News FY 2025

The Welcome Reception for Permanent Representatives to NATO

Sasakawa Peace Foundation

April 23, 2026

On April 17, 2026, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation hosted a welcome reception in conjunction with the visit to Japan of a delegation of Permanent Representatives to the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s principal political decision-making body.

The reception was attended by a wide range of participants from government, industry, and academia, including Mr. Gen Nakatani, Member of the House of Representatives, former Minister of Defense, and Chairman of the Japan–U.S.–Europe Parliamentary Conference on Comprehensive Security.

During the reception, participants engaged in lively discussions on the rapidly evolving international security environment and the future of cooperation between Japan and NATO.

The NATO alliance is adapting to operate effectively in a complex, contested and unpredictable security environment characterized by strategic competition, persistent contestation across the peace-crisis-conflict continuum and pervasive instability. To ensure the security and defense of Allies, NATO needs to be able to credibly tackle multiple, global and interconnected threats and challenges and to account for the impact that conflict, crises and instability in other regions of the world could have on the Euro-Atlantic, its area of responsibility.

March 28, 2025

Essays and Commentary

IINA: 【Cooperation between European and Indo-Pacific Powers in the U.S. alliance system project: Policy Paper Vol. 8】 Cooperation by Design: The Implication of Maritime Connectivity for NATO and the Indo-Pacific Partnership

This paper argues that the partnership between NATO and Japan shifted from cooperation by chance to cooperation by design after 2001, when Japan suddenly expanded its cooperation with NATO due to common challenges in Afghanistan. The September 11 terrorist attacks dramatically changed the strategic landscape and transformed Japan’s position as the lead country of a pacifist foreign policy of demobilization, demilitarization, reintegration, and post-conflict reconstruction. One way to describe this partnership between NATO and Japan is cooperation by chance.

March 28, 2025

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