Hugh White

Well, hello and welcome to Foreign Exchange.

I'm Hugh Watt from the Australian National University.

And I'm Sam Roggeveen from the Lowy Institute.

So in this sort of mini episode, Sam and I thought we'd talk about the great sort of background problem in Australian strategic policy, and that is whether or not we should go to war with China over Taiwan if it all breaks out between the US and China.

It's not going to be defending us whatsoever.

But Hugh White is this master strategist in Australia who I listen to the podcast he does with Sam Roggeveen, and he put forward a very interesting idea the other day.

And the idea is this.

Recently, the Canadians did a deal with Germany to buy, I think, eight subs or 12 subs off Germany.

Today, how the secretive defense pact was struck and why it's proving so controversial.

Hugh White, you're a longtime defense and security analyst at the Australian National University and author of the new book, Hard New World: Australia's Post-American Future.

Take us back to the moment five years ago this week when AUKUS was first announced.

Do you remember it?

Thanks, Justin.

That's it for this week's episode of The Conversation Weekly.

Read more from Hugh White and his take on the AUKUS debate at theconversation.com. We'll also put a link to his articles in our show notes.

This week's episode was written by me, Justin Bergman.

I'm Sam Roggeveen from the Lowy Institute.

And I'm Hugh White from the Australian National University.

A special mini episode this week where we look at kind of an evergreen topic, one that we've discussed a few times before Hugh and we've been wanting to get back to and that's the topic of intelligence.

Just to lay the groundwork here, typically intelligence is grouped into various categories.

But the other thing too is, John, that I just wanna sort of speak to here, is that, you know, that doesn't matter.

We, we know that doesn't matter, and I've gotta harken back to 2019 where John Mearsheimer, the, the, the realist, uh, geopol- politics man, um, came to Australia, and he was doing a debate with, uh, Hugh White.

I wrote about this recently.

Now it went through to the keeper, but there was a bit of questioning at the end, and, um, uh, one of the questions was something about, you know, uh, uh, does Australia have a choice? Can we, can we get out of this force posture agreement kinda thing? And he said something to the effect of, "You don't wanna mess with America.

We have to manage that at a time when the international system faces a number of very big challenges, but one of them, perhaps the biggest I think, is climate change.

That's Hugh White and I'm Nathan Robertson Ball.

Welcome to or welcome back to the Finding Nature podcast.

Each week I sit down with the leading thinkers and doers across policy, business, academia, civil society and the creative arts to explore their perspectives on and experiences in contributing to a world that is healthier, safer and more just.

That simple question was the beginning of what Finding Nature is, and it's a privilege to spend time with remarkable people every week and to be curious about their insights and wisdom.

I'm glad you're here to experience it too.

This is Hugh White's second appearance on the show, and he's on the show as his latest book, Hard New World, Australia's Post-American Future, has just hit the shelves.

This is a follow-up to his extremely popular quarterly essay from the middle of 2025, as well as an extension on many of the ideas and commentaries there.