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
Sentiment inside the Beltway has turned sharply against China. There are many issues where the two parties sound more or less the same. Trump and others in the administration seem heavily invested in a ‘get very tough with China’ stance. It’s possible that some Democrats might argue that a decoupling strategy borders on lunacy. But if Trump believes this will play well with his core constituencies as his reelection campaign moves into high gear, he will probably decide to stick with it, if the costs and the collateral damage seem manageable. But that’s a very big if, especially if the downsides of a protracted trade war for both American consumers and for American firms become increasingly apparent.
[South Korean President] Moon’s challenge is get something from Kim [Jong-un] that he can then sell to [President] Trump. To judge from Trump’s endless flattery of Kim, this shouldn’t be too hard. The question is whether this game can persist indefinitely without definitive evidence of North Korean actions [as opposed to words] of what Kim has supposedly agreed to.
There’s no question that many in Southeast Asia see the region caught uncomfortably between the United States and China. The Trump administration’s repeated calls for a free and open Indo-Pacific have fallen flat in various capitals, which many see as very thin gruel, begging the issue of how the U.S. intends to remain relevant to the regional future.
We are not at that point, that point of no return, but I just don’t think that [Secretary of State] Pompeo can sell this [summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un] as a ‘win’ unless there is something that is tangible, agreeable and interactive, if you might say, between the United States and North Korea. Short of that, we are just spinning our wheels. He [Pompeo] can’t come back empty-handed. But the question is what he would consider sufficient for his purposes to justify this trip.
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.
