Lt Gen (ret) Jun Nagashima is a Senior Research Advisor at Nakasone Peace Institute in Japan. He served as a Government of Japan Cabinet Councillor starting in August 2013, and also as Deputy Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary at the National Security Secretariat from January 2014. He is the first military officer to hold the position of Cabinet Councillor in Japan. His extensive career includes critical assignments as Defence Attaché and Liaison Officer to NATO and the EU at the Embassy of Japan in Belgium; Director, Logistics (J-4), at the Joint Staff Office, and Defence Intelligence Officer at the Defence Intelligence Headquarters. His last military position before retirement, in August 2019, from active service in the Self-Defence Forces was Commandant of Air Command & Staff College / Centre for Air Power Strategic Studies. He has since been Executive Director of the Japan Institute for Space and Security (JISS); Adjunct Professor at the National Defence Academy; Director of Japan Society for Defence Studies, and Visiting Scholar at Daniel K Inouye Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies (DKI APCSS). Since late 2023, he has been Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the Republic of Burkina Faso. He is a graduate of Generals, Flag Officers, and Ambassadors Course at NATO Defence College in Rome and earned his MA degree in European Security from Tsukuba University. He is a prolific writer of academic essays and books including New Battle in Outer Space (PHP Institute, 2024), New Territorial Security: Legal Issues Concerning Cyber, Space, and Unmanned Weapons (Wedge, 2024), and “Proliferation of Ballistic Missiles and Security of East Asia” in The Journal of National Defense (1994) which won the prestigious Kamiya Fuji prize.
