Since its inaugural meeting in 2002, the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of defense ministers from the Asia-Pacific region in Singapore, has evolved to become an important event for both official and non-official discussions of regional security in the Asia-Pacific. The seventh meeting this year, which featured defense ministers from 27 countries--and nearly 300 delegates from the government, non-profit, and private sectors--facilitated substantive policy discussions as well a range of official meetings on the sidelines of the main sessions. In this analysis, Rear Admiral (ret.) Mike McDevitt, Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, offers insights from his attendance at the Dialogue.

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