The Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) and the Pacific Forum were pleased and honored to again co-host the 19th annual Japan-US Security Seminar on March 15-16, 2013. Our chief task this year was properly assessing the regional security environment as North Korea ramped up its provocative behavior and bellicose rhetoric and China increasingly asserted itself in regional affairs, regardless of the unease that those actions created among neighbors and other concerned parties. We struggled to understand the motivations of those governments and others; without a proper appreciation of their thinking, it will be difficult if not impossible to fashion policies that will safeguard regional peace and security.
