BRIAN HARDING

Brian Harding is a leading expert on U.S.-Southeast Asia relations and East Asia regional security with nearly twenty years of experience in government and think tanks in Washington, DC. He is currently a research fellow at the Southeast Asia Peace Institute, a senior fellow (non-resident) at Sasakawa USA, and a senior advisor at the U.S.-Philippines Society.

From 2020 to 2025, Brian led a major expansion of programming in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands at the U.S. Institute of Peace, including the establishment of new offices in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea. In the Philippines, USIP collaborated with the Government of the Philippines and non-government partners on initiatives to deepen U.S.-Philippines alliance coordination on regional security challenges and to sustain peace in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Previously, Brian was deputy director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director for Asia policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP). From 2009 to 2013, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as country director for Asian and Pacific security affairs, managing defense relations with key U.S. partners in Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Brian holds degrees from Middlebury College and The George Washington University, has studied in Indonesia and Japan, and was a Fulbright research fellow in Indonesia.

 

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