Muthiah Alagappa is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.
Muthiah Alagappa was a nonresident senior fellow in the Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2013, he was the first holder of the Tun Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His research focuses primarily on Asian security, the political legitimacy of governments, civil society and political change, and the political role of the military in Asia.
Previously, Alagappa worked at the East-West Center. From 2006 to 2010, he was the center’s distinguished senior fellow. Prior to that, he was founding director of the center’s Washington office (2001–2006), director of the integrated research program in Honolulu (1999–2001), and a senior fellow (1989–1999).
Before beginning his academic career, Alagappa served as a career officer in the Malaysian Armed Forces (1962–1982) holding field, command, and staff positions including senior army member for the defense planning staff in the Ministry of Defense.
Alagappa has written numerous articles for leading journals and is author of more than ten books. His recent publications include: Nation Making in Asia: From Ethnic to Civic Nations? (Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, 2012), The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia (Stanford University Press, 2008), Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Change (Stanford University Press, 2004), Asian Security Order: Instrumental and Normative Features (Stanford University Press, 2003), and Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford University Press, 2001).
The United States needs to reconsider its objective of denuclearizing North Korea and its demand for denuclearization before dialogue in order to solve the North Korea dilemma that it faces.
Building a cohesive nation and developing an effective state are long-term processes that may take several decades, if not centuries.
Malaysia would be better served by the broad, inclusive idea of a civic nation, which facilitates multiple identities, rather than narrow conceptions that pit one identity against another.
Seventy years after World War II, Southeast Asia stands at a crossroads amid multilateral trade negotiations, economic integration initiatives, political turmoil, and the establishment of new development institutions and regional governance frameworks.
Asian political leaders have tried to convince their people that economic development is enough,while underdevelopment in the political arena has been ignored. Trouble is brewing if this does not change.
The ultimate goal of U.S. engagement in Asia should be to foster peaceful change through the inculcation of liberal political and economic values that sustain and further develop international norms, rules, institutions and processes it helped construct in the aftermath of World War II.
ASEAN should not force itself to become a single community by a certain date but instead focus its resources and attention on strengthening capacity and effectiveness in immediately relevant roles.
Unit-level factors like nation- and state-making, along with national resilience and state capacity, continue to be the driving factors of war, peace, cooperation, and order in the region.
In Southeast Asia, political dynamics appear to be outrunning political institutional frameworks. Although Thailand is the obvious case, political systems in other Southeast Asian countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore, are also under strain.
The recent military coup could provide an opportunity to break Thailand’s political impasse if the Thai military rises above partisan politics and acts in the genuine interest of the country’s political development.
