March 1, 2007

Dr. James E. Auer
Director of the Center for U.S.-Japan Studies and Cooperation,
Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, Vanderbilt University

Topic:  "China, Economic Opportunity or Military Threat to the U.S. and Japan in the 21st Century"

JAMES E. AUER is the Director of the Center for U.S.-Japan Studies and Cooperation at the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies.   He teaches U.S.-Japan relations and the history of sea power to liberal arts and engineering students and has served as Adjunct Professor of Management at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management and Research Professor of the Management of Technology at the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering.  From April 1979 until September 1988, he served as Special Assistant for Japan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  He served in the U.S. Navy from 1963 to 1983 in a number of positions, largely in Japan.  These included visiting student at the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Staff College (equivalent of the U.S. Navy War College) in Tokyo, and commanding officer of a guided missile frigate homeported in Yokosuka.

He holds an A.B. degree from Marquette University and a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.  His thesis, The Postwar Rearmament of Japanese Maritime Forces 1945-1971, was published in English by Praeger Publishers and in Japanese translation by the Jiji Press under the title Yomigaeru Nippon Kaigun.