Robert D. Eldridge, Ph.D. serves as an advisor to numerous regional organizations on matters of international security, development, trade, alliance management, disaster response, international education, and human rights, and has been affiliated with several think tanks, including the Asia-Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management, Nakasone Peace Research Institute, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, Japan International Security Forum, Japan Institute of International Affairs, and Hosei University’s Institute of Okinawan Studies, all in Tokyo, and Okinawa International University’s Institute of Law and Politics.
In October 2017, he was named Policy Advisor and International Exchange Ambassador for Taka Town, Hyogo Prefecture, where he first served as an Assistant English Teacher on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program(me) from 1990-1992. In April 2023, he joined the boards of RITA Gakuen (a high school dedicated to service before self), Animal Refuge Kansai, Japan-Taiwan Friendship Cultural Association, and the Kansai Forum for Japan-U.S. Intellectual Exchange, where he serves as Vice President.
A native of the United States, Dr. Eldridge earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Kobe University in 1999 and taught International Public Policy at Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy from 2001 to 2009, with a focus on international security and bilateral disaster response. He then joined the U.S. Department of Defense as the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, Marine Corps Bases Japan, and served in that capacity until 2015, where he implemented alternative approaches to community relations, public diplomacy, and alliance management based on transparency, dialogue, and proactive outreach.
During that time, he served as the political advisor for the forward-deployed command of U.S. Forces Japan after the March 2011 disaster and launched the Disaster Cooperation Program to build cooperative relations between local communities and the U.S. Marine Corps in preparation for the next major disaster. Upon leaving DOD, he established his own institute and consulting firm, and continues to assist the stricken area as the founder of the Oshima Children’s Fund and Shorai Foundation. In 2021, he co-founded Diplomatic Support Services, Inc., which advises foreign embassies in Japan.
He often speaks at international academic conferences and Track II meetings, as well as a guest commentator on television and radio. He writes regular columns in The Japan Times, Japan Forward, Gendai Business, Sekai Nippo, and several monthly journals. Dr. Eldridge has won numerous awards for his public service and writings, including the prestigious Suntory Academic Award (2003), Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro Award (2012), and Ohira Masayoshi Award (2016).
He is the author of dozens of books and hundreds of articles and op-eds on U.S.-Japan relations, Okinawa, and Japanese politics, including The Origins of the Bilateral Okinawa Problems: Okinawa in Postwar U.S.-Japan Relations, 1945-1952 (Routledge, 2001), Secret Talks Between Tokyo and Washington: The Memoirs of Miyazawa Kiichi, 1949-1954 (Lexington, 2007, translation), Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, co-edited with Paul Midford), An Inoffensive Rearmament: The Making of the Postwar Japanese Army (Naval Institute Press, 2013, edited memoirs of Colonel Kowalski), Japan’s Backroom Politics: Factions in a Multiparty Age (Lexington, 2013, trans.), The Diplomatic History of Postwar Japan (Routledge, 2010, trans.), The Origins of U.S. Policy in the East China Sea Islands Dispute: Okinawa’s Reversion and the Senkaku Islands (Routledge, 2014), Megaquake (Potomac, 2015, trans.), The Prime Ministers of Postwar Japan: Their Lives and Times (Lexington, 2016, trans.), The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force: Search for Legitimacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, co-edited with Paul Midford), Operation Tomodachi (Reed International, 2017), Changing Security Policies in Postwar Japan: The Political Biography of Sakata Michita (Lexington, 2017, trans.), The Japan Self-Defense Forces Law (Cambridge Scholars, 2019), Okinawa and the U.S. Marine Corps, An “Alliance Asset,” and Okinawa’s Media and the Media’s Okinawa (all from Reed International in 2019), Japan’s Military Power (Cambridge Scholars, 2020, trans.), Japan as an Immigration Nation (Lexington, 2020, trans), and The Meiji Japanese Who Made Modern Taiwan (Lexington, 2022, trans). He is currently writing books on regional development in Japan, youth engagement, and countryside wisdom.
Dr. Eldridge and his family reside in Hyogo Prefecture, where he recently co-founded the study group, “Power Up in Kawanishi in the Morning,” at a café run by those with special needs, at which he also established a Japanese and English language bookstore. When he is not walking with his dog, Beau, or visiting with his nearby in-laws, he can be reached at robert@reedintl.com.
