role: Heads

Nobukatsu Kanehara served at the highest levels in the Government of Japan, where he was recognized as a leading diplomat and strategic voice on international affairs. He offers nuanced insights into Japanese national security priorities, as well as domestic political and policy dynamics.

Kanehara is a Senior Advisor to The Asia Group, based in Japan. Most recently, he served as Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012 to 2019. In 2013, Mr. Kanehara also became the inaugural Deputy Secretary-General of the National Security Secretariat, a role which he held until his retirement from government service in 2019. He also served as Deputy Director of the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office.

Mr. Kanehara’s role in the Cabinet built on a distinguished career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served in a number of notable positions. These included the Director-General of Bureau of International Law, Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Policy Bureau, Ambassador in charge of the United Nations and Human Rights, Deputy Director-General of European Affairs in charge of Russia and Eastern Europe, Director of the Ministry’s Policy Coordination Division, the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty Division. He served abroad as Deputy Chief of Mission in Seoul, Republic of Korea, Minister at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, the United States and Minister of the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations.

Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Mr. Kanehara entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs following his graduation from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law in 1981. Early during his career at the Ministry, he studied at the École Nationale d’Administration in France. He is the author of Senryaku Gaiko Genron: A Grand Strategy of Japan for the 21st Century (2011, Nihon-keizai-shinbumsha). He contributed an article titled “The power of Japan and its grand strategy” to Japan’s World Power  edited by Professor Guibourg Delamotte (2019, Routledge). He currently teaches at Doshisha University’s Faculty of Law as professor and has previously taught at the Faculty of Law and the Graduate School of Law at Waseda University. He is proficient in French, as well as Japanese and English. He was decorated by the president of Republic of France with Ordre de la Legion d’Honneur.

Kenneth R. Weinstein, a noted expert on international affairs and global security, is the Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow at Hudson Institute.

From 2011 through 2020, Dr. Weinstein served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Institute.  He joined the Institute in 1991, was appointed CEO in June 2005, and was named president and CEO in March 2011. Under his leadership since 2005, Hudson Institute grew significantly in size, prominence, visibility and impact, recruiting top-flight talent and advising officials around the globe.

Dr. Weinstein has written widely for publications in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, and the Yomiuri Shimbun. In 2006, he was decorated with a knighthood in arts and letters by the government of France. He serves on boards and advisory boards of organizations in the U.S., Asia, and Europe.

From January 2017 until May 2020, Dr. Weinstein chaired the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the oversight body for U.S. Agency for Global Media, and was chair of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting and the Open Technology Fund.

He is the co-editor of The Essential Herman Kahn: In Defense of Thinking (Lexington Books, 2009).

Dr. Weinstein serves on the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations, which provides counsel on trade agreements to United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai. In March 2020, he was nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan. His nomination was reported unanimously out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2020.

Dr. Weinstein earned his B.A. in General Studies in the Humanities from the University of Chicago, D.E.A. in Soviet and Eastern European Studies from Sciences-Po Paris, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

TANIGUCHI, Tomohiko is a Specially Appointed Professor at the University of Tsukuba and a special advisor to the Fujitsu Future Studies Center.

He served as a Special Advisor to ABE, Shinzo’s Cabinet from April 2013 until Mr. Abe stepped down as Prime Minister on September 16, 2020. Between February 2013 and March 2014, he was a Councillor, Cabinet Secretariat.

After working for the Japanese business weekly magazine Nikkei Business for about 20 years, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2005 and became Deputy Press Secretary and Deputy Secretary-General for Public Diplomacy. He also drafted numerous foreign policy speeches for then-Foreign Minister ASO, Taro and then-Prime Minister Abe until he left the ministry three years later.

From 1997 to 2000, while working for Nikkei Business magazine, he lived in London as the magazine’s sole correspondent covering European business and economies, and in 1999 Foreign Press Association in London elected him President, first from “the East of Suez.” He has also spent sabbaticals during his journalistic career, first at the then Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University as a Fulbright visiting fellow, at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies as a visiting fellow, and also at the Brookings Institution as a CNAPS Fellow.

From August 2008 to January 2013, he served as a full-time Executive Advisor to Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai), working for then-Chairman KASAI, Yoshiyuki (who has since passed away), while also serving as a special guest professor at Keio University’s Graduate School of System Design and Management (SDM) and as a visiting professor at Meiji University’s School of Global Japanese Studies. He earned a tenure position as a full-time professor at Keio SDM, April 2014, while continuing to serve Prime Minister Abe as his primary foreign policy speech writer. He terminated his tenure, having reached the mandatory retirement age, March 2023. In addition to the positions mentioned at the outset, he is currently a Visiting Professor at Takushoku University’s Institute of World Studies and a Senior Fellow at the GRIPS Alliance of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

He holds an LL.B. in Law from the University of Tokyo, a Ph.D. in National Security from Takushoku University, and has authored or co-authored more than 10 books on international affairs. One of his most recent books is “Prime Minister Abe’s Speeches,” and he has appeared live numerous times on the BBC, Al Jazeera English, CNN, CNA, TRT, and the like.

Dr. William Schneider, Jr. is a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute.  Dr. Schneider served as Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science, and Technology.  He previously served as Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget prior to be nominated as Under Secretary by President Ronald Reagan.

In addition, Dr. Schneider serves as an advisor to the U.S. Government in several capacities. He is currently an advisor to the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State as well as the intelligence community.  As a U.S. Senate appointee, Dr. Schneider recently served as a member of the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise.  He served as Chairman of the Defense Science Board (DSB) from 2001 to 2009 and currently serves as a member of the DSB.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates awarded Dr. Schneider the DoD’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service in November 2009.  In 2018, Secretary of Defense James Mattis conferred the Fubini Award on Dr. Schneider for his “exemplary scientific and technical contributions” to the DoD mission. He also served on several commissions to review intelligence-related activities, including the “Rumsfeld Commission” (i.e., the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Mission Threat to the United States) on current and emerging ballistic missile threats to the United States as well as on a National Reconnaissance Office, and the Intelligence Community Strategic Studies Group under the Director of National Intelligence.  Dr. Schneider was the founder and former Chairman of the Department of State’s Defense Trade Advisory Group (1992-2018).  Previously, he served as Chairman of the General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament from 1987 until 1993.  He serves as a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics.  Dr. Schneider was nominated by the President and in August 2019 was confirmed by the US Senate to serve as a Member of the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Schneider’s responsibilities at the Department of State included management of U.S. foreign economic and military assistance abroad, export control policy (including serving as Chairman of the Senior Interagency Group on the Transfer of Strategic Technology), international telecommunications and information policy (including serving as Chairman of the Senior Interagency Group on International Telecommunications and Information Policy), and supervision of U.S. science attaches posted at U.S. embassies.

Dr. Schneider is an economist and defense analyst who formerly was a staff associate of the Subcommittees on Defense and Foreign Operations for the Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. House of Representatives as well as a consultant to the Hudson Institute.  Prior to joining the House staff, he was a Senate staff member and professional staff member of the Hudson Institute.

Dr. Schneider received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1968.  He is a member of the American Economic Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Simon Chelton is Managing Director of Cheltons Consulting Ltd, a consultancy that has been working since 2012 with UK and Japanese defence companies to help develop collaborative opportunities between the two countries, under the auspices of new government agreements. He visits Japan several times a year and works closely with Japanese government and industry.

Simon spent over 30 years in the Royal Navy as a Logistics Officer in ships and submarines, and served three times in Japan, including attending the National Institute for Defence Studies in 1994/5 and serving in the UK Embassy in Tokyo as Defence Attaché between 2003 and 2007.

On leaving the Navy in 2009, he was Vice President for Corporate and Business Development North East Asia at BAE Systems with a focus on supporting a strategic initiative to work more closely with Japan. He also represented BAE on the UK/Japan 21st Century Group, a bilateral government advisory panel.

Simon is also, since 2013, an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) based in London, with a focus on Japanese defence and defence industrial policy.