Senior Fellows

MORI Satoru

Areas of focus: Contemporary U.S. foreign/defense policy with a focus on U.S. strategy in Asia, U.S. defense innovation and its implications for U.S. allies, and the history of U.S. defense strategy.

Satoru Mori is the professor of contemporary international politics at the Faculty of Law, and the deputy director of the Keio Center for Strategy at Keio University. Professor Mori is currently undertaking research on U.S. strategy in Asia, U.S. defense innovation and its implications for U.S. allies, and the history of U.S. defense strategy during the Cold War. He is a former Japanese Foreign Ministry official and holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo, LL.M. degrees from Columbia University Law School and Kyoto University, and a LL.B. degree from Kyoto University. He was a professor at Hosei University’s Faculty of Law from 2010 to 2022. During his sabbatical leave, he was a visiting researcher at Princeton University (2014-2015) and George Washington University (2013-2015). His book on U.S. diplomatic history The Vietnam War and Alliance Diplomacy published from the University of Tokyo Press in 2009 (in Japanese) was awarded the 15th Hiroshi Shimizu Prize for Distinguished Academic Work from the Japanese Association of American Studies. Professor Mori currently chairs the Japan-US alliance project at the Nakasone Peace Institute, and the security policy project at the Japan Institute for International Affairs among other projects. He is a senior fellow at the Nakasone Peace Institute since 2018. He was a senior fellow of the National Security Secretariat of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Japanese government (2016-2019). He was among the experts called upon by the National Security Secretariat during the hearings in 2022 on the revision of Japan’s strategic documents.

English publications include “The Case for Japan Acquiring Counterstrike Capabilities: Limited Offensive Operations for a Defensive Strategy,” (co-authored with Shinichi Kitaoka) in Scott Harold et al., Japan’s Possible Acquisition of Long-Range Land Attack Missiles and the Implications for the U.S.-Japan Alliance, (RAND Corporation, 2022) 7-25, “U.S. Technological Competition with China,” Asia Pacific Review 26:1 (2019) 77-120, and "The Promotion of Rules-based Order and the Japan-U.S. Alliance" in Michael J. Green ed., Ironclad: Forging a New Future for America's Alliances (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) 97-112. He is also a recipient of the Nakasone Yasuhiro Incentive Award.