Please RSVP to brian.rose@nps.edu

Prof. Tristan Volpe (NPS Department of Defense Analysis) invites students, faculty, and staff to join scholar and former OSD strategist Dr. Van Jackson for a discussion on the 2017 North Korean nuclear crisis, the nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea, and potential pathways forward. The talk will be held 1 February 2019 in ME Auditorium 1030-1200.

Dr. Jackson's new book, On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War, traces the origins of the first American nuclear crisis in the post-Cold War era and explains the fragile, highly unpredictable way that it ended. Grounded in security studies and informed analysis of the US response to North Korea's increasing nuclear threat, the nuclear crisis on the peninsula is analyzed in the context of prior US policy failures, the geopolitics of East Asia, North Korean strategic culture and the acceleration of its nuclear program. Jackson argues that the Trump administration's policy of 'maximum pressure' brought the world much closer to inadvertent nuclear war than many realize - and charts a course for the prevention of future conflicts.

Dr. Van Jackson is an American political scientist, strategist, and media commentator specializing in Asian security and defense affairs. He is a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington, as well as the Defence and Strategy Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies in Wellington, New Zealand. Jackson's first book was Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in US-North Korea Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2016). His latest book is On the Brink: Trump, Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Van has testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and is a frequent commentator in popular media and policy outlets. He was previously a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow (2014-15). From 2009 to 2014, Jackson held positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a strategist and policy adviser focused on the Asia-Pacific, senior country director for Korea, and working group chair of the U.S.–Republic of Korea Extended Deterrence Policy Committee. He is the recipient of multiple awards in OSD, including the Exceptional Civilian Service Medal. Jackson served as a linguist and intelligence analyst in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2006.

The Counter-Proliferation Studies Speaker Series is hosted by the NPS Department of Defense Analysis and made possible through support from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs.