“It was interesting when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in terms of ASEAN’s role. Myanmar enforced strict national security policy in order to allow the external forces to get into a country for assistance operations. Neither the United Nations nor ASEAN was trusted when discussing join assistance operations. Thailand, instead, played a significant role in persuading and convincing Myanmar to accept assistance from other nation-states and international organizations. Bilateral relationships and trust are the most important to coordinate on-the-ground operations. Evidently, mutual agreement and familiar operations between two nations were crucial in collaborative operations across jurisdictions in the Typhoon Haiyan disaster. The United States’ forces were deployed quickly when the potential of strong typhoon was advised and when emergency response was needed.” (ERAT personnel, Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Thailand, Interviewed on May 22, 2014)