Sugio Takahashi is a Director of Strategic Planning Division, Ministry of Defense, currently with a Director of Defense Policy Division, National Institute for Defense Studies. He led the formulation of the “Space Domain Defense Guidelines” in July 2025. He was a Director of Policy Simulation Office, NIDS from 2016-2020 and Deputy Director of the Office of Strategic Planning of Ministry of Defense from 2008 to 2016. In that capacity, he was in a drafting team of the National Defense Program Guidelines of 2010 and 2013. He received MA and BA from the Waseda University and MA from George Washington University. Mr. Takahashi has published extensively in the areas of nuclear strategy, the Japan-U.S. alliance, and East Asian regional security including China’s Strategic Arsenal: Worldview, Doctrine, and Systems (Georgetown University Press, 2021) (co-authored book, edited by James M. Smith and Paul J. Bolt).