This talk examines the state of affairs of Japan’s security cooperation with NATO, the EU, and individual European states, and particularly focuses on Japanese and European participation in military operations and defence exchanges. My presentation will outline my proposed post-doctoral research project, and we will discuss each other’s ideas for future projects relating to security issues for Japan or Europe. My proposed project examines why, in three post-9/11 multinational operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and off the coast of Somalia, the Japan Self-Defense Forces had a propensity to cooperate with European forces rather than with Japan’s U.S. ally. Yet, in contrast to the U.S.’ other Asia-Pacific allies, Japan did not formally participate in EU nor NATO-led operations. Strategic culture, identity, interdependencies and alliance hedging, explanations advanced in International Relations studies, fail to account for Japan’s behaviour. Instead, I aim to show how multinational operations led by NATO, the EU, and U.S.-led coalitions vary in their decision-making procedures and command-and-control (C2) structures (e.g. ‘lead nation’ in the U.S.-led Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) vs ‘integrated’ in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan), and argue that this variation affects Japanese willingness to cooperate with European forces.

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