Jonathan D. Pollack
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center
Jonathan D. Pollack is a nonresident senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center and Center for East Asia Policy at the Brookings Institution. Between 2012 and 2014, he served as director of the John L. Thornton China Center. Prior to joining Brookings in 2010, he was professor of Asian and Pacific Studies and chairman of the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. He previously worked at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, where he served in various senior research and management positions, including chairman of the political science department, corporate research manager for international policy and senior advisor for international policy.
Pollack’s principal research interests include Chinese national security strategy; U.S.-China relations; U.S. strategy in Asia and the Pacific; Korean politics and foreign policy; Asian international politics; and nuclear weapons and international security. He received his master's and doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan, and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University. He has taught at Brandeis University, the Rand Graduate School of Policy Studies, University of California Los Angeles, and the Naval War College. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and an emeritus member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control, a standing committee of the National Academy of Sciences.
Pollack has authored or edited over two dozen books and research monographs, and has contributed to numerous edited volumes and leading professional journals in the United States, Asia, and Europe on China’s international strategies, the political and security dynamics of the Korean Peninsula, East Asian international politics and U.S. foreign, and defense policies in Asia and the Pacific. His publications include: "Strategic Surprise? U.S.-China Relations in the Early 21st Century" (2004); "Korea-The East Asian Pivot" (2006); and "Asia Eyes America: Regional Perspectives on U.S. Asia-Pacific Strategy in the 21st Century" (2007). His latest book, "No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, and International Security," was published in 2011 by Routledge for the International Institute for Strategic Studies; the Asan Institute of Policy Studies published a revised Korean language edition in 2012. His current research, to be published as Endangered Order: Revisionism and Strategic Risk in Northeast Asia, focuses on the strategic ambitions and fears of the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, and their consequences for the future regional order.
Affiliations:
Asian Affairs-An American Review, member, editorial board
China Security, member, editorial board
Council on Foreign Relations, member
Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, member
International Institute for Strategic Studies, member
Journal of Contemporary China, member, editorial board
Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, member, editorial board
National Committee on United States-China Relations, member
Jonathan D. Pollack is a nonresident senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center and Center for East Asia Policy at the Brookings Institution. Between 2012 and 2014, he served as director of the John L. Thornton China Center. Prior to joining Brookings in 2010, he was professor of Asian and Pacific Studies and chairman of the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. He previously worked at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, where he served in various senior research and management positions, including chairman of the political science department, corporate research manager for international policy and senior advisor for international policy.
Pollack’s principal research interests include Chinese national security strategy; U.S.-China relations; U.S. strategy in Asia and the Pacific; Korean politics and foreign policy; Asian international politics; and nuclear weapons and international security. He received his master’s and doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan, and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University. He has taught at Brandeis University, the Rand Graduate School of Policy Studies, University of California Los Angeles, and the Naval War College. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and an emeritus member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control, a standing committee of the National Academy of Sciences.
Pollack has authored or edited over two dozen books and research monographs, and has contributed to numerous edited volumes and leading professional journals in the United States, Asia, and Europe on China’s international strategies, the political and security dynamics of the Korean Peninsula, East Asian international politics and U.S. foreign, and defense policies in Asia and the Pacific. His publications include: “Strategic Surprise? U.S.-China Relations in the Early 21st Century” (2004); “Korea-The East Asian Pivot” (2006); and “Asia Eyes America: Regional Perspectives on U.S. Asia-Pacific Strategy in the 21st Century” (2007). His latest book, “No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, and International Security,” was published in 2011 by Routledge for the International Institute for Strategic Studies; the Asan Institute of Policy Studies published a revised Korean language edition in 2012. His current research, to be published as Endangered Order: Revisionism and Strategic Risk in Northeast Asia, focuses on the strategic ambitions and fears of the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, and their consequences for the future regional order.
Affiliations:
Asian Affairs-An American Review, member, editorial board
China Security, member, editorial board
Council on Foreign Relations, member
Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, member
International Institute for Strategic Studies, member
Journal of Contemporary China, member, editorial board
Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, member, editorial board
National Committee on United States-China Relations, member
There might be some kind of a broad document signed in Singapore, we don’t know yet, that would mark at least, on paper, the formal end of the Korean war, the formal end of hostilities on the Korean peninsula. But the problem with that is that hostilities have not ended on the Korean peninsula. North Korea is armed to the teeth, South Korea also has very substantial capabilities of it’s own, the United States has a very significant presence, so none of those things have changed and that is not even getting into the question of the long-term status of North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities.
We’ve been in situations like this before where the North and South [Koreas] have made momentary accommodation with one another, [but] right now the stakes are much higher, because you now have nuclear weapons deployed in North Korea, you have long-range missiles, you have a variety of threats to the region. Unless and until those issues can be meaningfully addressed, we…may be in a cessation of hostilities, but the possibility of war would be ever present.
President Trump agreed to [the summit with Kim Jong-un] initially on a very impulsive basis, without any kind of consultations with his immediate circle, without any consideration of the complexities of it and, frankly, with the belief that somehow North Korea could be talked out of its nuclear weapons.
It just seemed to me that ultimately even Trump had to face the music on this [potential summit meeting with Kim Jong-un] and simply cancel it. The North Koreans have never said they would give up their nuclear weapons. Never. And it might have behooved the administration if they had paid more attention to what North Korea says very, very consistently.
