. Not just win tournaments, but actually change the character of the nation so that it became a footballing powerhouse. And the fact that he failed to do that was one, he said one of the reasons that he quit. And so what I see in him is a kind of an idealistic quality that you rarely see in Australia. Someone who not only wants to make the best of the circumstances and cope really well with adversity, which is really what pragmatism is, but someone who wants to actually transform the status quo, who wants to shape entire institutions in order to build something big. And that's built on imagination. And that's something that he has that I don't see a lot of in Australian leadership.

Ryan
It's funny, this kind of naturally also segues into the Echidna strategy because I think one of the, one of the observations, whether it's a complaint or not that you make about historically our reliance on allies is that no, we can actually take care of this ourselves. We don't need to necessarily rely on the wires, just holding everything together. can shoot for exceptionalism, dream real big.

Sam
Well, it's probably not an accident that those two things are linked. Those are qualities I admire and I think those are qualities that I think Australia could do with more of. So, yes, I think there is a tendency to underestimate exactly what Australia has achieved. I mean, by any...

reasonable analysis. mean look around you, this country's a miracle. You know it's built on almost nothing to create one of the most advanced nations on earth, one of the freest nations on earth. It's a huge achievement and

Therefore, it seems to me weird to believe that it is beyond us to also defend ourselves. And when I look at the facts of the situation, even in an environment where we're facing a huge challenge from a rising China, it seems to me completely within our capabilities to do this ourselves. The tough news is that not onlycan we choose to do this ourselves, but actually we're going to be forced to do it ourselves. This is an argument we'll get into about America's place in the region, but it's actually consistent with historical trends in Australia that oftentimes we've been forced into independence. We've been forced to do more for ourselves against our will and we've protested sometimes pretty harshly and violently…

……. continue the conversation with the podcast here.