Ang Cheng Guan is presently Associate Dean, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). His previous positions include Deputy Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS); Head of Graduate Studies (RSIS); Head of Studies (IDSS) and Head (Humanities and Social Studies Education, National Institute of Education).

He specialises in the international history of contemporary Asia, with a focus on Southeast Asia. He is the author of Vietnamese Communist Relations with China and the Second Indo-China Conflict, 1956-1962 (Jefferson: MacFarland, 1997, reprinted in paperback, 2012), The Vietnam War from the Other Side: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, paperback 2006), its sequel, Ending the Vietnam War: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004, paperback 2006); Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War  (London: Routledge, 2010, hardback, paperback and e-book); Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic Thought (London: Routledge, 2013, hardback, softback and e-book) and Singapore, ASEAN and the Cambodia Conflict, 1979-1991 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2013). He also co-edited Perspectives on the Security of Singapore (Singapore: World Scientific and London: Imperial College Press, 2015), which includes a chapter on “Singapore’s Conception of Security”. He has published in edited volumes as well as in journals including Asian Survey, Journal of Contemporary History, War and Society, War in History, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Security Dialogue, Southeast Asia Research, Cold War History, Asian Security, Asian Studies Review and the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 

He was a Gerald R. Ford Foundation Research Grant Award recipient (Fall 2005), Fulbright Singapore Researcher award recipient (2006-2007) and a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy Scholar (2006-2007). He is also a recipient of the Public Administration Medal (Bronze) and the National Institute of Education (NIE) Excellence in Teaching Commendation (2013). He was a member of the Resource Panel, Government Parliamentary Committee for Defence & Foreign Affairs (2002-2006).

His recent publications include Southeast Asia’s Cold War: An Interpretive History (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2018) and its sequel, Southeast Asia after the Cold War: A Contemporary History (Singapore: NUS Press, 2019) which has been translated into Chinese as 東南亞的當代新秩序: 後冷戰時代的東南亞國際關係史 (Taipei: 八旗文化, 2023), and The Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (London: Routledge, 2022). The latest are a pair of books, Reassessing Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic Thought (London: Routledge 2023) and Singapore’s Grand Strategy (Singapore: NUS Press, July 2023). His next book is entitled The Third Indochina War; An International History  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2024). He is finishing a book manuscript entitled The Five Power Defence Arrangements: From Origin to Fifty and Beyond (London: Routledge, forthcoming), and also working on two new books:  In chronological order, The Second Indochina War: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective (which will also be published by Routledge) and another entitled Ordering Southeast Asia: A Contemporary International History, (which continues from his Southeast Asia after the Cold War: A Contemporary History).

• Cold War International History of Southeast Asia and The Indochina Wars

• Gerald R. Ford Foundation Research Grant Award recipient, Fall 2005
• Fulbright Singapore Researcher award recipient, 2006-2007
• Woodrow Wilson Public Policy Scholar, 2006-2007

Books

• Perspectives on the Security of Singapore: The First 50 Years

  06 August, 2015

Working Papers

• WP004 | The South China Sea Dispute re-visited

  01 August, 1999

• WP001 | Vietnam-China Relations Since The End of The Cold War

  01 November, 1998

Commentaries

• CO15072 | Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew’s Worldview

  30 March, 2015

Authored Books

• Singapore’s Grand Strategy. Singapore: NUS Press, 2023
• Reassessing Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic Thought. London: Routledge, 2023
• The Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation. London: Routledge, 2021
• Southeast Asia after the Cold War: A Contemporary History. Singapore: NUS Press, 2019
• Southeast Asia’s Cold War: An Interpretive History. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2018
• Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic Thought. London: Routledge, 2013
• Singapore, ASEAN and the Cambodia Conflict, 1979-1991. Singapore: NUS Press, 2013
• Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War. London: Routledge, 2010
• Ending the Vietnam War: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003
• The Vietnam War from the Other Side: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002
• Vietnamese Communist Relations with China and the Second Indo-China Conflict, 1956-1962. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 1997

Journal Articles

• “Biography and History: The Historiography of Lee Kuan Yew” in Asian Studies Review, 43, 3, 2019, pp. 544-561

• IR6011 Foreign Policy and Security Issues in Southeast Asia