Sugio Takahashi is Research Director and Head of the Defense Policy Division at the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) in Tokyo. From 2024 to 2026 he was Director of the Strategic Planning Division at Japan’s Ministry of Defense. He previously served as Director of the Policy Simulation Office at NIDS (2016–2020) and as Deputy Director of the Office of Strategic Planning at the Ministry of Defense (2008–2016), where he was a member of the teams that drafted the 2010 and 2013 National Defense Program Guidelines and the Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation. He has published widely on nuclear strategy, the Japan-U.S. alliance and East Asian regional security, including as a contributor to China’s Strategic Arsenal: Worldview, Doctrine, and Systems (Georgetown University Press, 2021), edited by James M. Smith and Paul J. Bolt. He holds a BA and an MA from Waseda University and an MA from George Washington University.
Sugio Takahashi
Head of Defense Division, National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS), Japan Ministry of Defense