Europe and East Asia in the Wake of the War in Ukraine

In his address, Dr Tsuruoka argued that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has effectively ended the post-Cold War order in Europe. However, the war’s impact is not only limited to Europe. Japan has imposed severe sanctions on Russia, aligning itself with the EU, the US and other G7 partners. Tokyo is experiencing its own Zeitenwende, as demonstrated by its new National Security Strategy, adopted in December 2022. As Japan faces challenges from China, North Korea and Russia simultaneously, Dr Tsuruoka asked how these two regions - Europe and Asia – are linked and how best they could address the challenges to the rules-based international order together?

About the Speaker

Dr Michito Tsuruoka is an Associate Professor at Keio University. Prior to joining Keio in 2017, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies from 2009. He is concurrently a Senior Fellow at The Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy, Brussels School of Governance, VUB. During his tenure at NIDS, Dr Tsuruoka was seconded to the Ministry of Defense as a Deputy Director of the International Policy Division, Bureau of Defense Policy (2012-2013), where he was in charge of multilateral security and defence cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and spent one year as a Visiting Fellow at Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (2013-2014). Prior to joining NIDS, he was a Resident Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels (2009) and served as an Adviser for NATO at the Embassy of Japan in Belgium (2005-2008)