Guest Speaker:
Vikram Singh
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia
Event Date: Wednesday 27th February 2013
Event Time: 5:30 pm-7:00 pm
Event Location:
Russell McVeagh
Level 24, Vodafone on the Quay, 157 Lambton Quay, Wellington, 6011.
Please note no building access after 6pm.
EVENT REGISTRATION IS ESSENTIAL AND BY INVITATION ONLY
Sign up to the Asia Forum Mailing List to receive invitations to future events.
Vikram J. Singh is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. Mr. Singh serves as the principal advisor to senior leadership within the Department of Defense for all policy matters pertaining to development and implementation of defense strategies and plans for the region. His area of responsibility includes bilateral security relations with India and all other South Asian countries, excepting Afghanistan and Pakistan; and with the nations of Southeast Asia, plus Australia, Timor Leste, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island States.
Before being appointed in April 2012, Mr. Singh served as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. In that capacity he led development of the Department’s post-2014 strategic approach to South and Central Asia.
Until November 2011, Mr. Singh was the Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Department of State. He also previously served in the Department of Defense as a Senior Advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan, representing the Department in National Security Council policy reviews of the region and the war in Afghanistan.
Prior to his most recent Pentagon assignments, Mr. Singh served in the Department of Defense from 2003 through 2007 on a broad range of defense policy issues, including programs to train and equip foreign military forces; American counter-insurgency and irregular warfare capabilities; stability operations; disaster response and humanitarian assistance; and the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review.
Mr. Singh was a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security from 2007 to 2009. He is the author or co-author of numerous CNAS reports and articles published in a range of professional journals and national newspapers and has been a regular commentator on national radio and television news programs.
Mr. Singh has lived and worked in Sri Lanka, where he ran a Ford Foundation program on minority rights and conflict in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and reported on the Sri Lankan civil war for the Voice of America. He holds degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University.
