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Dr. Michael Green
Former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs, National Security Council

Dr. Michael Green

In January 2004 Dr. Michael Green was commissioned Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.  He joined the NSC in April 2001 as Director of Asian Affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, and Australia/New Zealand.  From 1997 to 2000 he was Senior Fellow for Asian Security at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directed the Independent Task Force on Korea and study groups on Japan and security policy in Asia.  He served as Senior Advisor to the Office of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Department of Defense in 1997 and  a consultant to the same office until 2000.  From 1995-1997 he was a Research Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses.  From 1994-95 he was Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he remained a professorial lecturer until joining the NSC in 2001.  At SAIS he was also Associate Executive Director of the Foreign Policy Institute (1992-94) and Acting Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies (1999-2000).

Dr. Green speaks fluent Japanese.  He spent over five years in Japan working for a staff member of the National Diet, as a journalist for Japanese-language and American newspapers, and as a consultant for U.S. business.  He is the author of:  Japan’s Reluctant Realism: Foreign Policy in An Era of Uncertain Power (Palgrave/St. Martin’s, 2001); The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Past, Present and Future (co-editor, Council on Foreign Relations, 1999); Arming Japan: Defense Production, Alliance Politics and the Post-War Search for Autonomy (Columbia University Press, 1995); and a series of monographs and journal articles on issues ranging from the North Korean nuclear program to the history of U.S. foreign policy in Asia.

Dr. Green graduated from Kenyon College with Highest Honors in History in 1983 and received his M.A. from Johns Hopkins SAIS in 1987 and his Ph.D. in 1994.  He also did graduate work at Tokyo University as a Fulbright Fellow and with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Research Associate of the MIT-Japan Program.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute for International Security Studies.  Dr. Green is a native of Washington, D.C.  A teacher and adjudicator of the highland bagpipe, he is pipe major of the world champion City of Washington Pipe Band