Alessio Patalano

Dr Patalano is Lecturer in War Studies at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, and specialises in Japanese naval history and strategy and contemporary maritime issues in East Asia. He is the Director of the Asian Security & Warfare Research Group and Research Associate at the King's China Institute. He holds degrees from the University of Naples (BA) and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris (DEA). Since 2006, he has been Visiting Lecturer in Naval Strategy and East Asian Security at the Italian Naval War College (ISMM), Venice. In Japan, Dr Patalano has been a Visiting Scholar at Aoyama Gakuin University and at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), both in Tokyo, and currently is Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University Japan.

Dr Patalano's research focuses on the role of sea power in the evolution of security in Northeast Asia across the 20th century. He is in the process of completing a major study of the impact of the Imperial Japanese Navy on the post-war navy's strategic thinking and doctrine and how, in turn, this process of re-examination of the past shaped Japanese defence policy in the post-war era.

He is currently involved in new research projects investigating two main areas. In relation to Japan, Dr Patalano's research is expanding to include the influence of interwar operations in China on the development of Japanese strategy before the Pacific War. In regard to wider security issues in East Asia, he is preparing two studies, one jointly with Prof Andrew Lambert, investigating the impact of sea power on international politics in the 20th Century and beyond, with specific reference to Northeast Asia in the Post-Cold War Period.