Richard Samuels

Richard Samuels

Ford International Professor Professor of Political Science

Director, Center for International Studies

CV

Japanese politics; Asian security; Grand Strategy; Political Leadership.

Biography

Richard Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been head of the MIT Political Science Department, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council, and chair of the Japan-US Friendship Commission. He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and was awarded an Imperial decoration, the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Prime Minister. His study of the political and policy consequences of the 2011 Tohoku catastrophe, 3:11: Disaster and Change in Japan, was published by Cornell University Press in 2013. Samuels' Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia, was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book in international affairs in 2007. Machiavelli's Children won the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies and the Jervis-Schroeder Prize from the International History and Politics section of American Political Science Association. Earlier books were awarded prizes from the Association for Asian Studies, the Association of American University Press, and the Ohira Memorial Foundation. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, International Security, Political Science Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, The National Interest, Journal of Japanese Studies, and Daedalus. From 2014-2019, he was Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, and his latest book, Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community, was named one of the “Best of Books 2019” by the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs.

Research

Japan’s Intelligence and Security: Examination of recent changes in the Japanese intelligence community and their relevance to national security strategy.

Secrecy, Privacy, and International Relations: Project considers how norms about secrecy, privacy, surveillance, and transparency are generated and observed or transgressed—and how they affect international relations. It also considers how the new information ecology affects behaviors of states in the international system.

Japan and the United States in East Asia: With the rise of China and the end of the Cold War, the great power quadrilateral in East Asia has shifted. While the Japan-US alliance continues to anchor regional stability, the domestic politics that support it in both countries are also shifting. This project explores how security policy choices are constrained and enabled by changing security policy discourses in Washington and Tokyo.

Recent Publications

Special Duty: A History of Japan’s Intelligence Community. Forthcoming from Cornell University Press and Nikkei Publishing (Japanese translation).

“A New Military Strategy for Japan,” Foreign Affairs (web), 16 July 2018 (with Eric Heginbotham.)

“Japan's National Security Council: filling the whole of government?,” International Affairs, Volume 94, Issue 4, 1 July 2018, Pages 773–790 (with Mayumi Fukushima.)

“Japan's Pivot in Asia,” International Affairs (Special Issue), Volume 94, Issue 4, 1 July 2018 (co-edited with and Corey Wallace.)

“Active Denial: Redesigning Japan's Response to China's Military Challenge.” International Security, (Spring 2018) Vol. 42, No. 04, pp. 128–169 (with Eric Heginbotham.)

“With friends like these: Japan-ROK cooperation and US policy,” The ASAN Forum, 1 March 2018 (with Eric Heginbotham.)

“Japan’s Energy Security: Strategic Discourse and Domestic Politics,” chapter in Mike M. Mochizuki and Deepa Ollapally (eds.), Energy Security in Asia and Eurasia. London: Routledge, 2017 (with Mike M. Mochizuki.)

“Japan’s Nuclear Hedge: Beyond ‘Allergy’ and ‘Breakout’” chapter in Ashley Tellis, ed. Strategic Asia 2013-2014: Asia in the Second Nuclear Age. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013, pp.233-264 (with James Schoff.) (pdf)

“Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century” Chapter 5 in Henry Nau and Deepa Olapally, eds., Worldviews of Aspiring Powers. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.146-180 (with Narushige Michishita.)

Teaching

17.486 Japan and East Asian Security
17.53 Rise of Asia (with Professors Fravel and Narang)
17.488 Simulating Global Dynamics and War
17.538 Politics and Policy in Contemporary Japan
17.541/17.543 Introduction to Japanese Politics and Society
17.591 Research Seminar in Applied International Studies

News

A look at Japan’s evolving intelligence efforts

October 8, 2019 Peter Dizikes MIT News

Once upon a time — from the 1600s through the 1800s — Japan had a spy corps so famous we know their name today: the ninjas, intelligence agents serving the ruling Tokugawa family.

Japan's whack-a-mole foreign policy

September 30, 2019 Richard J. Samuels The Boston Globe

Japanese leaders have recently faced a furious barrage of foreign policy and national security challenges, some of their own making. Each has presented itself as if a game of whack-a-mole—some in which the unhidden and unpredictable hand of President Trump has been prominent.

Japan’s pivot in Asia

July 22, 2018 Richard J. Samuels and Corey Wallace Oxford University Press Blog

Tokyo is wary of Trump’s treatment of traditional American allies in Europe and Asia, and it is apprehensive about what compromises Trump might make in search of a ‘deal’ with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK.) Trump’s foreign policy behaviour makes strategic autonomy for some in Japan even more attractive.

A New Military Strategy for Japan

July 16, 2018 Eric Heginbotham and Richard Samuels Foreign Affairs

Japan confronts an increasingly difficult security environment. Despite the current media attention on North Korea, a very real but largely one-dimensional nuclear threat, Japanese strategists are concerned primarily with the broader and more multidimensional challenge posed by the rise of China and its territorial ambitions in the East China Sea.

Biography

Richard Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been head of the MIT Political Science Department, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council, and chair of the Japan-US Friendship Commission. He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and was awarded an Imperial decoration, the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Prime Minister. His study of the political and policy consequences of the 2011 Tohoku catastrophe, 3:11: Disaster and Change in Japan, was published by Cornell University Press in 2013. Samuels' Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia, was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book in international affairs in 2007. Machiavelli's Children won the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies and the Jervis-Schroeder Prize from the International History and Politics section of American Political Science Association. Earlier books were awarded prizes from the Association for Asian Studies, the Association of American University Press, and the Ohira Memorial Foundation. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, International Security, Political Science Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, The National Interest, Journal of Japanese Studies, and Daedalus. From 2014-2019, he was Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, and his latest book, Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community, was named one of the “Best of Books 2019” by the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs.

Research

Japan’s Intelligence and Security: Examination of recent changes in the Japanese intelligence community and their relevance to national security strategy.

Secrecy, Privacy, and International Relations: Project considers how norms about secrecy, privacy, surveillance, and transparency are generated and observed or transgressed—and how they affect international relations. It also considers how the new information ecology affects behaviors of states in the international system.

Japan and the United States in East Asia: With the rise of China and the end of the Cold War, the great power quadrilateral in East Asia has shifted. While the Japan-US alliance continues to anchor regional stability, the domestic politics that support it in both countries are also shifting. This project explores how security policy choices are constrained and enabled by changing security policy discourses in Washington and Tokyo.

Recent Publications

Special Duty: A History of Japan’s Intelligence Community. Forthcoming from Cornell University Press and Nikkei Publishing (Japanese translation).

“A New Military Strategy for Japan,” Foreign Affairs (web), 16 July 2018 (with Eric Heginbotham.)

“Japan's National Security Council: filling the whole of government?,” International Affairs, Volume 94, Issue 4, 1 July 2018, Pages 773–790 (with Mayumi Fukushima.)

“Japan's Pivot in Asia,” International Affairs (Special Issue), Volume 94, Issue 4, 1 July 2018 (co-edited with and Corey Wallace.)

“Active Denial: Redesigning Japan's Response to China's Military Challenge.” International Security, (Spring 2018) Vol. 42, No. 04, pp. 128–169 (with Eric Heginbotham.)

“With friends like these: Japan-ROK cooperation and US policy,” The ASAN Forum, 1 March 2018 (with Eric Heginbotham.)

“Japan’s Energy Security: Strategic Discourse and Domestic Politics,” chapter in Mike M. Mochizuki and Deepa Ollapally (eds.), Energy Security in Asia and Eurasia. London: Routledge, 2017 (with Mike M. Mochizuki.)

“Japan’s Nuclear Hedge: Beyond ‘Allergy’ and ‘Breakout’” chapter in Ashley Tellis, ed. Strategic Asia 2013-2014: Asia in the Second Nuclear Age. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013, pp.233-264 (with James Schoff.) (pdf)

“Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century” Chapter 5 in Henry Nau and Deepa Olapally, eds., Worldviews of Aspiring Powers. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.146-180 (with Narushige Michishita.)

Teaching

17.486 Japan and East Asian Security
17.53 Rise of Asia (with Professors Fravel and Narang)
17.488 Simulating Global Dynamics and War
17.538 Politics and Policy in Contemporary Japan
17.541/17.543 Introduction to Japanese Politics and Society
17.591 Research Seminar in Applied International Studies

News

A look at Japan’s evolving intelligence efforts

October 8, 2019 Peter Dizikes MIT News

Once upon a time — from the 1600s through the 1800s — Japan had a spy corps so famous we know their name today: the ninjas, intelligence agents serving the ruling Tokugawa family.

Japan's whack-a-mole foreign policy

September 30, 2019 Richard J. Samuels The Boston Globe

Japanese leaders have recently faced a furious barrage of foreign policy and national security challenges, some of their own making. Each has presented itself as if a game of whack-a-mole—some in which the unhidden and unpredictable hand of President Trump has been prominent.

Japan’s pivot in Asia

July 22, 2018 Richard J. Samuels and Corey Wallace Oxford University Press Blog

Tokyo is wary of Trump’s treatment of traditional American allies in Europe and Asia, and it is apprehensive about what compromises Trump might make in search of a ‘deal’ with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK.) Trump’s foreign policy behaviour makes strategic autonomy for some in Japan even more attractive.

A New Military Strategy for Japan

July 16, 2018 Eric Heginbotham and Richard Samuels Foreign Affairs

Japan confronts an increasingly difficult security environment. Despite the current media attention on North Korea, a very real but largely one-dimensional nuclear threat, Japanese strategists are concerned primarily with the broader and more multidimensional challenge posed by the rise of China and its territorial ambitions in the East China Sea.