At the 122nd GRIPS Forum on April 18, 2016,?Mr. Hideshi Tokuchi, Senior Fellow of GRIPS ALLIANCE, Former Vice-Minister of Defense for International Affairs gave a lecture titled “The Defense Force Awakens”.

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Abstract

Last year the Government of Japan established new institutional frameworks of Japan’s national security and Japan-US Alliance. In the acute regional security environment, Japan should assume a greater role in the international efforts to restore balance of power and to uphold the rules-based order, capitalizing on these achievements. This lecture examines some basics related to this challenge from a Japanese view-point.?

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Speakers’ Profile:

Mr. Hideshi TOKUCHI entered the Japan Defense Agency in 1979　as a civilian and assumed the position of the first Vice-Minister of Defense for International Affairs in 2014 until retiring from the Ministry of Defense in 2015.

Mr. Tokuchi also worked for the US National Defense University in 1995-1996 as a Visiting Fellow. He taught Japan’s national security policy at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) for many years. He now works as a Senior Fellow for GRIPS Alliance and as a Visiting Fellow for the Institute of International Relations, Sophia University and as a Senior Research Adviser for the Institute for International Policy Studies.

Mr. Tokuchi was born in 1955. He earned a degree of Bachelor of Laws at the University of Tokyo in 1979 and a degree of Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1986.