NCNK Security Working Group Co-Chair

President
Pacific Forum CSIS

Email: RACPacForum@cs.com

Security

Expertise

- East Asia counter-proliferation

- East Asia multilateral cooperation

- U.S. Asia foreign policy

- U.S.-Korea (North and South)relations

Background

A retired USAF Colonel with three PACOM tours, including an assignment in Korea, Ralph Cossa has substantial experience in East Asia. As President of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a foreign policy research institute focused on East Asia security affairs, Ralph Cossa follows and analyzes regional and bilateral security developments and organizes Track-II security dialogue for countries in the region.

Biography

Ralph A. Cossa is President of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu (www.pacforum.org), a non-profit, foreign policy research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He is senior editor of the Pacific Forum's quarterly electronic journal, Comparative Connections.


Mr. Cossa is a founding member of the Steering Committee of the multinational Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP), a non-governmental organization focusing on regional confidence building and multilateral security dialogue. He is also a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Experts and Eminent Persons Group.

Mr. Cossa co-chairs the CSCAP International Study Group on Countering the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Asia Pacific Region and also serves as Executive Director of the U.S. Member Committee (USCSCAP). He is a board member of the Council on U.S.-Korean Security Studies and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NY) and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London) and the Asia Foundation's Task Force on America's Role in Asia.


Mr. Cossa is a political/military affairs and national security specialist with over 35 years of experience in formulating, articulating, and implementing US security policy in the Asia-Pacific and Near East-South Asia regions. He writes a regular column for The Japan Times and The Korea Times and is a frequent contributor to The International Herald Tribune and other international and domestic newspapers and periodicals.


Mr. Cossa served in the United States Air Force from 1966-1993, achieving the rank of Colonel, and last serving as Special Assistant to the Commander, U.S. Pacific Command. He served previously as Deputy Director for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies, and earlier as a National Security Affairs Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Views expressed by individual National Committee on North Korea members are their own and should not be attributed to the National Committee itself. With the exception of statements that have been approved by the membership, NCNK does not advocate particular policies or take positions on issues.

Organizations are listed for identification purposes only.