Dr. Tsuneo Akaha is Professor of International Policy Studies and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California.  Professor Akaha specializes in Japanese foreign and security policy, international relations of the Asia Pacific, international political economy, globalization, human rights, human security, and international migration. He is the author of Japan in Global Ocean Politics (1985) and the editor/co-editor of The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Balancing Soft and Hard Power in East Asia (2010), which won a Masayoshi Ohira Special Prize in 2011; Crossing National Borders: Human Migration Issues in Northeast Asia (2005); The Future of North Korea (2002); Politics and Economics in Northeast Asia: Nationalism and Regionalism in Contention (1999); Politics and Economics in the Russian Far East: Changing Ties with Asia-Pacific (1997); International Political Economy (1991); and Japan in the Posthegemonic World (1990). He is also a member of the editorial board of International Relations of the Asia-Pacific. He has contributed numerous articles to such journals as the American Political Science Review, Journal of Asian Studies, Asian Survey, Pacific Review, Pacific Affairs, Pacific Focus, Asian Perspective, Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Ecological Law Quarterly, Millennium, Peace Forum, Peace and Change, Brown Journal of World Affairs, East Asia Review, Politique étrangère, Mongolian Journal of International Affairs, Journal of Asiatic Studies, and Journal of Human Security. His current research focuses on international migration and human security issues in East Asia, regionalism in East Asia, Russia and regional integration in East Asia, and post-3/11 Japan.

Dr. Yoshihide Soeya is Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Law at Keio University, where he also serves as Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies. He studies East Asian politics and security, Japanese diplomacy, and Japanese foreign relations. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1987. Dr. Soeya currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Japan Association of International Relations and as Editor-in-Chief of its English journal, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific.  He is also a member of the Advisory Group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the International Council of the Asia Society in New York.  In 2010, he served as a member of “the Council on Security and Defense Capabilities in the New Era” under Prime Ministers Hatoyama and Kan. His major publications in English include “A ‘Normal’ Middle Power: Interpreting Changes in Japanese Security Policy in the 1990s and After,” in Yoshihide Soeya, et.al., eds, Japan as a ‘Normal Country’ ?: A Country in Search of its Place in the World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), “U.S. and East Asian Security under the Obama Presidency,” Asian Economic Policy Review4:2 (December 2009), and Japan's Economic Diplomacy with China, 1945-1978 (Oxford University Press, 1998).

Dr. Masayuki Tadokoro is Professor of International Relations at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. Born in Osaka, he attended Kyoto University and the London School of Economics. Previously he was a professor at the National Defense Academy. In 1988-89, he was a Fellow at the American Council of Learned Societies in Washington, DC, and in 1991 he taught for a semester as Fulbright Scholar in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh. His primary field is international political economy, but he works also on Japanese foreign and security policy, and on international organizations. His publications include International Political Economy (Nagoya University Press, 2008); The Dollar goes beyond “America” (Chuokoron Shinsha, 2001); and The Realities of the UN: A Budgetary Analysis (Yuhikaku, 1996). His recent publications in English include, “After the Dollar?”, International Relations of the Asia Pacific 10:3 (2010); and “Why did Japan fail to become the ‘Britain’ of Asia”, in David Wolff et al., eds., The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective (Brill, 2007).

Lieutenant General (Ret.) Noboru Yamaguchi is currently a Professor of Military History and Strategy at the National Defense Academy of Japan. Lieutenant General Yamaguchi served as Senior Defense Attaché at the Japanese Embassy in the United States, as Deputy Commandant of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces (GSDF) Aviation School, as Director for Research of the Ground Research and Development Command (GRDC), and as Vice President of the National Institute for Defense Studies. Since 2006, he was the Commanding General of the GSDF Research and Development Command until he retired from active duty in December 2008. Lieutenant General Yamaguchi has published extensively on Japanese defense policy, strategy, and security relationships with China and the United States.

Dr. David A. Welch is CIGI Chair of Global Security and Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, as well as Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. His areas of research include International Relations theory, international security, and foreign policy decision making. His book Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (Princeton University Press, 2005) was the inaugural winner of the International Studies Association ISSS Book Award, and his book Justice and the Genesis of War (Cambridge University Press, 1993) was the winner of the 1994 Edgar S. Furniss Award for an Outstanding Contribution to National Security Studies. His most recent books include Japan as a ‘Normal Country’? A Nation in Search of Its Place in the World, ed. with Yoshihide Soeya and Masayuki Tadokoro (University of Toronto Press, 2011); The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History 2nd ed., with Don Munton (Oxford University Press, 2012); Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation 8th ed., with Joseph S. Nye, Jr (Pearson Longman, 2010), and Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived, with James G. Blight and janet M. Lang (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)—recently named by the Wall Street Journal one of the five best books about John F. Kennedy. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.