Greetings from Honolulu

A long-time reader, Galrahn asked me if I would like to start contributing to Information Dissemination a few months back. At the time I was focused on a number of other priorities, but I now find myself with more time to take him up on his kind offer.

In keeping with the tradition of this blog, a little background: I grew up in upstate New York and, with the encouragement of my Canadian parents, chose to attend school up north at The University of Western Ontario were I completed both a BA and MA in Political Science. After graduating in 2007 I went on to work as the defense RA to Mackenzie Eaglen at The Heritage Foundation for two years before departing in July 2009 to matriculate into the Strategic Studies M.Sc. program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

I completed my studies at RSIS in June and am currently one of two inaugural Sasakawa Fellows at CSIS’s Asia branch, Pacific Forum, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The SPF fellowship was designed to foster the next-generation of Asia practitioners dedicated to deepening the US-Japan alliance.

During my time at Heritage and studying under Professor Geoffrey Till in Singapore my interest in seapower has grown. In no small part, the daily discussions I have tuned in to over the last 2 1/2 years on Information Dissemination and other naval-centric blogs contributed to this process. As such, the focus of my 6 months here at Pacific Forum (in addition to my time at Duke's and on the Waikiki beach) will be on producing a manuscript on the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force for submission to a peer-reviewed journal next spring. While a wealth of knowledge continues to be developed on the PLAN, the level of intellectual consideration for the trajectory of the JMSDF (save a few scholars) is sorely lacking. I hope to be able to contribute in some way to the process of remedying this deficit. In addition to a number of conferences, my research will take me to Japan for 6 weeks later this fall.

In the months ahead I plan to offer some of my thoughts on the passing scene as well as to introduce relevant portions of my research findings on the JMSDF. I look forward to all of your feedback and the broader engagement that I am sure will follow.

Mahalo!