Japan's Grand Strategy: Liminal Strategy in a Uncertain World

Join us for a book talk with Saori N. Katada (University of Southern California) and Kei Koga (Nanyang Technological University) on their new publication, Japan's Grand Strategy: Liminal Strategy in a Uncertain World (2026).

Date: March 13th, 2026

Time: 3:30 - 5 PM

Location: Room 120, UBC C.K. Choi Building

Talk Abstract:

Japan is a liminal power. It straddles contrasting identities in terms of its power status, ranging from a small power to a great power, shaped by fluctuating material capabilities, international status, and multiple, overlapping social or geographic affiliations (e.g. Western, modern, or Asian). This book employs a historical institutionalist approach to examine the evolution of Japan’s grand strategy as a liminal power from the Meiji period, starting in 1868 through the 2020s. Drawing from several chapters of the book, this talk focuses on the contemporary period, during which Japan has constructed its Indo–Pacific grand strategy featuring a “Free and Open Indo–Pacific.” Across these periods, shifts in the strategic environment opened a window of opportunity that enabled Japan’s core decision-makers to construct—or reconstruct—the country’s grand strategy.

Saori N. Katada is Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. She served as the vice president of the International Studies Association and on the editorial team of Review of International Political Economy. Her single-authored book, Japan's New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific, was published by Columbia University Press in 2020, and her co-authored book, Japan’s Grand Strategy: Liminal Power in an Uncertain World, with Kei Koga, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in March 2026. Her other single-authored book Banking on Stability: Japan and the Cross-Pacific Dynamics of International Financial Crisis Management (University of Michigan Press, 2001) received the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Book Award. Her research covers geoeconomics, international political economy of trade and finance, monetary policy, and Japanese foreign policy. Her Ph.D. is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her B.A. is from Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo). In her eleven books in English and three in Japanese, as well as in 100+ journal articles and chapters in both languages, her work covers geoeconomics, international political economy of trade and finance, monetary policy, and Japanese foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific. Katada is a research fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Japan Institute of International Affairs, and she has received prestigious awards and grants, including the Center for Global Partnerships, Intellectual Exchange Grant, and the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.

Kei Koga is Associate Professor/ Head of Division at the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Concurrently, he is a Nonresident Fellow at The National Bureau of Asia Research (NBR), the United States, and a member of RIPS Research Committee, the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS), Japan. His research focuses on International Security, International/Regional Institutions (particularly ASEAN), and East Asian/Indo-Pacific security. Previously, he was Japan Scholar at the Wilson Center in 2022; visiting fellow at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in 2017; a Japan-U.S. Partnership Fellow at the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS), Tokyo, in 2012-2014; Postdoctoral Fellow in the International Studies Program, The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, in 2012-2013; a Vasey Fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS in 2009–2010; and RSIS-MacArthur visiting associate fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU in 2010. He received his Ph.D. in International Relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He has published on topics that include East Asian/Indo-Pacific security, U.S. and Japanese foreign policies, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and ASEAN. His recent publications include: “Strategic and Functional Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific” (under advance contract with Cambridge University Press) and “Japan’s Grand Strategy: A Liminal Power in an Uncertain World” (Oxford University Press, 2026) [With Saori Katada].

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher UBC Centre for Japanese Research