Shangri-La Dialogue

And so you have the ASEAN Defense Minister Meeting Plus in Cebu, Philippines, this week for a couple of days discussions.

Secretary Hegseth, as he did with the Shangri-La Dialogue, seems to be able to roll in and reaffirm the right political line that the White House wants.

They want to indicate that we have deterrence and that we're doubling down on deterrence.

And that gets into the side deals, the bilateral statements with Japan, with the Philippines, even with Singapore.

How much damage has this episodic approach done to Canada in the Indo-Pacific?

Well, I really picked that up during my first time I attended the Shangri-La Dialogue.

in 2018 and talking to some military officers, sitting in various ministerial engagements, different chatter.

And I picked up, very much picked up that vibe that, okay, Canada is nice you're here, but how long will this last? And what it meant was we were not treated with seriousness.

There was some skepticism as to our commitment.

But I will tell you that with the publication of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, with our persistent engagement in the theater, with the increase of our number of staff, our number of exercises that we're doing, I went back to the Shangri-La dialogue numerous times throughout my time at CDS, but last was in the spring of 2024.

And yeah, we were seeing, our presence was seen as normal.

Relationships had been built.

Every nuclear armed state is modernizing their arsenals, with most also increasing their warhead numbers.

And this is something I wrote about in my chapter in the 2026 Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment, which came out to coincide with the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

or in May.

Of the nine nuclear weapon states in the world, six are either based in the Asia-Pacific or have nuclear deployments in it.

You never know.

But I do think it is well known as the place that you can have a Shangri-La dialogue.

You can have, you know, various other massive events, marquee events.

You think back to the Trump-Kim summit.

So I was one of the guys who co-authored the soft power index, and soft power wheels both ways.

The question is, yes, Singapore has done a really good job.

Shangri-La Dialogue, Trump-Kim summit, and a host of other things, including F1.

But there's also a price to pay for the soft power.