Speaker Biographies

Michael Auslin is a resident scholar in Asian studies at AEI. He specializes in Japanese foreign policy, U.S.-East Asian relations, and Asian security issues. Prior to joining AEI, Mr. Auslin was an associate professor of history and a senior research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund, and an Asia 21 Young Leader by the Asia Society, and he is a former Fulbright Scholar. His writings on Japan and Japanese diplomacy include the books Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy (Harvard University Press, 2006) and Japan Society: Celebrating a Century, 1907–2007 (Japan Society, 2007). He comments regularly in American and Japanese media. 

Dan Blumenthal joined AEI in November 2004 as a resident fellow in Asian studies. He has served on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission since 2005, serving as vice chairman in 2007, and as a member of the Academic Advisory Board for the Congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Previously, Mr. Blumenthal 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 addition to writing for AEI’s Asian Outlook series, he has written articles and op-eds for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and numerous edited volumes. He is currently working on a book that will examine divides within the China policymaking community.

Kent Calder is director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asia Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies. He was a professor at Princeton University, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a lecturer in the department of government at Harvard University, where he was the first executive director of the Harvard University Program on U.S.-Japan Relations. Mr. Calder has also served as special adviser to the U.S. ambassador to Japan and as special adviser to the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He is currently a member of the editorial board of the journal Asian Security.

Paul Giarra is a senior program manager and director of the Global Strategies and Transformation Program at Hicks and Associates, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Science Applications International Corporation. He is an interagency community expert and a U.S. Navy senior subject matter expert as well as a U.S. Naval War College maritime strategy “greybeard.” A military transformation expert, he has supported transformation and experimentation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, at U.S. Joint Forces Command, at NATO Headquarters, and at NATO Allied Command Transformation. He moderates, designs, and leads seminars, workshops, and war games for a variety of U.S. government clients. Mr. Giarra is a frequent panelist and commentator on Asian security and regional, political, economic, technology, energy, and security futures, and the parallel transformation of the U.S. military. During his Naval career, Mr. Giarra was an aviator, a strategic planner, and a political-military strategic planner for Far East, South Asian, and Pacific issues, and he managed the U.S.-Japan alliance in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Christopher Griffin is a research fellow in Asian studies at AEI, where he studies competing strategies among the great powers for influence in Southeast Asia and the reemergence of Japan as a “normal” power. Before joining AEI in January 2005, he was a research assistant in the strategic studies department at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Since May 2006, Mr. Griffin has been a contributing editor to Armed Forces Journal, for which he writes on defense-industrial issues and military blogs.

Makoto Iokibe is the president of the National Defense Academy of Japan. Previously, he was professor of history in the department of law at Kobe University (1981–2006). Mr. Iokibe also taught at Hiroshima University (1969–81) and Harvard University (1977–79, 2002–2003) and was an academic visitor at the London School of Economics (1990–91). He was a member of the Japanese Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan’s Goals in the 21st Century, which submitted its report in January 2000. He is also the author of several books, including The U.S. Occupation Policy for Japan (1986), which won the Suntory Academic Prize; Japan and the Changing World Order (1991); The Occupation Era: The Prime Ministers and Rebuilding of Postwar Japan 1945–1952 (1997), which won the Yoshino Sakuzo Prize; and Diplomatic History of Postwar Japan 1945–1999 (1999), which won the Yoshida Shigeru Prize.

Satoshi Morimoto is the director of the Institute of World Studies and a professor in the Institute for International Cooperation Studies at Takushoku University. Previously, he was a lecturer at Sacred Heart University, Keio University, and Chuo University (1995–2005) and a senior researcher at Nomura Research Institute (1992–2000). He has also held several positions in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including director of the consular and migration policy division (1991–92) and director of the security policy division in the Bureau of Information Analysis, Research and Planning (1987–89). Before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he served in the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (1965–79). Mr. Morimoto’s publications include Crisis of U.S.-Japan Alliance (Bissiness-sha, 2007), Defense Issues (PHP Research Institute, 2007), U.S. Defense Transformation and U.S. Forces in Japan (Bungei Shinjyu Sha, 2006), and Security of South Asia (JIJA, 2005).

Paul Wolfowitz is a visiting scholar in foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, where he studies development issues. He has spent more than three decades in public service and higher education. Most recently, Mr. Wolfowitz served as president of the World Bank and deputy secretary of defense. Prior to that, he was dean and professor of international relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He has also served as under secretary of defense for policy (1989–93) and U.S. ambassador to Indonesia (1986–89). Mr. Wolfowitz was the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1982–86) and director of policy planning at the Department of State. He worked as deputy assistant secretary of defense for regional programs at the Department of Defense and as special assistant to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1973–77).

Lieutenant General Noboru Yamaguchi is the commanding general of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) Research and Development Command. Previously, he was vice president for the National Institute for Defense Studies, director of the research department of the GSDF Research and Development Command, deputy commandant of the GSDF Aviation School, and a defense and military attaché at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. Lt. Gen. Yamaguchi’s English publications include “U.S. Defense Transformation and Japan’s Defense Policy,” in RUSI Journal (2006); “Japanese Adjustment to the Security Alliance with the United States: Evolution of Policy on the Roles of the Self-Defense Forces,” in The Future of America’s Alliances in Northeast Asia, edited by Michael H. Armacost and Daniel I. Okimoto (Brookings Institution Press, 2004); and “U.S. Defense Policy Transition after the Cold War,” in the journal International Security (2001). He is also the author of many publications in Japanese, including “Self-Defense Forces in Peace Building Missions: What Japan Learned from Its Experience in Iraq,” in the Journal of International Security (2006).

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