Stop the World – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Britain’s 2018 “fusion doctrine” was an effort to bring together the elements of national power to enhance the country’s security and strategic interests under the post-Brexit “global Britain”. 

Its architect, Lord Mark Sedwill, is today’s guest. He assesses the key global trends, challenges and crises—Donald Trump’s second administration; Chinese assertiveness; Russia’s war on Ukraine and the unfolding tragedy in Gaza—and talks about what a fusion doctrine might look like for 2025, including the dynamic elements of rapid technology advances and turmoil in international trade.

Mark held the dual roles of national security adviser and cabinet secretary—or the head of the UK civil service—under Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson. He’s previously served as UK ambassador to Afghanistan, the NATO senior civilian representative in Afghanistan and the head of the Home Office. He’s now a Member of the UK House of Lords and chair of the think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In this special episode, ASPI's Resident Technical Specialist, Jocelinn Kang, talks through hyperscale cloud and why it’s increasingly important for countries to get their policies right depending on their strategic circumstances. All countries want to protect their citizens’ data and have some sovereign computing capabilities, but what if your data centres are attacked? What if the undersea cables connecting you to the world are cut?

Is there a sweet spot between building at home and outsourcing to the hyperscale firms—the big tech firms such as Microsoft, Google, AWS, Meta and Oracle? What does it mean for a country’s innovation strength and its ability to digitise its state, its society and its economy? These are important questions around the world, but nowhere more than in the Indo-Pacific region. This episode draws on work ASPI has done with support from Microsoft.

Donald Trump’s calculated gamble in bombing Iran’s key nuclear facilities sparked a series of extraordinary outbursts this week from the US administration amid conflicting assessments of the damage that the US strikes did to the regime’s nuclear program. Trump meanwhile was feted in a downright theatrical fashion in the Hague as NATO leaders gathered to agree on defence spending increases.

David Wroe and ASPI executive director Justin Bassi discuss these developments with a view to how policymakers including allied leaders might approach dealing with Trump. When might the best course of action be to roll with his personality and identify opportunities amid the bombast, and when do people with influence, including his own administration, need to steer him away from his personal and political grievances towards good policymaking? 

With a weakened but not defeated Iran considering its next steps, and with questions about the extent to which its nuclear program has been set back, telling Trump straight up that there’s still work to do might avert a future catastrophe.

Please note, this episode was filmed as a video interview and is available on ASPI's Youtube channel here: https://youtu.be/sg32zmJKk70

In today’s episode of Stop the World, we hear from Emmanuel Bautista, a retired Philippines general who served as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces in 2013 and 2014 and who spoke at ASPI’s recent defence conference on preparedness and resilience.

General Bautista gives his frank views on the Philippines efforts to stand firm against China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, the opportunities for deeper defence cooperation between the Philippines and Australia, and the merits of an Asian security pact, which some influential strategists have proposed.

He talks about the Philippines’ own military evolution and the enormous importance of rules to encourage stability in the Indo-Pacific.

As Iran’s government flails in response to Israel’s attacks, and with Donald Trump mulling a two-week window for Tehran to negotiate an end to its nuclear program, speculation is turning to how the dramatic events will reshape Iran’s politics, nearly half a century since the Islamic Republic was created.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert is a Melbourne-based academic, author and political scientist with deep expertise on Iran and the Middle East. In 2018 she was wrongfully arrested by the Iranian regime and went on to spend more than two years in harrowing conditions in Iranian prisons. 

Dr Moore-Gilbert shares her thoughts on the political shifts already taking place; the prospects for a popular uprising; implications of a military-led government; the byzantine nature of Iranian politics and how the various factions might be empowered or diminished by Israel’s attacks; the role of the nuclear program in Iranian politics and society; the widespread dislike for the regime after years of economic stagnation, and social and religious oppression; and her own reflections on the turmoil as someone who suffered at the hands of the brutal regime.

https://www.kyliemooregilbert.com

https://www.awada.com.au

Please note, this episode was filmed as a video interview and is available on ASPI's YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/z3V_t8znuIM

On 4 June, ASPI was pleased to host Hon Dr Billy Joseph MP in Canberra for our 2025 Defence Conference 'Preparedness and Resilience.'

Dr Joseph is Papua New Guinea's Minister for Defence, and the Deputy Party Leader of the Social Democratic Party. 

Following his impactful speech on Pacific security and the Australia-Papua New Guinea relationship, the Minister sat down with David Wroe to discuss the Australia-Papua New Guinea defence treaty and the strategic importance of continuing to grow the relationship 50 years on from Papua New Guinea's independence. They also discuss how the theme of the conference, preparedness and resilience, applies to Papua New Guinea and its economy, as well as those of its Pacific neighbours.

Please note, this episode was filmed as a video interview and is available on ASPI's Youtube channel here: https://youtu.be/XvR4P2Ppmok

This week ASPI was delighted to host Dr Kori Schake in Canberra for our 2025 Defence Conference ‘Preparedness and Resilience’.

Kori is a senior fellow and director of foreign and defence policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. She’s held roles in the State Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council, served as an adviser to the legendary Senator John McCain and written five books with another on the way.

While she was in town, David Wroe sat down with her on the sidelines of the conference to discuss Trump’s foreign policy and whether US relations with the rest of the world will be permanently restructured.

They also discuss the export of MAGA ideology, Pete Hegseth’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, US-China relations and the US-Australia alliance.

ASPI this week released our annual Cost of Defence report, which assesses how Australia’s investment in defence matches the strategic challenges the nation faces. 

In this special episode, ASPI’s executive director Justin Bassi runs through some of the key points of the report: how much we need to be spending, how fast, and on which capabilities. The strategic environment in which 2 percent of GDP was normalised as a benchmark is long behind us, Justin says. A “business‑as‑usual approach” is no longer enough.

Find ASPI's latest Cost of Defence report here: https://www.aspi.org.au/report/the-cost-of-defence-aspi-defence-budget-brief-2025-2026/

Many of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence believe models that are smarter than a human in every way will be built within a few years. Whether it turns out to be two years or 10, the changes will be epoch-making. Life will never be the same.

Today’s guest Connor Leahy is one of many AI experts who believe that far from ushering in an era of utopian abundance, superintelligent AI could kill us all. Connor is CEO of the firm Conjecture AI, a prominent advocate for AI safety and the lead author of the AI Compendium, which lays out how rapidly advancing AI could become an existential threat to humanity.

He discusses the Compendium’s thesis, the question of whether AGI will necessarily form its own goals, the risks of so-called autonomous AI agents which are increasingly a focus of the major AI labs, the need to align AI with human values, and the merits of forming a global Manhattan Project to achieve this task. He also talks about the incentives being created by the commercial and geopolitical races to reach AGI and the need for a grassroots movement of ordinary people raising AI risks with their elected representatives.

Control AI report on briefing UK MPs: https://leticiagarciamartinez.substack.com/p/what-we-learned-from-briefing-70

The AI Compendium is available here: https://www.thecompendium.ai/

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week initiated a conversation about a security partnership with Australia. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded with a ‘maybe, sort of’.

To talk about this development and much more, we have Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, former adviser to two EU presidents and one of the world’s top experts on European foreign and strategic policy. Nathalie gives her thoughts on the link between European and Indo-Pacific security, the China-Russia relationship, the centrality of Ukraine to European security, and the best and worst possibilities for US support to Ukraine under Donald Trump.

Nathalie also outlines her (very useful) theory about ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ norms as foundations for international cooperation, and expands on a wonderful line she wrote recently in the Guardian about what it would take for Europe to pull itself together security-wise.