News FY 2025

Event Report: Public Forum
Europe’s role in Indo-Pacific
-Lithuania’s contribution-

Japan-U.S. and Security Studies Unit

June 4, 2025

On Wednesday, May 28, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, in cooperation with the Embassy of Lithuania to Japan, hosted a public forum welcoming Her Excellency Dovilė Šakalienė, Minister of National Defense of the Republic of Lithuania.

As a member of the EU and NATO, Lithuania has been playing an active international role, including in Indo-Pacific region. In 2023, Lithuania formulated its first-ever "Indo-Pacific Strategy." Building on the recent security and defense engagement with like-minded partners in Indo-Pacific, Lithuania announced its “Strategy for Defense and Security Engagement in Indo-Pacific Region.”

During the forum, Minister Sakaiene delivered a lecture on the newly formulated defense strategy, followed by a discussion on Europe’s role and Lithuania’s contributions to the Indo-Pacific region with Sasakawa Peace Foundation Executive Director Nobukatsu Kanehara and Senior Fellow Tsuneo Watanabe.

At this forum, Minister of National Defense Dovilė Šakalienė presented a newly developed “Defense Strategy” and discussed Europe’s role and Lithuania’s contribution to the Indo-Pacific region. Minister Šakalienė with Mr. Nobukatsu Kanehara, SPF Executive Director, and Mr. Tsuneo “Nabe” Watanabe, SPF Senior Fellow.

Prior to the public forum, Mr.Kanehara, AMB(ret.) Nobushige Takamizawa, ADM(ret.) Tomohisa Takei, Mr. Watanabe, and RADM (ret.) Katsuya Yamamoto held discussions with Minister Sakalienė at the Lithuanian Embassy regarding the current international security situation.

Follow the link for the Strategy of Security and Defence Engagement in the Indo-Pacific Region.
https://kam.lt/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Strategy-for-security-and-Defence-Engagement-in-the-IP4.pd

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF; Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Atsushi Sunami) concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Defence of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka on June 11, 2026, in Colombo, concerning SPF’s project for “Security Dialogues and Defense Exchanges between Japan and Asian Countries.”

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The Japan-U.S. and Security Studies Unit of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation hosted a delegation led by Ms. Tuuli Duneton, the Undersecretary for Defence Policy of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, for an exchange of views on the current security environment on May 28, 2026.

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Event Report: Public Forum
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Event Report: Public Forum
Europe’s role in Indo-Pacific
-Lithuania’s contribution-