Mr. Nakatani Gen is a Member of the House of Representatives representing the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and a former Minister of Defense (2014-2016; 2024-2025). He served as a First Lieutenant in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force before being elected to the House of Representatives in 1990. Since then, he has been elected twelve consecutive times and has held a wide range of senior government and party leadership positions, including Director-General of the Japan Defense Agency, Deputy Secretary-General of the LDP, Chair of the Research Commission on Security Legislation, and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General. He has also served as Chair of the LDP Headquarters for the Promotion of Security Legislation and as Senior Acting Chair and Special Advisor for the Promotion of Constitutional Revision. In 2021, he was appointed Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for International Human Rights Issues. Mr. Nakatani graduated from the National Defense Academy of Japan.