home > by publication type > task force reports > The United States and Southeast Asia
Email
| Chair: | J. Robert Kerrey, Member,, U.S. Senate (D-Neb.) |
|---|---|
| Director: | Robert A. Manning, Senior Adviser, Atlantic Council |
| Publisher: | Council on Foreign Relations Press |
|---|
Release Date: July 2001
80 pages
ISBN 087609275X
$10.00
Task Force Report No. 34
Southeast Asia deserves more sustained attention from American policymakers than it has received in the recent past, according to this independent Task Force report. It argues that Southeast Asia has a long history of important security and economic ties to the United States and is of strategic interest. Yet the United States has benignly neglected the area and its needs and growth potential for almost two decades. With the economic crisis in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the late 1990s, the reestablishment of U.S. diplomatic ties to Vietnam, and the recent ethnic strife and devolution in Indonesia, the region and its member nations are back on the international skyline.
The shortsightedness of recent U.S. policy toward the region, the report states, is troublesome because of the region’s importance to U.S. national interests: with a population of 525 million and an annual gross national product of $700 billion, Southeast Asia has become America’s fifth-largest trading partner; it is home to several emerging democracies. Today, the region is more volatile than at any time since the Vietnam War. In several nations, especially Indonesia and the Philippines, the aftershocks from the economic crisis and rising political turmoil continue to make for fractious polities, fragile economies, and a loss of investor confidence.
The report recommends that the United States maintain regional security by preserving a credible military presence and a viable regional training and support structure. That, according to the Task Force, will help prevent both intraregional conflict and domination by outside powers. The report also devotes particular attention to U.S. relations with Indonesia. The Task Force says that helping to foster economic and political reform in Indonesia—now in the “throes of social, political, and economic instability”—would have important implications in the region and the world. Indonesia, the Task Force notes, is the world’s fourth most populous nation and the fulcrum of Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and has the world’s largest Muslim community. It is also a major oil exporter and the only Asian member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
J. Robert Kerrey is president of the New School University and a former senator from Nebraska.
Robert A. Manning is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.