Brian Harding Joins CSIS Southeast Asia Program as Deputy Director and Fellow
February 9, 2018
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is pleased to announce that Brian Harding has been named deputy director and fellow of the Southeast Asia Program.
Mr. Harding comes to CSIS with more than a decade of experience in Southeast Asian affairs. Most recently, he served as director for East and Southeast Asia policy at the Center for American Progress, where he led a major expansion of the Center’s Asia policy initiatives.
From 2009 to 2013, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon as country director for Asian and Pacific security affairs. There, he managed defense relations with major U.S. partners in Southeast Asia and Oceania—including Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand—and advised senior Department of Defense leadership on Asia-Pacific regional strategy. In this position, he played an instrumental role in several high-profile defense policy initiatives, including agreements to station U.S. Marines in Darwin, Australia, and littoral combat ships in Singapore.
Mr. Harding is a returnee to CSIS. Early in his career, he served as a CSIS research associate and was instrumental in building not only the first Southeast Asia policy program at CSIS, but the first of its kind in the Washington think-tank community. He also managed several initiatives aimed at strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance.
“We are happy to have Brian back at CSIS,” said Michael J. Green, CSIS senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair. “His extensive knowledge and understanding of security issues in the Asia Pacific will strengthen CSIS’s continued leadership and cutting-edge research on the increasingly prominent Southeast Asia region.”
In positions with Eurasia Group and Monitor 360, Mr. Harding has advised multinational corporations, financial institutions, and the U.S. government on political risk and leadership dynamics in Southeast Asia. He possesses a deep understanding of Southeast Asian culture and society based on years of living in the region.
Mr. Harding holds an M.A. in Asian studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University and a B.A. in history and Japanese studies from Middlebury College. He has studied at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, and was a Fulbright scholar in Indonesia.