8/8/2019 IISS May 2010 Newsletter - Asian Security - p.19

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IISS NEwS MAy 2010 | 19

I ISSASIA

New AppointmentsOh Puay Fong joined IISSAsia in January 2010

as Manager. She is responsible for the day-to-

day administration of the IISS Asia oce and is a

member of the team based in various IISS oces

that organises the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue.

She will also support fundraising eorts for

IISSAsia research programmes and wider IISS

activities and will be involved in developing the

Institutes regional membership.Ho Yi Jian joined IISSAsia in January 2010

as Project Coordinator. He is heavily involved in

organising the Shangri-La Dialogue and other IISS events, including IISSAsia

seminars and workshops

Dr Ellen Frost

Oh Puay Fong

(lr): Tim Huxley, Amitav Acharya and ANM Muniruzzaman

Maritime Confdence-Building Measures Meeting

Asia, spoke on CBMs, preventive diplomacy and maritime security in Asia

in the concluding session.

Seminar on Obamas First YearOn 10 February, Dr Ellen Frost, a 38-year veteran of Washingtons foreign policy community and now a visiting

fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and an adjunct research fellow at the National Defense

Universitys Institute of National Strategic Studies, spoke in the IISSAsia seminar series, which is sponsored by the

Australian Department of Defence. Countering the notion that the US is in irreversible decline, Dr Frost argued that

the same combination of politics, populism and personality that made President Obamas rst year so dicult would

ultimately work to his advantage. She extended this viewpoint to her analysis of US policy in Asia, where she saw both

continuity with the previous administrations policies and selective improvements.

Building on a call by French defence minister Herv Morin in his address

at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in 2008 and with support from the French

defence ministrys Directorate for Strategic Aairs (DAS), on 26 January,

IISSAsia, the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) and the

French branch of the Council for Security and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacic,

jointly convened a day-long international seminar on the theme Enhancing

Asian Maritime Security and Condence-Building Measures. The seminar

brought together maritime security experts from the Asia-Pacic and beyond

to discuss contemporary trends aecting regional maritime security, particu-

larly in terms of naval modernization including the potential proliferation of

submarines, and the related question of how maritime condence-building

measures might be enhanced. Dr Tim Huxley, Executive Director of IISS

The IISS, with support from the MacArthur Foundations Asia Security

Initiative, organised two consecutive one-day workshops in Singapore on

1415 April concerned with strategic and security issues in the Asia-Pacic

region. On 14 April the rst in a series of Intersessional Workshops on Asia-

Pacic Security and Defence Policies, aimed at taking up key IISS Shangri-La

Dialogue themes assessed the Dialogues role in developing discussion of the

future of Americas security role in the Asia-Pacic, emerging powers regional

security roles, security cooperation and security community-building in the

Asia-Pacic, defence policy and military modernisation, and the transnational

security agenda in the region. The workshop also looked towards possible

future developments in the Shangri-La Dialogues agenda.

On Thursday, 15 April the second in a series of workshops (following one

held in Washington DC in November 2009) on Major Power Dynamics in

the Asia-Pacic: Implications for Small- and Medium-sized Powers focused

on responses within the broad region to the evolving strategic roles of the

United States, China, Japan and India. It investigated the dening geopolitical

assumptions among policymakers and international relations thinkers about

great power competition, the reactions of smaller states to major powers mili -

tary programmes, the types of security order that lesser powers wish to see

materialise, and the challenges ahead for small and medium powers as the

regional power dynamics change.

In all, 35 participants from Asian countries, the US, Australia and Europe,

including many leading experts on international relations and security and

defence policies in the Asia-Pacic region, participated in the workshops.

Asia Security InitiativeWorkshops