Dr. Victor Cha joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. in May 2009. He is currently Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair at CSIS. He is also Vice Dean and professor of government and holds the D.S. Song-KF Chair in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University. He left the White House in 2007 after serving since 2004 as director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC). At the White House, he was responsible primarily for Japan, the Korean peninsula, Australia/New Zealand, and Pacific Island nation affairs. Dr. Cha was also the deputy head of delegation for the United States at the Six-Party Talks in Beijing and received two outstanding service commendations during his tenure at the NSC.
He is the author of six books, including the award-winning Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford University Press, 1999) (winner of the 2000 Ohira Book Prize), The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (Harper Collins Ecco, 2012), which was selected by Foreign Affairs as a “Best Book on the Asia-Pacific for 2012,” and Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton University Press, 2016). He is also co-authoring a new book on Korean history to be published by Yale University Press in 2023. He has published articles on international relations and East Asia in journals, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, Political Science Quarterly, Survival, International Studies Quarterly, International Journal of the History of Sport, and Asian Survey.
Dr. Cha is a former John M. Olin National Security Fellow at Harvard University, two-time Fulbright Scholar, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Scholar at Columbia University, and Hoover National Fellow, CISAC Fellow, and William J. Perry Fellow at Stanford University. He is currently a fellow in Human Freedom (non-resident) at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Cha serves on 10 editorial boards of academic journals and is co-editor of the Contemporary Asia Book Series at Columbia University Press. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Fulbright Association. He has been the principal investigator on 21 major research grant projects, ranging between $40,000 and $1.6 million from private foundations and the U.S. government. He has testified before Congress numerous times on Asian security issues. In 2018, he joined NBC and MSNBC as a contributor. Prior to joining NBC, he had been a guest analyst for various media including CNN, ABC, CBS, The Colbert Report, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Fox News, PBS, HuffPost, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, BBC, and National Public Radio. His op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, USA Today, Foreign Policy, Japan Times, FEER, and Financial Times. He works as an independent consultant helping clients in sectors ranging from business and finance to entertainment.
Dr. Cha received his Ph.D. in political science at Columbia University in 1994, his Master’s in international affairs from Columbia in 1988, an M.A. with honors in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University (Hertford College), and an A.B. in economics from Columbia in 1979.
Dr. John Park is the Director of the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His core research projects focus on deterrence, economic statecraft, nuclear proliferation, Asian alliances, and North Korean cyber operations. At Harvard University, he is an Associated Faculty Member of the Korea Institute, Faculty Member of the Committee on Regional Studies East Asia, and a Faculty Affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom. Dr. Park was the 2012-13 Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow at MIT’s Security Studies Program. He also directed Northeast Asia Track 1.5 dialogues at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. He advises Northeast Asia policy-focused officials in the U.S. government. Earlier, Dr. Park worked at Goldman Sachs and The Boston Consulting Group. He is a commentator on Asian geopolitical issues on CNN, BBC, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV. He also advises institutional investors on geopolitical risk in Asia-Pacific markets. Dr. Park’s key publications include: “Where Do Divergent U.S. and Chinese Approaches to Dealing with North Korea Lead?” in The China Questions II: Critical Insights into U.S.-China Relations (Harvard University Press, July 2022); “Micro Deterrence Signaling: Policy Innovation During the 2017 Korean Missile Crisis,” (Korea Project Report, Harvard Kennedy School, April 2022 – co-authored with General Vincent K. Brooks); “Stopping North Korea, Inc.: Sanctions Effectiveness and Unintended Consequences,” (MIT Security Studies Program, 2016 – co-authored with Dr. Jim Walsh); “The Key to the North Korean Targeted Sanctions Puzzle,” The Washington Quarterly (Fall 2014); “Assessing the Role of Security Assurances in Dealing with North Korea” in Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation (Stanford University Press, 2012); “North Korea, Inc.: Gaining Insights into North Korean Regime Stability from Recent Commercial Activities” (USIP Working Paper, May 2009); and “North Korea’s Nuclear Policy Behavior: Deterrence and Leverage,” in The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia (Stanford University Press, 2008). Dr. Park’s current research examines the North Korean regime’s accumulated learning in evading sanctions via cyber operations. He has testified on North Korea before the Senate Banking Committee, House Financial Services Committee, and House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Park received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He completed his predoctoral and postdoctoral training at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.
