Ishiba's Asian NATO Aspiration: Strategic Odyssey or Oddity?

YCAPS is delighted to announce the next event in the Community Conversations seminar series in the Yokosuka community! This event will feature Professor Garren Mulloy of Daito Bunka University.

Prior to winning the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election as the veteran insider-outsider candidate, Ishiba Shigeru asserted that “the creation of an Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China” in a Hudson Institute opinion piece. This drew attention and significant derision as some form of fever dream rambling from a usually steady policy wonk illustrating his detachment from the priorities of party and voters. The piece also drew varying degrees of hostility and bafflement overseas, with many wondering why Ishiba would make such a boldly unrealisable statement at such a crucial moment?

This presentation engages with Ishiba’s aspiration and its underpinnings, reconsidering its recommendations in the context of Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific approaches of alliance-complimenting partnerships, detached from the provocative ‘Asian NATO’ headline. The aim is to discover whether, as with FOIP, there is something of value beyond the rhetoric for Japanese strategy and how this might be realised.

Registration: Optional via this Google Form. 

Schedule:

• 18:15-19:00 Refreshments & Networking (food & drinks)
• 19:00-20:15 Presentation and Q&A
• 20:15-20:30 Post Event Conversing

Location:

Werk Yokosuka

Japan, 〒238-0006 Kanagawa,
Yokosuka, Hinodecho, 1 Chome−５
https://www.werk-yokosuka.com/

Google Map

Speaker:

Garren Mulloy is a Professor in the Faculty of International Relations and Graduate School of Asian Area Studies, Daito Bunka University, Japan. His research has focused primarily upon Japanese security, having completed a PhD on JSDF overseas operations at Newcastle University (2011), and he has written on contemporary defence, security, diplomacy and related issues, as well as historical studies of Japan, the UK, colonies, and war memorialisation. His book, Defenders of Japan: The Post-Imperial Armed Forces, 1946-2016-A History (London: Hurst & Co., 2021), combined historical and IR approaches, and he co-edited with Dr. Catherine Jones (St. Andrews) East Asia, Peacekeeping Operations, and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021). He has also contributed book chapters, such as “Ordered to Disarm, Encouraged to Rearm: Japan’s Struggles with the Postwar”, in The Reconstruction of East Asia, 1945-65; Volume One: In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia, edited by Barak Kushner and Andrew Levidis (Hong Kong University Press, 2020). During 2022-23, Garren was visiting the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, and his current research is upon Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) approaches, a Catherine Jones-led Oceans Governance project, and a new solo project on Japan-Taiwan relations.

Format: This event will be off-the-record.

Registration: Optional via this Google Form
Moderators: Jeff Mazziotta
Seminar Cost: Free of charge