Namely, Christopher Hill, now the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Hill gained celebrity in Northeast Asia thanks to his dogged efforts to strike a nuclear deal with the region's biggest threat, North Korea.

Campbell, however, has something that Hill lacked when he took over the State Department's East Asia bureau in 2005: a lifetime of experience dealing with Asia and close ties with the secretary of state.

Although Hill had served as ambassador to South Korea, he was known more for his diplomatic work in Europe.

Campbell is widely regarded as a consummate American insider in Asia. For years he has worked closely with the region's top leaders, generals and diplomats _ as an Asian adviser to President Bill Clinton, consultant, think tank analyst and writer.

"What you want for your top diplomat is someone who can pick up the phone and call people in Asia and get things done, and Kurt can do that," said Victor Cha, a former senior Asia adviser in the George W. Bush administration.

Campbell is close to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a relationship that could help him raise Asian matters higher up on a crowded U.S. foreign policy agenda that includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and turmoil in the Middle East and Latin America.

Obama on Thursday announced plans to nominate Campbell. He must now be confirmed by the Senate.

Campbell will probably not have much direct involvement in six-nation North Korean nuclear disarmament talks, the issue that made Hill famous. Clinton has named Stephen Bosworth as a senior envoy coordinating U.S. policy on North Korea. Another envoy, Sung Kim, will handle day-to-day dealings with the North.

This could allow Campbell to work with countries in Asia that often felt neglected as the Bush administration directed much of its attention in the region toward ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons.

Campbell is seen as a centrist and has strong ties with key Republican Asian specialists, including Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state for Bush, and several Asia specialists who advised Republican Sen. John McCain during his run last year for president.

During the 1990s, Campbell was a major player on U.S. Asia policy, working as a deputy assistant secretary of defense. It was a time when many Asian countries complained of worsening relations with a Clinton administration focused on the U.S. economy.

Campbell was instrumental in strengthening ties with American allies and partners in the region and in improving military cooperation and communication with China.

"The allies remember this," said Michael Green, another former senior Bush Asia adviser. Word of that Campbell was going to be nominated "immediately sent reassuring signals to our allies in Asia."

Campbell's acquaintances describe him as genial, hardworking and willing to mentor young people interested in Asian policy. He has worked as a New York Times magazine stringer in Africa and a Harvard University professor; after he left government, he co-founded the Center for a New American Security think tank and founded a strategic advisory company focused on Asia.

An avid tennis player, he is married with three daughters and has a farm in Virginia.

Among Campbell's priorities will be improving relations with U.S. allies South Korea and Japan. Some conservatives there saw a Bush administration that had gone "soft" on North Korea and had "tilted" away from its allies and toward powerful China, which the United States is intertwined with on a host of economic, diplomatic and military matters.

Campbell will need to soothe worries in Japan, which hosts 50,000 U.S. military personnel and is considered the U.S. security lynchpin in Asia, said Ralph A. Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank.

Every new U.S. administration, Cossa said, "starts off by saying Japan is the foundation upon which we build our Asia policy. That's important to say, but it's also important to then conduct yourself in a manner that convinces them that you mean it."