Stop the World

In the latest episode of Stop the World, Olivia Nelson sits down with Lisa Sharland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Protecting Civilians and Human Security program at the Stimson Centre. The conversation, which was recorded in July, discusses the United Nations (UN) and how the multilateral system is adapting - or struggling to adapt - to rapid global change. They also discuss the UN’s Summit o...

In the second video edition of The Sydney Dialogue Summit Sessions, ASPI’s Executive Director Justin Bassi sits down with Latvia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Baiba Braže. Justin and Baiba discuss the partnership between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, and how democracies can work together to strengthen regional and global stability. They also discuss Russia and China’s “no-limits partners...

In the first video edition of The Sydney Dialogue Summit Sessions, David Wroe sits down with Connor Leahy, co-founder and CEO of Conjecture AI. David and Connor speak about the catastrophic risks that a powerful but uncontrolled and unaligned artificial superintelligence could pose to humanity, and Conjecture’s approach to safe AI called “cognitive emulation”. They also discuss what it means for a...

The Sydney Dialogue is over, but never fear, we have more TSD content coming your way! This week, ASPI’s David Wroe speaks to Nina Jankowicz, global disinformation expert and author of the books How to Lose the Information War and How to Be a Woman Online. Nina takes us through the trends she is seeing in disinformation across the globe, and offers an assessment of who does it best, and whether co...

In the final lead-in episode to the Sydney Dialogue (but not the last in the series!), ASPI’s Executive Director, Justin Bassi, interviews Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor at the Economist. They discuss technology, security and strategic competition, including the impact of artificial intelligence on defence and intelligence operations, the implications of the no-limits partnership between Russia an...

In today’s episode of The Sydney Dialogue Summit Sessions, Alex Caples speaks to Jennifer Zhu Scott, globally recognised AI expert and Founding Partner of IN. Capital, about artificial intelligence and the changing value of data. They discuss how rapid tech advancements have seen debates about how to keep governments out of cyberspace and technology turn into calls for governments to step in to re...

Today we have a double episode special on arbitrary detention and the decline of press freedoms, with two people who have been wrongfully detained. David Wroe speaks to distinguished journalist and author Peter Greste, about his experience of detention in Egypt, how governments should respond to the use of arbitrary detention, and his take on the recent prisoner swap between the US, Russia and oth...

In the next episode of The Sydney Dialogue Summit Sessions, it’s all about economic security. ASPI’s Executive Director, Justin Bassi, interviews Abigaël Vasselier, head of the Foreign Relations team at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin. They discuss – and debate – how the EU and individual member states have responded to Russia’s war on Ukraine, Beijing’s use of economic...

The Sydney Dialogue (TSD) is just weeks away. To help our listeners prepare for the forthcoming discussions at TSD, we are bringing you an interview with Gilman Louie, who was the first CEO of In-Q-Tel— set up in 1999 by the CIA as an independent, not-for-profit strategic investment firm —and Commissioner on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence from 2018-2021. Gilman is co-f...

Subsea cables have been a major focus in the media lately. Just last week at the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Tokyo, Australia announced the launch of its new Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre—its contribution to the Quad Leaders’ Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience. So, what are subsea or undersea cables and why are they important? In this short explainer, Olivia Nelson...

AUSMIN (Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations) – what is it, how did it come about and why is it important? Ahead of next week’s meeting on 6 August in the United States between Australia’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence and the US Secretaries of State and Defense, this week’s episode of Stop the World is a special explainer. ASPI’s own former AUSMIN attendees, Executive Dire...

In today’s episode, senior analyst Dr Alex Bristow is joined by Professor Guibourg Delamotte, Professor of Political Science at the Japanese studies department of the French Institute of Oriental Studies and Yamagami Shingo, former Japanese Ambassador to Australia, who is also, among several roles, Senior Fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. They discuss this week’s “blizzard of Indo-Pacific d...

This week on the pod, David Wroe interviews Russia expert Mark Galeotti. Mark is a renowned author of many books, including ‘We Need to Talk About Putin’ and ‘Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin, and the new fight for the future of Russia’, and host of the podcast ‘In Moscow’s Shadows’. David asks Mark for an update on Russia’s war on Ukraine, whether time is on Ukraine or Russia’s side, the impacts of the...

The countdown to the Sydney Dialogue (TSD) is on!   In the second episode of ASPI’s TSD Summit Sessions, Justin Bassi, Executive Director of ASPI, speaks to James Appathurai, NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Innovation, Hybrid and Cyber on all things tech, innovation, security and democracy.     Justin and James discuss hybrid threats in the context of challenges in Europe and the Ind...

The Sydney Dialogue Summit Sessions are back!   Today on Stop the World, we are relaunching our special series – The Sydney Dialogue Summit Sessions. To kick off the series, Alex Caples, Director of ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue, speaks to Brendan Dowling, Australia’s Cyber Affairs and Critical Technologies Ambassador.     This conversation covers all things cyber and offers a preview of some of the topi...

In a special episode of Stop the World, ASPI’s Executive Director, Justin Bassi, speaks with Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and former leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, about his recent attendance as Australia’s representative to Switzerland’s Summit on Peace in Ukraine . The Minister outlined why what happens in Ukraine matters to Australia and our region, and how it...

In this episode of Stop the World, we bring you the final interview from our special series recorded from the sidelines of the ASPI Defence Conference ‘JoiningFORCES’. And today it’s all about AUKUS. ASPI's Director of The Sydney Dialogue, Dr. Alex Caples, is joined by Sophia Gaston, Head of Foreign Policy at Policy Exchange, and Eric Chewning, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Developm...

In this episode of Stop the World, we bring you the penultimate episode in our special series recorded from the sidelines of the ASPI Defence Conference ‘JoiningFORCES’. This interview is all about Japan and regional security. Dr Euan Graham, Senior ASPI Analyst speaks with Narushige Michishita, professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo and Japan Scholar with...

This week on Stop the World, we bring you the second episode in our special series recorded from the sidelines of the ASPI Defence Conference ‘JoiningFORCES’. In this episode, the conversation is all about North Korea, Russia, China and nuclear threats. Alex Bristow speaks to former Australian diplomat and defence official, Peter Tesch, and Dr Bee Yun Jo, Associate Research Fellow at the Center fo...

This week on Stop the World, we bring you a special episode from the sidelines of the ASPI Defence Conference ‘JoiningFORCES’. In this first episode of a short series, ASPI’s Director of Defence Strategy and National Security, Bec Shrimpton, speaks to defence innovation and investment experts Heather Richman and Linda Lourie. They discuss defence innovation and opportunities for the government to...

This week’s episode of Stop the World comes to you from Brussels, where ASPI’s Executive Director Justin Bassi interviewed the Head of Strategic Communications at the European External Action Service Lutz Güllner. The conversation explored disinformation, foreign influence, manipulation and interference, with Justin and Lutz discussing the importance of countering state backed disinformation and f...

This week on Stop the World, ASPI Senior Analyst Alex Bristow speaks to Niclas Kvarnström, Managing Director for Asia and the Pacific at the European External Action Service, to discuss the European Union’s engagement in and relationship with the Indo-Pacific. With war in Europe and conflict in the Middle East, they discuss how much capacity the European Union (EU) has to focus on the Indo-Pacific...

This double episode of Stop the World is all about defence innovation. ASPI’s Director of Defence Strategy and National Security Bec Shrimpton speaks to Anduril’s Vice President of Strategy for Australia and the Asia Pacific Pete Quinn, the Executive Chairman and Chief Executive at Anduril Australia and Asia Pacific David Goodrich, as well as ASPI Visiting Senior Fellow Keirin Joyce. They discuss...

Australia and the United Kingdom have a lot of shared history and values, but not a lot of shared geography. For a long time, that left the strategic relationship feeling a little dusty—a friendship to be taken for granted. But the two countries’ security partnership has a sense of deepening urgency, with the creation of AUKUS, the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt and the recent signing of a new defence and...

ASPI has released a groundbreaking report that finds the Chinese Communist Party seeks to harvest user data from globally popular Chinese apps, games and online platforms in a likely effort to improve its global propaganda. The research maps the CCP's propaganda system, highlighting the links between the Central Propaganda Department, state-owned or controlled propaganda entities and data-coll...