Speaker Biographies
October 25-26, 2005
Shinzo Abe is the acting secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In the 2005 general election, he was reelected for a fifth term to represent Yamaguchi Prefecture’s 4th district. Following graduation from the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of Law at Seikei University in 1977, Rep. Abe studied politics at the University of Southern California. He then served as executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and then as private secretary to the LDP secretary-general. Rep. Abe served on the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, and also as director of the LDP Social Affairs Division. He was deputy chief cabinet secretary from 2000 to 2003 in the Mori and Koizumi Cabinets.
Naoyuki Agawa is a professor at Keio University in Fujisawa, Japan, and a part-time professor at Tokyo University. He was formerly an attorney with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and an associate with Sony Corporation. From 2002-2005 he was a politically appointed minister in charge of public affairs at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. Professor Agawa holds a J.D. and a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. His publications include Maritime Friendship: A History of the Relationship between the Japan Maritime Defense Force and the United States Navy (Chuokoron, 2001); Have You Found America? Post WWII Period (Toshi Shuppan 2001); and Voyage on MS Northern Star (Kodansha, 2000).
Dan Blumenthal is a resident fellow in Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during the first George W. Bush administration. In that capacity, he led a team that formulated and implemented defense policies and programs toward and for these portfolio countries. Before his service at the Pentagon, he practiced law in New York and was a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Kent Calder is director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asia Studies at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He holds the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Calder was a professor at Princeton University for twenty years and a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University, where he served as the first executive director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations. He was a special advisor to the U.S. ambassador to Japan and to the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs. Mr. Calder is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Asian Security. His publications include Pacific Defense: Arms, Energy, and America’s Future in Asia (William Morrow & Co., 1996) and Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Political Stability in Japan, 1949-1986 (Princeton University Press, 1988).
Christopher DeMuth has been president of the American Enterprise Institute since 1986. He was previously managing director of Lexecon Inc., an economics consulting firm; editor and publisher of Regulation magazine; administrator for regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; lecturer and director of regulatory studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; an attorney with the Consolidated Rail Corporation and the law firm of Sidley & Austin; and staff assistant to President Richard Nixon. Mr. DeMuth’s essays have appeared in Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of Regulation, Commentary, and other publications.
Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of The Military We Need: The Defense Requirements of the Bush Doctrine (AEI Press, 2005), Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, 2004), and AEI’s monthly National Security Outlook. In February 2005, he was appointed by Senator Bill Frist to a two-year term on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Before coming to AEI, he served as the director of strategic communications and initiatives at Lockheed Martin and as deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century. From 1995 to 1999, he was the policy group director, as well as a professional staff member, for the Committee on National Security (now the Committee on Armed Services) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Donnelly has also been the executive director of The National Interest, editor of the Army Times, and deputy editor of Defense News.
Joseph R. Donovan, Jr. became deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo in August 2005. From 2003-2005, he was the director for the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, he was chief of the Political Section at the American Institute in Taiwan, deputy political counselor and chief of the Political-Military Affairs Unit at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, deputy head of the Political Section at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and branch chief of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Kaohsiung Office. Mr. Donovan has also served at the U.S. Embassies in Seoul, Korea and Doha, Qatar. He earned a Master’s Degree in National Security Affairs from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Following his graduation from Georgetown, he spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Korea.
Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and also serves as Senior Adviser for the National Bureau of Asian Research in Seattle, WA. He is the author of over 300 articles and studies in professional and popular journals on topics including demography, economic development, international security and East Asian affairs. Mr. Eberstadt has written or edited over a dozen books and monographs, including The Population of North Korea (co-author, 1992); The End of North Korea (author, 1999); and most recently, A New International Engagement Framework For North Korea? Contending Perspectives (co-editor, 2005). He earned his AB, MPA, and PhD from Harvard, and his M.Sc. from the London School of Economics.
Aaron Friedberg is professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School. He is the author of two books, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton University Press, 1988), and In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2000). Mr. Friedberg has been a fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, and has served as a consultant to several agencies of the U.S. government. In 2001-2002 he was the first holder of the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress. Friedberg holds his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
John D. Hill has served as the senior country director for Japan in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs since 1999, with responsibility for overall management of the U.S. security relationship with Japan. Since entering the Department of Defense in 1987, Mr. Hill has served in a variety of positions pertaining to economics and defense. In 1995-97, he was detailed to rotations at the Japan Defense Agency, Keidanren, and Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry under a Mansfield Fellowship. Mr. Hill served as director for Japan armaments cooperation in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology from 1997-1999.
Shigeru Ishiba has represented the Tottori Prefecture’s 1st district for seven terms. From 2002-2004, he served as the minister of state for defense. Rep. Ishiba graduated from Keio University in 1979, at which time he entered the Bank of Mitsui. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1986. In 1996 he was appointed as chairman of the House Special Committee on Deregulation, and in 1998 was appointed as chairman of the House Committee on Transport. Rep. Ishiba has also served as the parliamentary vice minister and senior state secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. From 2001-2002, Rep. Ishiba served as the senior vice minister for defense and the senior state secretary for defense.
Hideaki Kaneda is currently a senior research advisor on national security at the Mitsubishi Research Institute. He also serves as the director of the Okazaki Institute. He was previously a senior fellow at the Asia Center at Harvard University. Since retiring at the rank of vice admiral from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, Mr. Kaneda has published extensively on international security affairs, including theater missile defense and maritime coalition defense.
Fumio Kyuma represents the Nagasaki Prefecture’s 2nd district in the House of Representatives. He is a former state minister for defense and director general of the Japan Defense Agency. Rep. Kyuma graduated from the Tokyo University Faculty of Law in 1964. He was first elected as a member of the Nagasaki Prefectural Assembly in 1971, which he served in for three terms. Rep. Kyuma was elected to the House of Representatives in 1980. He has since served as the parliamentary vice-minister in the Ministry of Transport, the director of the Transport Division, and the chairman of the Transport Committee. In 1995, Rep. Kyuma became chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Affairs Committee, and in 1996. Since that time, Rep. Kyuma has held a number of Liberal Democratic Party leadership positions, including director-general of the Treasury Division, acting chairman of the Policy Research Council, acting director-general of the LDP, and chairman of the General Council for the LDP.
Timothy Larsen joined the United States Marine Corps in 1973 after graduating from Brigham Young University. In his more than thirty years as a Marine, Larsen has commanded at every level from platoon through regiment and risen to the rank of major general. He has been the deputy commander of U.S. Forces, Japan, since September 2003. He has served with each of the three active duty Marine divisions. He has also served as the commanding general of Coalition Joint Task Force-Kuwait (Forward) and as the commanding general of Camp Smedley D. Butler in Okinawa, Japan. Maj. Gen. Larsen has attended several military schools to include: Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School; College of Naval Command and Staff; Japanese Language Course, Defense Language Institute; and Japanese National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS). Additionally, he holds an M.A. in International Relations from Salve Regina University and a M.A. in National and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College.
Richard Lawless became the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs in May 2004 and is responsible for the formulation of U.S. security and defense policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Lawless was career employee of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1972 through 1987. He entered the private sector in 1987, co-founding and serving as the chairman and chief executive officer of the U.S. Asia Commercial Development Cooperation, a position in which he oversaw offices in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Mr. Lawless is also a co-founder and former chairman of the internet technology development company, Online Environs, Inc., of Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Lawless is a graduate of Bradley University’s School of International Studies and the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California.
Robyn Lim is professor of International Relations at Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan. She was previously a professor of International Relations at Hiroshima Shudo University, and professor of Australian Studies at Tokyo University. From 1988 to 1994 Professor Lim was senior Asian analyst and acting head of Current Intelligence at the Office of National Assessments, Australia’s national foreign intelligence assessment agency. In 1992, she served as head of the Asia-Pacific section in the International Branch of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Professor Lim is the author of The Geopolitics of East Asia (Curzon Routledge, 2003) which is about to be released in paperback. A research associate of the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore and the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, she is also a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Professor Lim holds a first class honors degree in History, with university medal, from the University of Queensland, and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Australian National University.
Seiji Maehara represents Kyoto’s 2nd district in the House of Representatives. He will serve as president of the Democratic Party of Japan until the end of September 2006. Rep. Maehara was elected to the House for the first time in 1993 as a member of the Japan New Party and has won four consecutive terms since then. The party’s foremost expert on foreign and security policies, he served as Defense Agency director general in the DPJ’s shadow cabinet under his predecessor, Katsuya Okada. Rep. Maehara is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University and the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. He previously served as a member of the Kyoto Prefectural Assembly.
Bruce Miller is the minister/counselor for political affairs at the Embassy of Australia in Tokyo, Japan. A career official of Australia’s Ministry of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr. Miller’s previous positions include director of the Asia Pacific and Security Section, assistant secretary of the Strategic Policy and Intelligence Branch, and in assistant secretary of the Northeast Asian Branch.
C. Raja Mohan is professor of South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a columnist for the Indian Express. He was a member of India’s National Security Advisory Board from 1998-2000. He was formerly the Washington correspondent for The Hindu, a senior fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, and a fellow at the United States Institute for Peace. Mr. Mohan is the author of Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India’s new Foreign and Defense Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and Indian Ocean and U.S.-Soviet Détente (South Asian Books, 1991).
Akihisa Nagashima represents Tokyo’s 21st district in Japan’s House of Representatives and serves as the minister of defense in the Democratic Party of Japan’s Next Cabinet (Shadow Cabinet). Rep. Nagashima served as senior director of the Standing Committee on National Security and a member the Special Committee on Prevention of International Terrorism. He held party leadership positions on the committees for national security, North Korean abductions, international affairs, and policy research. Rep. Nagashima has held scholar and lecturer positions at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS, and the Keio University Graduate School of Law.
Fukushiro Nukaga is serving his eighth term as a representative of Ibaraki Prefecture in the House of Representatives, a position he has held since 1983. From 1998-1999 he served as Japan’s state minister for defense. Rep. Nukaga is currently the chairman of the Security Affairs Research Council of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. He served as director of the House of Representatives committees on communications, commerce and industry, political reform, and constitutional research. Rep. Nukaga has held many senior party positions, including director of the Public Information Bureau, acting secretary general, and chairman of the Policy Affairs Research Council of the LDP. His government posts have included service as deputy chief cabinet secretary and economics minister.
Torkel Patterson was appointed president of Raytheon International, Inc. in February 2005. Patterson rejoined Raytheon from the U.S. Department of State where he served as deputy assistant secretary for South Asian Affairs and was senior advisor to Ambassador Howard Baker in Tokyo. Prior to that, he was special assistant to the president and senior director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council. Mr. Patterson was previously president of Raytheon Japan, senior country manager for Taiwan, and president of the North Asia Division of Raytheon International. He received a Bachelor of Science degree and graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy. He was an Olmsted scholar at the University of Tsukuba in Ibaraki, Japan.
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a journalist based in Washington and the Middle East.
Richard J. Samuels is the Ford international professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also serves as director of the Center for International Studies and founding director of the MIT Japan Program. In 2001 he became chairman of the Japan-US Friendship Commission. In 2005 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Samuels served as head of the MIT Department of Political Science between 1992-1997. He was vice-chairman of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council until 1996. He has received grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Abe Fellowship Fund, the National Science Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. Dr. Samuels’ latest book is Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan (Cornell University Press, 2003).
Tatsuo Sato is senior vice president at Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) and division chief operations officer for the MC Aerospace Division. A graduate of Keio University, he joined MC’s Aerospace Department in 1971. Mr. Sato formerly served in the United States as general manager of the Mitsubishi International Corporation’s Boston Office, and as general manager within the MC Aerospace Division, as well the Telecommunication and Broadcasting Division.
Koji Tsuruoka has served as deputy director-general of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Bureau since August 2003. A graduate of the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law, he entered the Ministry of Foreign affairs in April 1976. Within the Ministry, Mr. Tsuruoka has served as director of the Legal Affairs Bureau, director of the Second and First North America Divisions of the North American Affairs Bureau, minister at the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia. He was formerly a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
Adam Ward is a senior fellow for East Asian Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He serves as the editor of Strategic Comments, the Institute’s internationally syndicated online monthly journal devoted to topical strategic issues. Mr. Ward received a BA in German and Politics from the University of Warwick, where he also earned his MA in International Studies, focusing on East Asia. Between 1997 and 2001, he was Asia Pacific editor and analyst at the consulting firm Oxford Analytica, with responsibility for providing governments, multilateral organizations, and major corporations with briefings on foreign policy and political and economic issues affecting the Asia-Pacific region.
Richard Weir is the country director for Japan under the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy (J5) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States.
Noboru Yamaguchi is a major general in the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force (JGSDG) and vice president of the National Institute of Defense Studies. Previously, Maj. Gen. Yamaguchi was director of the Research and Development Department for the Ground Research and Development Command of JGSDF. A graduate of the National Defense Academy, Major General Yamaguchi earned an MA at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He was also a national security fellow at the Harvard University Olin Institute. General Yamaguchi has had a distinguished military career, serving as a helicopter pilot and subsequently in a variety of staff and policy-planning positions. He formerly served as senior defense attaché in the Embassy of Japan in Washington.
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