Date: Wednesday 5th March 2025

Time: 13:00-14:30

Venue: Online Talk (Zoom)

Prior to winning the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election as the veteran insider-outsider candidate, Ishiba Shigeru stated in a Hudson Institute opinion piece that “the creation of an Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China”. This drew significant attention, alarm, and derision within and beyond Japan, as unrealistic overreach or fever dream rambling from a usually steady politician and self-conscious policy wonk demonstrating detachment from the priorities of party and voters. Overseas many friends and critics wondered why Ishiba would make such a boldly unrealisable statement at such a crucial moment and provide fuel for the long-standing Beijing caricature of ‘remilitarising Japan’?

This presentation engages with Ishiba’s regional security 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 security, and how this might be realised?

Garren Mulloy is a Professor of 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 Japan Self-Defense Forces’ overseas operations (Newcastle University, 2011), and he has written on defence, security, and diplomacy and historical studies of Japan, the UK, and war memorialisation. His book, Defenders of Japan: The Post-Imperial Armed Forces, 1946-2016-A History (London: Hurst & Co./New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), combines historical and IR approaches, and he also co-edited with Dr Catherine Jones (University of St. Andrews) East Asia, Peacekeeping Operations, and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021). He has contributed various 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). Also, “Re–armament to Reiwa: Postwar to Post–Cold War Anglo–Japanese Security Engagement”, in New Perspectives on Peacetime Anglo–Japanese Military Relations Old Friends, New Partners, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2025) edited By Thomas French (Ritsumeikan University).

To register for the event please contact the easg@warwick.ac.uk for a Zoom invite