Professor Alessio Patalano

Professor Alessio Patalano is Professor of War and Strategy in East Asia at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He specialises in maritime strategy and doctrine, Japanese military history and strategy, East Asian security, and British defence policy towards the Indo-Pacific.

Professor Patalano is the Director of the King’s Japan Programme at the Centre for Grand Strategy, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Visiting Professor at the Japan Maritime Command and Staff College, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University, Japan.

He is a Senior Fellow at the think tanks Policy Exchange, Royal United Services Institute, and Sir Herbert Richmond Fellow on naval strategy at the Council on Geostrategy. He is also visiting fellow at the Royal Navy Centre for Strategic Studies and non-resident fellow at the Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Centre. From 2006 to 2015, he was visiting professor at the Italian Naval War College, Venice.

In Japan, Professor Patalano has held affiliations at Aoyama Gakuin University, the National Defence Academy, and at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. In 2022, Professor Patalano became the first specialist advisor on the Indo-Pacific to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the UK Parliament.

He is an active media commentator and writer, and collaborates on international documentaries. Professor Patalano is also regularly involved in military education - developing and delivering programmes on East Asian affairs.