The Korean Missile Crisis of 2017 presented General Brooks with a unique opportunity to rethink deterrence and develop a dynamic playbook to change Kim Jong Un’s calculus. The result he called “micro deterrence signaling.”

With the swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, we asked Belfer Center experts for their insights on what this could mean for the region – and what actions concerned countries, including the U.S., might take now. 

Change is underway on the Korean Peninsula. At the Eighth Korean Workers’ Party Congress in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un orchestrated a decisive shift in the country’s bedrock economic and military policies. He moved away from his father’s “Military First” principle (Songun), which gave precedence to the Korea People’s Armed Forces, and supplanted it with an ideology of “People and Masses First” (Inmin Daejung Jaeil). This reorganization of North Korea’s system of governance empowers the ruling party at the expense of the KPAF, supporting Kim’s perpetual quest for power consolidation. More important, it sets the stage for efforts to resuscitate North Korea’s dying economy.

Few know the intricacies of the North Korean problem better than General Vincent K. Brooks, who retired from active duty in January 2019 as a four-star general in command of over 600,000 Koreans and Americans comprising the U.S. Forces Korea, U.N. Command and ROK-U.S. Combined Forces. He also previously served as commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific.

Now a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, General Brooks spoke to TIME about opportunities for a breakthrough with North Korea during the Biden Administration.

American troops and their allies have been conducting counter-terror operations and working to uphold the security of Afghanistan from Taliban extremists since shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. A deal negotiated between the Taliban and the Trump administration in February 2020 called on Western nations to withdraw all their forces by May 1 of this year. This week, President Biden announced that U.S. troops will complete their exit from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021. We reached out to several Belfer Center experts for their thoughts.  

A special conversation with Gen. (Ret.) Vincent Brooks, former Commander of UNC/CFC/USFK about the latest developments in the U.S.-ROK alliance and on the Korean peninsula. Hosted by CSIS.

"The recent turns of events in the United States, in cities across our great country, have caused within me feelings of dismay and disappointment," writes Gen. (ret.) Vincent K. Brooks.

"As an African American man, the feelings of inadequate and unfulfilled justice that I have felt for too many years of my life come again to the fore. And, as a retired career military officer from the family of a retired career military officer, I see again the threat of the use of the active duty military force on the streets of America, and I see the manipulation of the image of the military by our President. Dismay and disappointment."

Gen. (ret) Vincent Brooks was interviewed by Voice of America - Korea about gunfire in the DMZ coming from North Korea towards a South Korean guard post and the 30 minutes it took South Korea to respond.

Retired Marine Gen. Robert Neller, the former 37th commandant of the Marine Corp., and retired Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, former commander of U.S. Forces Korea, discuss how the military is supporting civic authorities as they respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

Belfer Center experts weigh in on potential impacts of the U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani.