By John Schaus In advance of travel, the secretary of defense will often receive a scene-setter document outlining the issues and objectives to be achieved during the trip. The document below is presented, roughly, in the style of such a…
In this week’s podcast, we take a deep dive on the difficulties in United States-Thailand relations since the May 2014 coup. We sat down with Sumitro Chair Fellow Gregory Poling to discuss the challenges that Thailand’s swerve away from democracy has created…
By Zachary Abuza The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recently released their 2014 database, which shows robust growth in defense spending throughout Southeast Asia. Though the SIPRI data only goes through 2014, when at least two countries have already…
In our latest podcast, we focus on the 26th ASEAN summit which concluded on April 27th in Malaysia. We caught up with CSIS Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies Ernie Bower to get his take on the outcomes of the…
By Zachary Abuza On April 20, the United States and the Philippines commenced the 31st annual Balikatan military exercises. They are significant for three reasons. The first is their size. With some 6,500 U.S. personnel and 5,000 Armed Forces of…
By Gregory Poling Most observers could be forgiven for seeing the April 26–27 ASEAN Summit in Malaysia as another in a long series of head-of-state talk shops by the grouping. It did not issue any groundbreaking new declarations on the…
By Gregory Poling China’s reclamation blitz in the Spratly Islands continues unabated, despite condemnation from fellow claimants and outside nations. Chinese dredging ships have been hard at work expanding at least seven features: Cuarteron, Gaven, Hughes, Fiery Cross, Johnson South,…
By Zachary Abuza In his final year in office, President Barack Obama seems determined to step up his policy of rebalancing to Asia, in particular by deepening security cooperation with the Philippines. Despite shared strategic interests, U.S.-Philippines security relations are…
On the show this week, CSIS Japan Chair Fellow Zack Cooper joins to discuss Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s trip to Japan and South Korea, the U.S.-Japan alliance, the security situation in the East and South China Seas, and U.S.…
By Gregory Poling The last half of March provided troubling examples of the toll increasingly frequent extreme weather events will take on countries in the twenty-first century, and particularly on small-island developing states. But it also underscored the increasing international…