CSIS LAUNCHES NEW SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES INITIATIVE
March 18, 2008
WASHINGTON, March 12, 2008 – The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) today announced that it has launched a comprehensive Southeast Asia Studies Initiative headed by CSIS Senior Fellow Derek Mitchell to focus on this strategically important region.
“Southeast Asia is a region of significant strategic importance and economic influence,” said CSIS Southeast Asia initiative director Derek Mitchell, “yet the U.S. policy community pays it remarkably little attention. This program will help to rectify that. It will provide a forum for closer examination and focused discussion on critical issues facing Southeast Asia, and the United States in the region.”
Under Mitchell’s leadership, the new initiative will provide focus on evolving U.S. interests and strategy in Southeast Asia and the region’s increasingly important role in global security, political, and economic affairs.
The initiative in particular will examine the status and direction of longstanding U.S. alliances with Thailand and the Philippines as well as increasingly important bilateral security partnerships with Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The initiative will hold regular Southeast Asia Roundtables and periodic conferences designed to bring together interested members of the Washington community and leading regional figures to examine key themes in depth.
The initiative will also host leading government officials from the region periodically, inviting them to make public remarks in Washington, DC. To this end, CSIS hosted Surin Pitsuwan, the current secretary general of ASEAN, Singaporean defense minister Radm. (Ret.) Teo Chee Hean, and will host Thailand’s new foreign minister, Noppadon Pattama, at a public event at CSIS on Thursday, March 20.
The program has already begun publishing a monthly newsletter entitled the Southeast Asia Bulletin. The newsletter provides a timely overview of key developments, events, and facts about the region, and offers a forum for short essays by official and unofficial commentators on regional affairs
“Our new Southeast Asia Initiative will help the Washington policy community make great strides in understanding the crucial matters of public policy this area of the world presents,” said CSIS President and CEO John J. Hamre. “As matters of security and global prosperity become increasingly intertwined, I can think of no better time to examine the strategic significance of this vital, yet much overlooked region.”