Lowy Institute

Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, the Chief of Army, delivered a special address before the Lowy Institute on Thursday 3 April 2025. He spoke about the state of the Army profession and proposed key actions to strengthen the institution.

This is the third in a series of significant speeches from the Chief of Army. The first laid the theoretical foundations for the Army profession, while the second examined the historical, cultural and institutional challenges faced by the Army. 

Following the address, the Lowy Institute’s Executive Director, Dr Michael Fullilove AM, chaired a Q&A session with the Chief of Army.

Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, AO DSC, has more than 35 years of military experience, including leadership roles in operations, training, and capability development. He has commanded forces in East Timor, Afghanistan, and Egypt/Israel and most recently served as Head of Land Capability in Army Headquarters after commanding the Multinational Force and Observers.

A graduate of the Royal Military College – Duntroon, UK Joint Services Command and Staff College, US Army War College, and Harvard Business School, he holds advanced degrees in Project Management, Defence Studies, and Strategy. He has been appointed Officer of the Order of Australia and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

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Hear from former senior NATO figure and arms control negotiator Rose Gottemoeller on the prospects for peace in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since the Second World War. Donald Trump arrived as US president promising a swift end to the war in Ukraine. But can the war end in a way that will be fair to Ukrainians, and which closes off opportunities for further Russian aggression? Rose Gottemoeller will address these complex questions and analyse the unfolding peace process.

Rose Gottemoeller is the Lowy Institute’s 2025 Distinguished Fellow for International Security. She is currently the William J Perry Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Prior to this, she served as Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019 and was Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the US State Department. In 2009 and 2010, she was chief US negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation, due to expire in 2026.‍

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Since his election, foreign policy coverage has been dominated by US President Donald Trump. But there is a lot more going on in the world than Trump 2.0. Many important global developments are not getting the attention they deserve. The Lowy Institute’s Lydia Khalil and Daniel Flitton, Managing Editor of The Interpreter, highlight the stories you might have missed.  

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Former senior NATO figure and arms control negotiator Rose Gottemoeller delivered the 2025 Owen Harries Lecture on Monday 24 March in Sydney. She reflected on a new era of nuclear weapons competition.

China is rapidly growing and modernising its nuclear arsenal while Russia has used nuclear sabre-rattling in its war in Ukraine. Rose Gottemoeller explores the advent of an unprecedented situation — three nuclear peers — and the implications for the United States and its allies. She will also discuss the possibilities for nuclear restraint and arms control.
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Since 2013, the Owen Harries Lecture has honoured the enormous contribution made to the international debate in Australia and the United States by Owen Harries, who was a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute.

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Donald Trump has moved quickly to impose tariffs on literally every country in the world. Trump’s tariffs against Australia are not only affecting matters of trade; they potentially infringe Australian sovereignty. The Lowy Institute’s Lead Economist Roland Rajah sits down with Dr Jenny Gordon, Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow and Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, to discuss the economics and peculiar logic behind Trump’s tariff plans, what it means for smaller countries like Australia, and how they should respond.

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Hear Lowy Institute and Carnegie Endowment experts discuss the most pressing topic in Australian foreign policy: the future of the alliance with United States. The AUKUS agreement of September 2021 raised the US-Australia alliance to unprecedented levels of cooperation and alignment. But the first two months of the Trump Administration – particularly its Ukraine policy and relations with its neighbour and ally Canada – have raised fundamental questions about the future of American foreign policy and its attitudes towards traditional partners such as Australia.

Some of the authors of a recent Carnegie Asia Program report — Evan A. Feigenbaum, Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment; Courtney Stewart, Senior Managing Consultant at OCRT; and Matthew Sussex, Associate Professor (Adjunct) at Griffith University — discuss these and other questions with Sam Roggeveen, Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, in an event moderated by Susannah Patton, Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute.

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President Donald Trump's trade policies, particularly tariffs on steel and aluminium, have sparked retaliatory actions from long-standing allies and raised serious questions about the future of America's working relationships with the rest of the world.

In December, the Lowy Institute hosted a panel discussion about the impact of Donald Trump presidency in Asia — from US security and trade ties with Indo-Pacific, and the outlook for US-China tensions and key regional flashpoints, including Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Lydia Khalil convened this conversation with colleagues Daniel Flitton, Managing Editor of the Interpreter and Susannah Patton, Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, and Professor Bec Strating, Director of La Trobe Asia.

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Defence analyst Marcus Hellyer talks with the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen about the unprecedented appearance of Chinese warships off Australia’s east coast. What message was Beijing sending? How well did Australia’s defence force perform in response? And what are Australia‘s future options with the United States in retrenchment?

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In the second of our events analysing the foreign policy issues likely to dominate the international agenda in 2025, our panel discusses the first few months of the second Trump administration, the developments in Europe, Asia and the imminent Australian federal election.

The panel was chaired by Dr Jessica Collins and featured Hervé Lemahieu, Director of Research, with Richard McGregor, Senior Fellow for East Asia; Susannah Patton, Director of the Southeast Asia Program and Project Lead for the Asia Power Index; and Robert Walker, Research Associate at the Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre.

It was recorded on the 27 February at the Lowy Institute's Sydney headquarters.

Watch the video of this event.

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Cathy Neap, Country Manager for the National Rugby League in Papua New Guinea, speaks with Dr Jessica Collins, Project Director of the Australia–Papua New Guinea Network.

Cathy shares her experience as a change maker — what drives her, the challenges she faced, and how she views the Australia–PNG relationship. Reflecting on PNG’s half-century of independence this year, Cathy also shares her vision of what the next 50 years might look like in terms of development and women.

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