Brexit was a bolt out of the blue, one with strategic, economic, and political implications not just for countries across the Atlantic, but also for ones in the Asia-Pacific, particularly Japan. On the strategic front, as Britain begins to determine how to move forward while exiting the European Union, if indeed it does, the nation's interest in Asia-Pacific security will likely wane, at least temporarily, just as Japan was ramping up its relations with the country.

Aside from France, which maintains a small naval fleet in the Pacific, the United Kingdom is the only other member of the EU and NATO that maintains Pacific interests, including through the Five Power Defense Arrangements it has with Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. In addition, London and Tokyo have deepened their ties with the launch last year of the annual "2+2" U.K.-Japan Foreign and Defense Ministerial meeting.

Meanwhile, in late August this year, JDS Kashima, flagship of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force Training Squadron, is scheduled to lay anchor on the banks of the River Thames, directly across the river from the London Eye Ferris wheel. The port call will allow Londoners a view of Japan's naval flag for the first time since 1902, the year in which Britain came out of its "glorious isolation" to forge the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In late autumn, Royal Air Force Typhoon fighters, tankers and convoy aircraft will reciprocate with a visit to Japan for the first-ever joint air drill with the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force.