The Strategic Communications Education and Research Unit (SCERU) and the Graduate School of Public Policy of the University of Tokyo (GraSPP) are pleased to invite you to the seminar as detailed below:

DATE & TIME:
Wednesday 20 August 2025
5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. (JST)

* The venue will open at 4:40 p.m.

VENUE:
SMBC Academia Hall
4th floor, International Academic Research Building
Hongo campus, the University of Tokyo

* Please note that this event will be held on-site only.
* For security reasons, please bring your ID with you to enter the venue.

REGISTRATION:
Please register here.

LANGUAGE:
English

OVERVIEW:
This seminar brings together leading experts on East Asian security to examine the dynamics of limited conflict, escalation risks, and deterrence in the maritime domain of East Asia. The discussion focuses on the interplay between major power rivalry, operational realities at sea, and the ambiguous space between peace and war. In addition, attention is given to the meaning and significance of strategic communications in relation to coercion and deterrence within the “grey zone.”

This seminar provides a comprehensive look at the evolving security landscape in East Asia, offering insights into the operational, technical, and geopolitical dimensions of contemporary conflict and competition.

PANEL PRESENTATIONS:

1. The U.S.-China Stability-Instability Paradox: Limited War in East Asia
Øystein Tunsjø, Professor, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies

With China and the United States seemingly locked in intensifying and enduring competition, many analysts compare today’s U.S.-China rivalry to the one between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. This article draws on the stability-instability paradox to compare the prospects for limited war in these scenarios. We identify two factors — geography and technology — that affect the likelihood of the paradox leading to conflict. Whether strategic nuclear stability increases or decreases the likelihood of limited conflict likely depends on how each side in a conflict dyad regards the prospects for limiting a conflict. (The presentation is based upon a co-authored journal article with Henrik Stålhane Hiim, forthcoming in International Security) 

2. Contested Waters, Presence, and the Risk of Escalation in Maritime East Asia
Ian Bowers, Professor of International Security, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies

This presentation explores the risk of escalating conflict in maritime East Asia with a focus on the presence of adversarial navies and maritime law enforcement organisations in contested waters. It argues that such interactions at sea while raising the risk of localised conflict are unlikely to result in wider conflict escalation. However, the context of such interactions including the level of power symmetry between the actors on a local tactical and strategic level and the location of clashes play an important role in determining the risk of wider escalation.

3. Fifty Shades of Grey or Blends of Hybrid War? Conflict in the Age of Contestation
Alessio Patalano, Professor of War & Strategy in East Asia, King’s College London

This presentation explores the increasing gap between peace and war. It suggests that, whilst wars —as a complex national and societal endeavour with a clearly defined legal construct —are becoming less frequent, military operations, robust forms of coercive action, and intense bursts of fighting are becoming increasingly common as currency in the management of international affairs. In this fractured and contested context, there remains considerable ambiguity about how to differentiate grey zone coercion and hybrid actions. The presentation argues that this lack of clarity invites probing, testing, and further escalation, rather than deterring their use.

4. Strategic Communications and Ambiguity in Grey Zone Deterrence
Chiyuki Aoi, Director of Strategic Communications Education and Research Unit (SCERU), GraSPP, University of Tokyo

In this presentation, strategic communications is understood as the long-term shaping and shifting of dominant discourses within societies, taking a holistic approach grounded in liberal values and fundamental freedoms. Rather than focusing on short-term, reactive exchanges or tactical messaging, the emphasis is on fostering credibility, consistency, and adaptability to counter incremental coercion and support regional stability. The presentation highlights the importance of strategic communications in influencing the security environment and addressing adversaries’ efforts to exploit ambiguity through legal and normative manipulation, ensuring clarity of purpose and intent in the face of such challenges.

SPEAKER’S BIO:

Øystein Tunsjø is Professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS), which is part of the Norwegian Defence University College. Tunsjø is head of the IFS Asia Programme and specializes in US-China relations, geopolitics and how global power shifts shape Europe and Norway’s defence and security. Prof Tunsjø holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, a cand. philol. from the University of Oslo, an MSc from the London School of Economics and a MA from Griffith University, Australia. He has also been a visiting Fulbright scholar at Harvard in 2010 and the Security Studies Program at MIT in 2023. Prof Tunsjø was a member of the government appointed Norwegian Defence Commission of 2021, which submitted the NOU “Forsvar for fred og sikkerhet” to the Norwegian Government in 2023.

Prof Tunsjø is author of The Return of Bipolarity in World Politics: China, the United States and Geostructural Realism, (Columbia University Press, 2018); Security and Profits in China’s Energy Policy: Hedging Against Risk (Columbia University Press, 2013) and US Taiwan Policy: Constructing the Triangle (London: Routledge, 2008). Prof Tunsjø is co-editor of US-China Foreign Relations: Power Transition and Its Implications for Europe and Asia (London: Routledge, 2020);Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017); Twenty First Century Seapower: Cooperation and Conflict at Sea(London: Routledge, 2012, translated to 21 Shiji Haiyang Daguo: Haishang Hezuo yu Zhongtu Guanli, by Shehui Kexue Wenxian Zhubanshe, Beijing, 2014);US-China-EU Relations: Managing a New World Order (London: Routledge, 2010, translated to Zhong Mei Ou Guanxi: Goujian Xin de Shijie Zhixu by the World Affairs Press, Beijing, 2012). He has also published several book chapters and journal articles, such as “The U.S.-China Stability-Instability Paradox: Limited War in East Asia” (co-authored with Henrik Hiim and forthcoming in International Security).

Ian Bowers is Professor of International Security at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies which is part of the Norwegian Defence University College. His research focuses on sea power, the future operational environment, deterrence and the Korean Peninsula. Bowers holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London. From 2019 to 2023, Bowers was an Associate Professor at the Institute for Military Operations at the Royal Danish Defence College where he led a project on Multi-Domain Operations and the implications for small states.

Prof Bowers has published a monograph on the South Korean Navy and has edited several volumes including one on combined naval operations during the Korean War and one on the tactical and strategic relationships between navies and coastguards. He has published a number of book chapters and his work on sea power, military strategy and international security has also appeared in international peer-review journals such as International Security, Survival, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Naval War College Review and the Washington Quarterly.

Alessio Patalano is Professor of War & Strategy in East Asia at King’s College London (KCL). He specialises in maritime strategy and doctrine, and Japanese military history. Prof Patalano has extensive international experience in academic and military engagement, and policy advice. He taught at the UK Joint Command and Staff Services College (JSCSC), and at the Italian Naval War College (ISMM), and held affiliations at Aoyama Gakuin University, the National Defence Academy, the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), and at the Japan Maritime Command and Staff College (JMCSC). Prof Patalano is an academic advisor to the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and was chair of the maritime strategy group of the Secretary of State’s Office for Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC) at the UK Ministry of Defence.

Prof Patalano was the first specialist advisor (SPAD) on the Indo-Pacific to the Foreign Affairs Committee (2022) in the UK Parliament to assess the impact of strategic stability in the Strait of Taiwan. He was embedded in the J-9 (Influence Operations) cell for the NATO Trident Juncture Exercise 2016 based at JFC Naples; he supported the Director of the Royal Navy’s Joint Exercise Training and Planning Staff (JTEPS) during Joint Warrior 2022, and participated as academic observer to the RIMPAC 2022 exercise. In 2024, he was the political advisor to the Italian Navy Commander in Chief (CinC), for the Mare Aperto – POLARIS exercise, the largest naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea since the end of the Cold War (10k personnel, 50 ships). In 2023, he became the first academic to receive a Commendation of the Ambassador of Japan to the UK for outstanding contribution to the advancement of UK-Japan security ties. In 2024, he was awarded the Grey Distinguished Visiting Chair in defence studies at the Australian War College, Canberra. In 2025, he was nominated Scientific Advisor (Consigliere Scientifico) to the Chief of the Italian Navy. Prof Patalano practices karate and boxing.

His publications include: A. Patalano (with J. Russell and Cat Grant), eds., The New Age of Naval Power in the Indo-Pacific (Georgetown University Press, 2023); A. Patalano (with J. Russell), eds., Maritime Strategy and Naval Innovation: Technology, Bureaucracy, and the Problem of Change in the Age of Competition (Naval Institute Press, 2021);  A. Patalano, Japan as a Sea Power: Imperial Legacy, Wartime Experience, and the Making of the Post-war Navy (Bloomsbury, 2015).

Chiyuki Aoi is Professor of International Security at the Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP), University of Tokyo, where she directs the Strategic Communications Education and Research Unit (SCERU), established with support from the European Union. She also serves on the Editorial Board of Defence Strategic Communications, the official journal of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (Riga), and lectures at the Postgraduate Certificate Programme for Strategic Communications practitioners, organized by the Sympodium Institute for Strategic Communications (London/Riga). Since 2023, she has served as Chairperson for Japan for UNHCR.

In August 2018, she was elected a member of the Council on Security and Defense Capabilities by the Shinzo Abe Cabinet.

Previously, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London (2008–2009), and later a Visiting Professor at the same department (2019–2020). She gained over five years of professional experience at two United Nations agencies—namely, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (Geneva) and the United Nations University (Tokyo)—before assuming an academic position as a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University.

Recently, her publications have focused on the intersection of Strategic Communications and geopolitics/international politics, as well as the art and StratCom. Key works include: “The Indo-Pacific, Geopolitics, and Strategic Communications: Construction of ‘the Indo-Pacific’,” Defence Strategic Communications Vol. 14 (2024); “Unmapping the Indo-Pacific: A Strategic Communications Perspective,” Defence Strategic Communications Vol. 12 (2023); Review Article, “Change through Resonance in Classical Ballet,” Defence Strategic Communications, Vol. 15 (Spring 2025); and Strategic Communications (in Japanese), Nikkei BP (2022), among others.

Prof Aoi received her BA from Sophia University (Japan), MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (U.S.), and PhD from Columbia University (U.S.).