Jonathan D. Pollack is Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He served as Director of Thornton Center during 2012-2014. Prior to joining Brookings in late 2010, he was Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies and Chairman of the Strategic Research Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he is now a Professor Emeritus. Between 1978 and 2000 he worked at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, in a wide array of research and senior management capacities. In addition, he has taught at Brandeis University, the Rand Graduate School of Policy Studies, UCLA, and the Naval War College.

Dr. Pollack’s principal research interests include Chinese security strategy; U.S.-China relations; U.S. strategy in Asia and the Pacific; Korean politics and foreign policy; and East Asian international politics. 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 study of North Korea’s nuclear identity and weapons development, No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, and International Security, was published in 2011 by Routledge; a revised Korean language version appeared in 2012, published by the Asan Institute of Policy Studies.  His current research is examining leadership and national security strategy in China, Japan, and the two Koreas, tentatively entitled A Semblance of Order:  Political Leadership and Strategic Uncertainty in Northeast Asia.

Last Updated: January 7, 2016

Conversation

01.06.16

The North Korean Bomb Test—What's Next?

Barbara Demick, Jonathan D. Pollack & more
On Wednesday, North Korea claimed that it had tested a hydrogen bomb, bringing to four the number of nuclear weapons it has set off on its own territory since 2006. The act drew international condemnation, prompting us to ask: What’s different this...