This paper from The Stanley Foundation is a report from the 47th annual Strategy for Peace Conference, held in October 2006. It argues that since the end of the Vietnam War, Southeast Asia has often been viewed as secondary to vital US interests. However, in a post-Cold War world that is increasingly shaped by rising powers and nonstate actors, what was previously marginal has become pivotal. After September 11, 2001, both Islamic fundamentalists and the United States identified Southeast Asia as a “second front.” Southeast Asia has also emerged as a crossroads between status quo powers—the United States, Japan —and the rising powers of China and India .
