Alessio Patalano is Professor of War & Strategy in East Asia at the Department of War Studies (DWS), and Co-Director of the Centre for Grand Strategy (CGS) at King’s College London (KCL). He specialises in maritime strategy and doctrine, Japanese military history and strategy, East Asian security, and European defence and foreign policy. Prof Patalano has extensive international experience in academic and military engagement, and policy advice. He taught at the UK Joint Command and Staff Services College (JSCSC), and held research positions at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the IRIS in Paris, and for KOMATSU Corporation, with responsibility to deliver timely high-impact risk analysis. He was visiting professor at the Italian Naval War College (ISMM), and held affiliations at Aoyama Gakuin University, the National Defence Academy, the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), and at the Japan Maritime Command and Staff College (JMCSC). Prof Patalano is an academic advisor to the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and was chair of the maritime strategy group of the Secretary of State’s Office for Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC) at the UK Ministry of Defence.

Beyond academia, Prof Patalano wa the first specialist advisor (SPAD) on the Indo-Pacific to the Foreign Affairs Committee (2022) in the UK Parliament to assess the impact of strategic stability in the Strait of Taiwan on UK national security. As part of his military engagement activities, he was embedded in the J-9 (Influence Operations) cell for the NATO Trident Juncture Exercise 2016 based at JFC Naples; he supported the Director of the Royal Navy’s Joint Exercise Training and Planning Staff (JTEPS) during Joint Warrior 2022, and participated as academic observer to the RIMPAC 2022 exercise. In 2024, he was the first political advisor to the Italian Navy Commander in Chief (CinC), for the Mare Aperto – POLARIS exercise, the largest naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea since the end of the Cold War (10k personnel, 50 ships). In 2023, he became the first academic to receive a Commendation of the Ambassador of Japan to the UK for outstanding contribution to the advancement of UK-Japan security ties. In 2024, he was awarded the Grey Distinguished Visiting Chair in defence studies at the Australian War College, Canberra.

Prof Patalano practices karate and boxing.

 

Research Interests

Prof. Patalano’s research on Japanese military history and strategy has received international recognition and has been recently credited to define the application of a strategic studies methodology to the study of contemporary Japanese security.

His current research focuses on Japanese military history, maritime strategy, Chinese and Russian hybrid and grey zone activities, maritime coercion and statecraft, maritime territorial disputes in the China Seas, Taiwan Strait maritime stability, AUKUS and maritime deterrence, and the relationship between military power and statecraft. Unfolding from this theme, he is currently writing a book on the impact of navies on statecraft and world order, titled 'Steel and Statecraft'. He maintains active research collaborations with institutions across continents, from North America, to the Indo-Pacific.

 

Selected Publications:

Monographs & Edited Volumes

• Patalano (with J. Russell and Cat Grant), eds., The New Age of Naval Power in the Indo-Pacific (Georgetown University Press, 2023).
• Patalano (with J. Russell), eds., Maritime Strategy and Naval Innovation: Technology, Bureaucracy, and the Problem of Change in the Age of Competition (Naval Institute Press, 2021).
• Patalano (with M. Faulkner), eds., The Sea and the Second World War: Maritime Aspects of a Global Conflict (University Press of Kentucky, 2019).
• Patalano, Japan as a Sea Power: Imperial Legacy, Wartime Experience, and the Making of the Post-war Navy (Bloomsbury, 2015).
• Patalano (ed.), Maritime Strategy and National Security in Japan and Britain. From the Alliance to Post-9/11 (Brill/Global Oriental, 2012).

Policy Papers – Impact Publications:

• Patalano, The Maritime War in Ukraine: The Limits of Russian Sea Control? (The Hague: The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, December 2024).
• Patalano (eds. with Antonio Missiroli), Contested Seas: European Security and the Fragmentation of the Maritime Order (ISPI, 2024).
• Patalano and Antonio Missiroli, ‘A Contested Global Order at Sea’, in Patalano and Missiroli, Contested Seas (ISPI 2024).
• Patalano, ‘Natural Partners in Challenging Waters? Japan-NATO Co-operation in a Changing Maritime Environment’, RUSI Journal, Vol. 161, 2016:3, 42-51.
• Patalano, ‘Nightmare Nostrum? Not Quite. Lessons from the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean Migrant Crisis’, RUSI Journal, Vol. 160, 2015:3, 14-19.
• Patalano, ‘Beyond the Gunboats: Rethinking Naval Diplomacy and Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief in East Asia’, RUSI Journal, Vol. 160, 2015:2, 32-39.

Peer reviewed Outputs:

(Articles)

• Patalano (with Dan Hallett), ‘The Strategic Significance of the Maritime Theatre in the Russia-Ukraine War’, RUSI Journal, 24 April 2025 – advance online copy.
• Patalano, ‘What is and Italian Carrier Strike Group Doing in the Indo-Pacific?’, War on the Rocks, 29 August 2024.
• Patalano (with Peter Watkins), ‘“Leap forward”: Building a GCAP Generation’, Freeman Air and Space Institute - Policy Paper 21 (London, 2024).
• Patalano, ‘What is China’s Strategy in the Senkaku Islands?’, War on the Rocks, 10 September 2020.
• Patalano (with G. Pugliese), ‘Diplomatic and Security Practice under Abe Shinzo: The Case for Realpolitik Japan’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, published online, 22 June 2020.
• Patalano, ‘The Silent Fight: Submarine Rearmament and the Origins of Japan’s Military Engagement with the Cold War, 1955-1976’, Cold War History, published online, 25 June 2019.
• Patalano, ‘When Strategy is Hybrid and Not Grey: Reviewing Chinese Military and Constabulary Coercion at Sea’, The Pacific Review, Vol. 31, 2018:6, 811-839.
• Patalano, ‘Japan as a Seapower: Strategy, Doctrine, and Capabilities under Three Defence Reviews, 1995-2010’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 37, 2014:3, 403-441.

(Book Chapters)

• • Patalano, ‘The Global Order at Sea: From Hierarchy of Power to Hierarchical Legitimacy?’, in William S. Moreira and Greg Kennedy (eds.), Power and the Maritime Domain: A Global Dialogue (Routledge, 2022), 11-27.
  • Patalano, ‘Japanese Military Diplomacy: Abe’s Security Legacy?’, in James D. Brown, Guibourg Delamotte, and Robert Dujarric (eds.), The Abe Legacy: How Japan Has Been Shaped by Abe Shinzo (Lexington Books, 2021), 107-126.
  • Patalano, ‘The United Kingdom and Indo-Pacific Security’ in Tim Huxley and Lynn Kuok (eds.), Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment (Singapore: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2021), 153-171.
  • Patalano, ‘Japanese Naval Power’, in Robert J Pekkanen and Saadia Pekkanen (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Politics (Oxford University Press, 2021).
  • Patalano, ‘Naval Warfare’, in David J. Galbreath and John R. Deni (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Defense Studies (Routledge, 2018), 198-213.
  • Patalano, ‘Japan as a Maritime Power: Deterrence, Diplomacy, and Maritime Security’ in Mary M. McCarthy (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2018), 155-172.
  • Patalano, ‘Feigning Grand Strategy: Japan, 1937-1945’, in Evan Mawdsley & Robert Citino (eds.), Cambridge History of Second World War (Vol. I, Cambridge University Press, 2015), 159-188.

For a full list of publications please visit the Research Portal or download this document: Alessio Patalano Publications

Teaching

• BA2 War and Strategy in East Asia
• BA3 Contemporary Strategy in East Asia
• MA East Asian Security

PhD supervision

Prof. Patalano is happy to consider supervision for projects concerning any aspect of military history, strategic, and security issues of Japan and modern/contemporary East Asia.