Owen Harries (29 March 1930 – 25 June 2020) was a Welsh-born Australian-American public intellectual, journalist, and founding figure in realist international affairs analysis. Born in Garnant, Wales, United Kingdom, to parents David Harries and Maud Jones, he grew up in a Welsh mining valley during the Great Depression. After serving two years in the Royal Air Force in the early 1950s, he emigrated to Sydney, Australia, with his wife Dorothy Richards. He pursued an academic career, becoming a senior lecturer in government at the University of Sydney from 1955 to 1975, associate professor of politics at the University of New South Wales, and later teaching at the Australian National University in Canberra. An unapologetic Cold Warrior and supporter of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, Harries edited key publications including Liberty and Politics (1976), Australia and the Third World (the 'Harries Report', 1979), The Red Orchestra (1989), America's Purpose (1991), and China in the National Interest (2003). From 1976 to 1983, under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's centre-right coalition government, he shaped post-Vietnam Australian foreign policy as head of policy planning in the Department of Foreign Affairs, senior adviser to Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock and Fraser, and Australian Ambassador to UNESCO in Paris (1982–1983). Relocating to Washington, D.C., after the government's defeat, he served as a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, influencing the Reagan administration's withdrawal from UNESCO. He co-founded The National Interest with Irving Kristol and served as its founding and first editor from 1985 until 2001, promoting realist international affairs analysis. Returning to Sydney in 2001, he became editor emeritus of The National Interest, senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, Nonresident Fellow and visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute, and a regular contributor to outlets like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and Quadrant. A classical realist, he later criticized U.S. hubris and Australia's Iraq War involvement in his 2003 ABC Boyer Lectures, Benign or Imperial?. In 2011, Harries received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Sydney. He continued collaborating with conservative writer Tom Switzer until his death in Sydney at age 90, leaving a legacy as a pivotal figure in realist foreign policy discourse and U.S.-Australia relations.