Lowy Institute

The US midterm elections on 3 November 2026 delivered an important signal of Washington’s trajectory for the second half of President Trump’s term and beyond.
How Americans voted will shape the room the administration has to pursue its agenda, with far-reaching consequences for the Australian government and Australian businesses, from trade and investment settings to the US–Australia alliance. It will also influence the shape of post-Trump America.
In this special event, Richard Fontaine, Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), joined online from Washington, DC to analyse the results. The conversation was hosted by Dr Michael Fullilove AM, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, before an in-person audience at 31 Bligh Street, and was followed by an audience Q&A.
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As advanced militaries converge on similar hardware, the decisive edge in future conflict may come from how quickly commanders can sense, decide and act. Christopher Kirchhoff, who founded the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley office and authored Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War, joins Sam Roggeveen to discuss agentic AI, nuclear stability, lessons from Ukraine and sovereignty for middle powers like Australia.
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Australia’s economic future will be shaped less by domestic policy debates than by forces beyond its borders: the US–China relationship, artificial intelligence, and the health of the global economic order. In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Sam Roggeveen speaks with economist and historian John Edwards, author of the latest Lowy Institute Paper, Overhaul: How Australia Can Adapt to a Changing World Economy, about why he is cautiously optimistic about the next 25 years — and why Canberra should be more sanguine about US–China rivalry.
More episodes of the Lowy Institute's podcasts are available on your favourite podcast apps, including Spotify, YouTube and Apple.
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The public’s anxiety about artificial intelligence appears to be growing, with high-profile data security breaches and opposition towards data centres attracting negative attention. Yet a more hopeful view is also gaining ground: that the technology could help rebuild struggling democratic institutions. In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Lydia Khalil speaks with Beth Noveck, author of Reboot: AI and the Race to Save Democracy, about public AI, digital sovereignty, diplomacy and the role middle powers such as Australia can play in shaping how it is governed.
More episodes of the Lowy Institute's podcasts are available on your favourite podcast apps, including Spotify, YouTube and Apple.
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Official development finance to Southeast Asia has fallen to its lowest level in a decade, just as the region faces a run of overlapping economic shocks. Contrary to some expectations, China isn’t stepping into the gap left by retreating traditional donors, such as Japan and the United States.
In this episode of Development Futures, the Lowy Institute's Lead Economist and Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre Roland Rajah speaks with Rahul Nath and Taili Ni, two of the researchers behind the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Aid Map, about what the latest data shows and what developments to watch.
You can read the full report or explore the interactive map at https://seamap.lowyinstitute.org/
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