On Thursday 18 December, the NATO Defense College (NDC) had the pleasure to host Professor Michito Tsuruoka, Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS) in the Japanese Ministry of Defence. Before joining the NIDS in 2009, he was a Resident Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) on a GMF-Tokyo Foundation Fellowship. He served as a Special Adviser for NATO at the Embassy of Japan in Belgium from 2005 to 2008, where he covered a broad range of NATO issues including Japan-NATO cooperation, Afghanistan, missile defence and nuclear matters. He was educated at Keio University (Tokyo), Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.) and King’s College London. He has published extensively on NATO, transatlantic relations, European foreign policy, Europe-Japan/Asia relations, Japan’s foreign, security and defence policy, nuclear weapons and the Cold War.
Upon his arrival at the College, Professor Tsuruoka was welcomed by the Head of the Research Division, Dr Jeffrey Larsen (USA C), with whom he spent time discussing possible future cooperation. The issues discussed included the ongoing US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese and Russian security strategies, and Japan’s role in the Interoperability Platform launched in Wales.
Japan and NATO signed a Joint Political Declaration in April 2013, committing to strengthen their relations. On that occasion, both parties explicitly recognized that:
“Although the security environments are different in the Euro-Atlantic region and the Asia-Pacific region, and notwithstanding geographic distance between Japan and the member nations of NATO, we believe that in a more globalised and interlinked world, each of these two regions is affected by, and can affect, political and security developments beyond its borders. We are also aware of the need to cooperate in order to face emerging security challenges. Therefore, we affirm our commitment to our close cooperation on common global security challenges for our mutual interests. Such determination is founded on the commonalities in the major policy documents of Japan and NATO including NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept. These commonalities highlight the need to improve the global security environment, the challenges that could affect the global security environment and the need to enhance cooperation between Japan and NATO.”
NDC Public Affairs Office
NATO Defense College