James L. Schoff is senior director of the “U.S.-Japan NEXT Alliance Initiative” at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA (based in Washington, DC). As leader of this initiative, Schoff fosters networking and development of joint recommendations involving a wide range of policy and technical specialists, in and out of government, to stimulate new alliance connections across foreign, security, and technology policy areas. The purpose is to help improve the alliance and how it serves shared interests, preparing it for new challenges in an increasingly complex and fluid geostrategic environment.

Previously, Schoff was a senior fellow and director of the Japan Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for nine years, following two years as senior adviser for East Asia policy at the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense. Schoff’s career spans over thirty years working in the fields of business, education, government, and the non-profit sector, all related to Japan, East Asia, and the U.S.-Japan alliance. He is a columnist for the Japanese magazine Shukan Toyo Keizai, and his publications include “A High-Tech Alliance: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Collaboration” (Carnegie, 2021), Uncommon Alliance for the Common Good: The United States and Japan after the Cold War (Carnegie, 2017), and Tools for Trilateralism: Improving U.S.–Japan–Korea Cooperation to Manage Complex Contingencies (Potomac Books, 2005).