The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has long been based on the principle of national sovereignty, including a norm against interference by one member state in another's domestic affairs. But some members would like to set aside the prohibition in cases such as Myanmar, whose military junta continues to repress Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy to the detriment of ASEAN's image in the West. Opposed to this view are the group's newest, poorer, more continental, and politically more closed members: Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and of course Myanmar itself. They want ASEAN to uphold national sovereignty and reaffirm non-interference. The prospect of Myanmar assuming the chair of ASEAN in 2006-2007 makes this controversery even more acute. Is ASEAN splitting up? Will a compromise be reached? And with what implications for the nature and future of ASEAN and its conservative faction?

Carlyle A. Thayer is the 2004-2005 C. V. Starr Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC. He has written and lectured widely on Southeast Asian affairs. He has held positions at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (in Hawaii) and the Australian Defence College. His degrees are from the Australian National University (PhD), Yale University (MA), and Brown University (BA).

This is the 10th seminar of the 2004-2005 academic year hosted by the Southeast Asia Forum.

Charles Kartman has served since May 2001 as the Executive Director of KEDO, an international consortium established in 1995 to manage a $4.6 billion energy project in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Prior to that he was U.S. Special Envoy for the Korean Peace Talks and concurrently served as U.S. Representative to and Chairman of KEDO's Executive Board, until retiring from the Department of State in April 2001. From June 1996, Ambassador Kartman was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He was Acting Assistant Secretary for much of 1997. He had previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Director for Korean Affairs at the Department of State in Washington, and Political Counselor in Seoul.

Ambassador Kartman is recognized for his expertise on Northeast Asia, having earlier specialized on Japanese affairs, working as a political officer in the Embassy in Tokyo, Consul General in Sapporo, and twice in the office of Japanese Affairs at the Department of State. Ambassador Kartman also held a variety of other positions focused on Asia: in the Department on politico-military Affairs; for the Under Secretary for Political Affairs; and on loan to the Congress.

Mr. Kartman joined the State Department in 1975, after completion of a graduate program at Georgetown University. In his 26-year career, he received the Department's highest honors: a multiple winner of the Department's Superior Honor Award, the James Clement Dunn Award for outstanding service, the Secretary's Distinguished Honor Award, and the Secretary's Distinguished Service Award. He is married to Mary Kartman, a fellow graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. They have two daughters.

A buffet lunch will be available to those who RSVP by Tuesday, February 22 to Debbie Warren at dawarren@stanford.edu or at 650-723-2408.

This seminar is part of the North Korea Seminar Series hosted by the Walter Shorenstein Forum.

Ambassador Charles L. Pritchard, an expert on U.S. relations with Japan and Korea, was a top aide to President Bush in the administration's negotiations with North Korea and the U.S. Representative to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). He was also special assistant to the President and senior director for Asian affairs in the Clinton administration. Pritchard joined the Brookings Institution as a visiting fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program on September 2, 2003. While at Brookings, Pritchard has published "North Korea Needs A Personal Touch", Los Angeles Times (09/10/03); "A Guarantee to Bring Kim into Line", Financial Times (10/10/03); "Freeze on North Korea Nuclear Program is Imperative", The Korea Herald (01/09/04); "What I Saw in North Korea", New York Times (01/21/04), "While the US Looked for Iraqi WMD North Korea Built Theirs", YaleGlobal(01/01/04), and "U.S. Should Confide in Allies on North Korean Nukes", Asahi Shimbun/International Herald Tribune (08/06-07/04).

Following a twenty-eight year career in the army, during which he held military assign-ments with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as its country director for Japan, and as the U.S. Army Attaché in Tokyo, Pritchard joined the National Security Council in 1996.

Pritchard obtained his B.A. in Political Science from Mercer University in Georgia and his M.A. in International Studies from the University of Hawaii. He is the recipient of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal.

Conflicting claims over Kashmir have been the main cause of hostility between India and Pakistan. The Kashmir dispute is complex. Although the area is predominantly Muslim, significant other religious minorities coexist in Indian Kashmir, while Pakistan Kashmir is linguistically divided from the rest of Kashmir. Nevertheless, both sides of the region are linked by common historical aspirations for a united Kashmir. India and Pakistan have fought several times over differences in their vision for Kashmir, which itself differs from the Kashmiri vision. During the late 1980s, an armed uprising in Indian Kashmir over independence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people. A peaceable resolution should look at the region's history and culture even as it balances India and Pakistan's ambitions over Kashmir. It is not obvious, though, that such a resolution must be a "once-and-for-all-time" resolution or an agreed-to process without a committed timeline or, indeed, goals. The seminar will present and discuss these issues. Samina Ahmed is project director for South Asia at the International Crisis Group. She has worked previously as a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad; and the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Karachi. Dr. Ahmed has a masters degree in international relations and a Ph.D. in political science from the Australian National University, Canberra. Dr. Ahmed is the author of several book chapters and articles in academic journals and the print media. Her publications include ?The United States and Terrorism in Southwest Asia: September 11 and Beyond,? International Security, Vol. 26, (Winter 2001/2002); ?Pakistan: Professionalism of an Interventionist Military? in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Military Professionalism in Asia: Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives (Honolulu: East-West Center, University of Hawaii, 2001), and a co-edited book.

Many have argued that the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001 and the bombings in Indonesia in October 2002 (Bali) and August 2003 (Jakarta) have revamped the security situation for America?s partners in and near Southeast Asia. Is this true? What security challenges do America?s partners now face in the region? Are these challenges so thoroughly domestic and political in nature that that they cannot be addressed by military force, or through military cooperation? And to the extent that military approaches are viable, are America?s Southeast Asian and Australian partners equipped and trained to undertake them? For example: How interoperable are the relevant Southeast Asian, Australian, and American forces? How well does Australia in particular fit into this picture? Is Canberra disdained by Southeast Asian governments as a ?deputy sheriff? of Uncle Sam? Should Washington develop meetings of defense ministers into an alternative to the so far unimpressive ASEAN Regional Forum? Or is hub-and-spokes bilateralism the better way to go? Should Washington try to upgrade its warming security relations with Singapore into a fully fledged security treaty along U.S.-Japanese lines? How should nontraditional security threats?not only terrorism but piracy, drugs, and people-smuggling?be factored into these calculations? Sheldon Simon is a leading American specialist on Southeast Asian security. The author or editor of nine books--most recently The Many Faces of Asian Security (2001)--and more than a hundred scholarly articles and book chapters, Professor Simon has held faculty appointments at George Washington University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Hawaii, the University of British Columbia, Carleton University (Ottawa), the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and the American Graduate School of International Management. He visits Asia annually for research and is a consultant to the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. He earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1964.

Admiral Thomas Boulton Fargo assumed duties as Commander U.S. Pacific Command, at Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, on May 2, 2002. He is the twentieth officer to hold the position. As the senior U.S. military commander in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas, he leads the largest of the unified commands and directs Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force operations across more than 100 million square miles. He is responsible to the President and the Secretary of Defense through the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and is the U.S. military representative for collective defense arrangements in the Pacific.