Southeast Asia: Environmental Security and Counter Terrorism Conference held in Manila, Republic of the Philippines (RP) in December of 2003. The objectives of the Manila conference were to promote multilateral defense and counter terrorism cooperation, to identify the best practices for prevention, mitigation, and consequence management in response to man-made and natural disasters that threaten governmental legitimacy. The Bangkok workshop was focused on multilateral cooperation in developing

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... regional approaches to building governmental legitimacy and creating conditions inhospitable to terrorism. The Royal Thai Army (RTA) has taken a signifi cant role in developing technology that helps rural communities address the important issues of poverty, food security, health, and the erosion of valuable topsoil. It has undertaken this mission in areas of Thailand with limited social infrastructure and on distance border outposts. As a result of these efforts, support for the Thai government has increased dramatically and the ability of dissident groups to operate within the country has been signifi cantly curtailed. The workshop provided a venue for sharing these techniques with the Southeast Asian countries of: Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Country delegates participated in fi eld trips to technology research centers and military bases where the technology was being applied. The US National Military Strategy (NMS) articulates many approaches for fi ghting the global war on terrorism. In addition to conducting operations against terrorist targets, the NMS articulates strategies for dealing with the soft underbelly of terrorism. "Preventing confl ict requires the capability to perform stability operations to maintain or reestablish order, promote peace and security or improve existing conditions. This will involve close coordination with other elements of the US government and multinational partners. Such actions reduce the underlying conditions that foster terrorism and the extremist ideologies that support terrorism."