Next week I leave for Singapore and Malaysia where I will spend almost two weeks hob-nobbing, pip-counting and talking turkey.
It will be a little more serious than all that – there are serious matters that will be discussed. And I will have that feeling that, as a non-defense person, I am an absconded Private in a room full of Generals.
In Singapore I will be attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, the preeminent Asia Security Summit. Amongst its attendees will be people like Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Prime Minister Lee of Singapore. It’s not every day that I find myself in a room with those three men – and even when I will be in a room with them, so will about 100 or so other people – and they’ll be about ten feet away and untouchable. But even so. I’ll be in the same room. It’s fame by proxy, you understand.
Then onto Kuala Lumpur, when I will attend the larger though less distinguished Asia Pacific Roundtable. I went to this last year (as I did to Shangri La) and it will be good to catch up with friends and colleagues from around the world. These things are worthwhile for the contacts you make. And it will be nice to be back in Malaysia, for the third time in the last twelve months and, I think, the sixth or seventh time in total.
While I’m away, I’ll meet more military people, spooks, navy men, army officials and the rest, that I’ll need to remind myself of my place in this hallowed world of international relations: one who has somehow found himself sitting at the adults table even though he didn’t finish his mains but nobody has found that out yet…
