Derwin Pereira Southeast Asian Foreign Policy Roundtables

The Derwin Pereira Southeast Asian Foreign Policy Roundtables brings together high-level experts – including current and former government officials – to discuss economic, diplomatic and security issues in Southeast Asia. The ultimate goal of the Roundtables is to provide recommendations for the next administration.

As Southeast Asian economies have risen in global importance, so, too have U.S.-Southeast Asian relations become more important to Washington decision-makers. The George W. Bush administration expanded cooperation in a number of areas, including both trade and counter-terrorism.  And the Obama administration’s policy of rebalancing to Asia places a particular focus on institutionalizing and enhancing relations with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  Indeed, the Sunnylands summit in mid-February underscores the value U.S. policy now places in regular, high-level diplomacy with Southeast Asian nations, who collectively are America’s fourth-largest trading partner in the world.

Since establishing the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in 2007, co-founders Kurt Campbell and Michèle Flournoy emphasized the need to develop constructive, bipartisan security, foreign, and trade policies.  Today CNAS is led by Flournoy, the Chief Executive Officer, and President Richard Fontaine, former foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain.  The CNAS Asia-Pacific Security Program is similarly bipartisan in makeup: it is directed by the Honorable Patrick M. Cronin, who held a senior position in the George W. Bush administration, and Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper, who recently replaced Dr. Ely Ratner after he left CNAS to become a key foreign policy advisor to Vice President Joseph Biden.

As Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Honorable Kurt M. Campbell was one of the key architects of the U.S. pivot—or rebalance—to the region.  That policy not only sought heightened engagement with the Indo-Pacific region in general, but also stressed the need for enhanced engagement with Southeast Asia in particular.  The Honorable Michèle Flournoy served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and in that capacity played a leading role in the formulation and implementation of U.S. strategy and security engagement with the region.  Campbell, chairman and CEO of The Asia Group LLC, is currently Chairman of the CNAS Board of Directors. 

Derwin Pereira, Founder and CEO of Pereira International, is also an International Council Member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  He was an award-winning journalist at The Straits Times Singapore, rising to the position of Bureau Chief in Indonesia, then subsequently the United States.