Stop the World

Can Australia count on continued access to the most advanced frontier AI models from the US? And if not, what should it do about it? That’s the starting point for a wide-ranging conversation with three American guests who bring deep expertise across cyber, AI and strategic competition. Michael Sulmeyer is Professor of the Practice at Georgetown University and until recently was Assistant Secretary...

Dean Ball is one of the most influential thinkers in AI policy right now — principal author of the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan, author of the widely-read Substack Hyperdimensional , and until very recently a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. STW grabbed him just before he started a new role at OpenAI, which made for some propitious timing. The conversation covers a...

How should middle powers such as Australia and Canada maximise their strategic clout in an age of increasingly assertive great powers? Raquel Garbers spent nearly three decades in Canadian defence, security and intelligence, including a stint as Director General for Strategic Defence Policy at the Canadian Department of National Defence, where she served as the principal architect of Canada’s defe...

Do intelligence agencies need to rethink how they deliver assessments to political leaders in the AI age? That's the question at the heart of a new ASPI report, ‘Reading the Room: Redesigning Intelligence Product for the AI Age’. Today STW sits down with its author to dig into the issue. ASPI senior fellow Chris Taylor joins FiveCast co-founder Duane Rivett—whose firm provides open-source inte...

Nicole Giles is Deputy Director of Policy and Partnerships at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service—and she visited ASPI in Canberra to talk through what she calls the three Vs: the velocity, variety, and volume of threats facing Canada and its allies right now. AI-accelerated disinformation that once took weeks to develop can now be deployed in seconds. Violent extremism investigations that...

This week, ASPI hosted a fireside conversation with Anne Neuberger, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Strategic Advisor to Cisco. Anne was Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor from 2021 to 2025. The conversation focused on cyber security and the impact of AI on geopolitics and cyber resilience. Coming off the back of President Trump’s Executive Ord...

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly central to warfighting. And the firms that build it are critical partners to militaries around the world. Once such company is Britain’s Faculty AI, whose head of defence Andrew van der Lem joins us this week. The conversation covers electronic warfare and the competition to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum; how AI can identify, classify, and a...

Today we’re joined by Kanishka Narayan, Britain’s Minister for AI and Online Safety, who visited Australia last week to sign an MOU on cooperation between Britain’s illustrious AI Security Institute and Australia’s new AI Safety Institute. Kanishka, whose previous roles include a stint in tech investment, was described in a recent British tech publication as a minister who “really gets AI”—and it...

ASPI this week released our Cost of Defence report which, as always, has taken a thorough and rigorous look at every dollar spent on defence in the budget. And to help us make sense of the $66.4 billion that Australia will be spending, we’re joined by our director of defence strategy, Mike Hughes. Mike is one of the report’s main authors along with Marc Ablong, Courtney Stewart and Linus Cohen. Th...

Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, joins us to discuss the repression of Uyghurs and other minority groups in China — and why human rights abuses are struggling to stay on the global agenda. Yalkun has spent years documenting abuses in Xinjiang, including mass surveillance, arbitrary detention, forced labour and the suppression of Uyghur identity and culture. He also brings a d...

Benedikta von Seherr-Thoß is Managing Director for Peace, Security and Defence at the European External Action Service—the European Commission’s diplomatic arm. As the EEAS official responsible for bringing to life the recently signed EU-Australia Strategic and Defence Partnership, Benedikta visited Canberra and Sydney this week for talks with Australian officials. Benedikta joined us to talk abou...

Last week saw the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. It was dominated by trade and investment. Ahead of the summit we spoke to Matt Turpin, who was director for China in the White House National Security Council during Trump’s first term. Matt, a former Army officer and now a senior advisor at Palantir Technologies and visiting fellow at the Hoover I...

Today on Stop the World, ASPI executive director Justin Bassi and David Wroe talk about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s visit to Australia and the latest news in artificial intelligence. Japan is one of Australia’s closest friends—and the friendship is deepening. Justin and David talk about the significance of the relationships amid global geopolitical turmoil. Takaichi is leading her cou...

Why should we care about the Indo-Pacific? It’s a question sufficiently packed with vitality that Ray Powell and Jim Carouso have for the past two years devoted a weekly podcast to finding the answers. Ray, a former US Air Force Colonel posted as Defence Attache in Canberra, and Jim, longtime diplomat who served as Charge d’Affaires to Australia, join STW this week to unravel all the ways the Indo...

Critical minerals and rare earths are atomic marvels — and geopolitical nightmares. They’re vital in high-end technologies including defence equipment but are traded in markets that are all but broken, with China dominating overwhelming shares of production. This week, Madeleine King, Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia, joins Stop the World to talk about the challenges Aust...

ASPI’s head and deputy head of defence strategy, Mike Hughes and Courtney Stewart, join us to dissect Australia’s new National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Plan. It’s the right strategy, but is there enough money, even with the welcome boost? And how does Australia become operationally self-reliant without chasing the fool’s dream of self-sufficiency? Mike and Courtney share their vi...

Want 20 episodes of Black Mirror in a one hour podcast? You’ve come to the right place. After a big week in artificial intelligence—including news of Anthropic’s secret supercyberweapon—we’re joined by ASPI’s Fergus Ryan and Bethany Allen to talk about AI in China. Fergus and Bethany explain the findings of their recent report, The party’s AI: How China’s new AI systems are reshaping human rights....

Back by popular demand, Florence Gaub joins David Wroe to dissect the latest global developments. Florence is Director of Research at the NATO Defense College and an expert in strategic foresight. She shares her key takeaways on Iran and views on the state of NATO, and offers frank criticism of Europe’s underspending on defence and infrastructure. She discusses how the Iran conflict, following Ukr...

The Iran war is shaping as an historic geopolitical moment. Regime change looks increasingly unlikely, with the United States—and possibly Israel—preparing to settle for grinding down Iran’s ability to pose an external threat. The majority of Iranian people who loathe the regime and advocates around the world pushing for freedom are preparing for disappointment. To talk through these perspectives,...

Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland spurred Europe to assert itself in ways it has never done before, says former Danish diplomat, national security adviser and top newspaper editor Bo Lidegaard. Six European NATO members went so far as to send troops to the autonomous island territory. Hot on the heels of European President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Australia to sign trade and security...

David Wroe and ASPI executive director Justin Bassi discuss the prospects for steering the Iran war towards a tolerable end that means neither a years-long quagmire nor an abrupt closure that hands Tehran a tacit win. Three weeks in, the Strait of Hormuz is the keystone. How do the US and other countries reopen the key energy route and stop Tehran from holding it in perpetuity as leverage over an...

Three weeks into Donald Trump’s “Epic Fury” operation in Iran, STW speaks with Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear strategy and non-proliferation expert who runs the Arms Control Wonk blog and directs the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute in California. Jeffrey and David discuss the difficulty of ending Iran’s nuclear program, the United States’ strategy, the hovering spectre of...

The war in Iran is being talked about as the first AI war. Every military on the planet is looking at how they adopt artificial intelligence at all levels from decision-making to controlling drones on the battlefield. Today, Michael Irwin, co-CEO of the Australian defence technology start-up Breaker, joins STW to explain where autonomous military technology is headed. Breaker makes software that a...

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna joins Stop the World for a conversation about Russia, Iran, the United States and the imperative for smaller countries such as Estonia and Australia to work together. Minister Tsahkna shares frank views from the perspective of his 1.3 million-strong NATO member nation, which borders Russia and is on track to spend 5 percent of its GDP on defence this year....

Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine recently entered its fifth year—longer than the Soviet Union fought in World War Two. To discuss the state of the war and the peace negotiations we’re joined by Ukrainian MP Galyna Mykhailiuk, who headed a delegation of MPs last week to Australia. Galyna talks about Ukraine’s current position in negotiations, the outstanding differences over Russia’s excessi...