Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my pleasure to introduce to you our distinguished visitor, Dr Thierry de Montbrial from Paris. As those of you who got his curriculum vitae would have gathered, he is a winner of many distinctions, many prizes, and many honours. He is trained as a mathematician, as a strategist, and as an economist, among many other attributes. His Ph. D. in economics is from the University of California in Berkeley where he worked under the nobel laureate Gerard Debreu. Prior to assuming his present position as Director of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), he was Head of the Policy Planning Staff in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Concurrently with his present positions, he also holds several other responsibilities including that of Chairman of the Department of Economics at the Ecole Polytechnique. He is also a consultant to a number of international firms. In short, he comes to us with a wealth of expertise and experience which should make the topic of this afternoon's deliberations all the more intriguing and interesting. The topic is “The INF Treaty (Intermediaterange Nuclear Forces Treaty) and Its Implications for Asia-Pacific.” Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Dr de Montbrial.