War and Diplomacy in an Age of Disorder: options for Japan and the United Kingdom

War and Diplomacy in an Age of Disorder: options for Japan and the United Kingdom

At a time of acute international certainty, given the assertiveness of authoritarian regimes, rising populist politics, Donald Trump’s willingness to challenges the norms of the rules based international order, the war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, a more belligerent North Korea and the threat of Great Power conflict in East Asia, the Centre for Geopolitics and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (FAMES), in collaboration with Keio University’s Center for Strategy and the Fujitsu Future Studies Center will be holding a special seminar to consider how best the governments of Japan and the United Kingdom might respond to these challenges.

Our panel of distinguished Japanese and British academics and policy specialists will consider the nature of these challenges and the unprecedented events of recent weeks and months that threaten to transform international relations and geopolitics.

Opening Remarks:

• His Excellency Mr Hiroshi Suzuki – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Panel Discussion:

• Professor Michael Cox – Department of International Relations, London School of Economics (LSE)
• Professor Yuichi Hosoya  – Keio University Tokyo, Director, Keio Center for Strategy (KCS)
• Professor Satoshi Ikeuchi – Professor of the Division of Religion and Global Security at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), University of Tokyo. 
• Professor Tomohiko Taniguchi – University of Tsukuba and special adviser, Fujitsu Future Studies Center
• Sir Robin Niblett – Distinguished Fellow and former Director and Chief Executive, Chatham House 
• Gillian Tett – Provost, King’s College, University of Cambridge

Chair:

• Professor John Nilsson-Wright – Fuji Bank Professor of Japanese Politics and the International Relations of East Asia, at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (FAMES); Chair, Japan and Koreas Programmes, Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge

VENUE and TIME

Tuesday 27 January 2026, 1700-18.30, Bradfield Room, Darwin College, Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EU

MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Professor Michael COX

Before being appointed to a Chair in International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2002, Professor Cox taught for seven years at the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales Aberystwyth, and between 1972 and 1995 at The Queen’s University of Belfast. One of the founding Directors of   LSE’s foreign policy think tank – LSE   IDEAS -  he is also an associate Fellow in the US and Americas Programme at Chatham House, London,  a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board of the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History in New York,   and a visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Milan. The author, editor and co-editor of many books, his most recent work includes a collection of his own essays, The Post-Cold War World (2018), a new centennial edition of J. M.Keynes’s  The Economic Consequences of the Peace (2019), a reissued edition  of  E.H. Carr’s 1945 classic Nationalism and After (2021), as well  as  Agonies of Empire: American Power from Clinton to Biden (2023) and  two books with LSE Press:  Afghanistan: Long War: Forgotten Peace (2022)  and Ukraine: Russia’s War and the Future of Global Order (2023) His latest book (co-edited) is Chatham House: the First 100 Years, published by Oxford University Press in 2025. 

Professor Yuichi HOSOYA

Yuichi Hosoya is professor of international politics at Keio University, and director at Keio Center for Strategy in Tokyo. Professor Hosoya was a member of the Advisory Board at Japan’s National Security Council (NSC) (2014-2016). He was also a member of Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security (2013-14), and Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities (2013). Professor Hosoya studied international politics at Rikkyo (BA), Birmingham (MIS), and Keio (Ph.D.). He was a visiting professor and Japan Chair (2009–2010) at Sciences-Po in Paris (Institut d’Études Politiques) and a visiting fellow (Fulbright Fellow, 2008–2009) at Princeton University.

Professor Satoshi IKEUCHI

Satoshi Ikeuchi is Professor of the Division of Religion and Global Security at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) of the University of Tokyo. He is the founding head of the RCAST Open Laboratory for Emergence Strategies (ROLES).

For the year 2022-2023, he was Senior Visiting Scholar in Residence at the Moshe Dayan Center (MDC) for Middle Eastern and African Studies of Tel Aviv University.

He is a scholar on Islamic political thought and the Middle East politics. As a leading public intellectual in Japan, he has been vigorously publishing on the Middle East and Islamic affairs.

His first publication based on his doctoral studies, Gendai Arabu-no Shakai Shiso: Shumatsuron-to Isramu-shugi (Contemporary Arab Social Thought: Eschatology and Islamism), was published in 2002 and earned Osaragi Jiro Prize for Critical Works. He also earned Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities in 2009 for his book Islamu Sekai-no Ronjikata (Methods of Discussing Islam).

His book on the Islamic State Isulamu Koku no Shogeki (The Impact of the Islamic State) published in January 2015 was a nation-wide best seller in Japan and awarded Mainichi Publishing Cultural Prize. His recent publication includes Saikusu Piko Kyotei: Hyakunen no Jubaku (Sykes-Picot Agreement: One Hundred Years of Obsession) in 2016 and Shiiaha to Sunniha (Shite and Sunnite) in 2018 both published from Shinchosha. He is the recipient of the 12th Nakasone Yasuhiro Prize in 2016 for his academic works and social engagements.

His collection of literary essays and book reviews Shomotsu not Unmei (The Fate of Books) published in 2006 and earned Mainichi Book Review Award for the year.

He was a visiting professor at the Alexandria University 2007-2008, Japan Scholar chair visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2009 and Visiting Fellow at the Clare Hall, University of Cambridge in 2010. 

Sir Robin NIBLETT, KCMG

Robin Niblett is a Distinguished Fellow with Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London) and the former Director and Chief Executive (2007 – 2022). In September 2026, he will become the Warden of New College, University of Oxford, where he studied for his DPhil in International Relations.

Robin is also Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Senior Adviser to the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington DC, serving previously as its Executive Vice President and Director of the Europe Program. He regularly advises private institutions on geopolitical trends and risk management and is a member of the International Advisory Board of Brown Advisory, the US investment firm. He was Senior Adviser for geopolitics and international affairs with Hakluyt, the London-based strategic advisory firm, from 2022 through 2024.

A leading expert on the relations between Europe, the US, and Asia, he is the author of The New Cold War: How the Contest Between the US and China Will Shape Our Century (Atlantic Books, 2024), as well as numerous articles and Chatham House and CSIS reports. 

Robin was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2022.

Ambassador Hiroshi SUZUKI

His Excellency Mr Hiroshi Suzuki has been Ambassador of Japan to the UK since November 2024, having served as Ambassador of Japan to India and the Kingdom of Bhutan. Previously, he served the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as his Private Secretary for 7 years and 7 months, as Senior Deputy Foreign Minister, and as G7・G20 Sherpa. He entered the Japanese Foreign Service in 1985, and served in Washington DC, Rome, Tehran, Kabul, Seoul, London and Delhi. This is his second posting in London. He graduated from University of Tokyo (BA in law, 1985) and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (MA, 1988)

Professor Tomohiko TANIGUCHI

TANIGUCHI, Tomohiko is a Specially Appointed Professor at the University of Tsukuba and a special advisor to the Fujitsu Future Studies Center.

He served as a Special Advisor to ABE, Shinzo’s Cabinet from April 2013 until Mr. Abe stepped down as Prime Minister on September 16, 2020. Between February 2013 and March 2014, he was a Councillor, Cabinet Secretariat.

After working for the Japanese business weekly magazine Nikkei Business for about 20 years, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2005 and became Deputy Press Secretary and Deputy Secretary-General for Public Diplomacy. He also drafted numerous foreign policy speeches for then-Foreign Minister ASO, Taro and then-Prime Minister Abe until he left the ministry three years later.

From 1997 to 2000, while working for Nikkei Business magazine, he lived in London as the magazine’s sole correspondent covering European business and economies, and in 1999 Foreign Press Association in London elected him President, first from “the East of Suez.” He has also spent sabbaticals during his journalistic career, first at the then Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University as a Fulbright visiting fellow, at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies as a visiting fellow, and also at the Brookings Institution as a CNAPS Fellow.

From August 2008 to January 2013, he served as a full-time Executive Advisor to Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai), working for then-Chairman KASAI, Yoshiyuki (who has since passed away), while also serving as a special guest professor at Keio University’s Graduate School of System Design and Management (SDM) and as a visiting professor at Meiji University’s School of Global Japanese Studies. He earned a tenure position as a full-time professor at Keio SDM, April 2014, while continuing to serve Prime Minister Abe as his primary foreign policy speech writer. He terminated his tenure, having reached the mandatory retirement age, March 2023. In addition to the positions mentioned at the outset, he is currently a Visiting Professor at Takushoku University’s Institute of World Studies and a Senior Fellow at the GRIPS Alliance of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

He holds an LL.B. in Law from the University of Tokyo, a Ph.D. in National Security from Takushoku University, and has authored or co-authored more than 10 books on international affairs. One of his most recent books is “Prime Minister Abe’s Speeches,” and he has appeared live numerous times on the BBC, Al Jazeera English, CNN, CNA, TRT, and the like.

Gillian TETT

In 2023, Gillian Tett was elected to serve as Provost to King’s College, Cambridge.

Gillian also writes weekly columns covering economic, financial, political, and social issues for the US Financial Times and is the co-founder of FT Moral Money, a newsletter that tracks the ESG revolution in business and finance.

From 2013 to 2019, Tett was the FT’s US Managing Editor, also serving as Assistant Editor for the FT’s markets coverage, Capital Markets Editor, Deputy Editor of the Lex column, Tokyo Bureau Chief and Correspondent, London-based economics reporter and a reporter in Russia and Brussels. 

Before joining the FT, Gillian was awarded a PhD in Social Anthropology from Cambridge and in 2024, was awarded an OBE for her services to journalism.