Monday, May 14 at 2:00 pm
Negotiations Can Denuclearize North Korea
How should the United States respond to North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear capabilities? Some experts suggest the upcoming summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un might provide a pivotal diplomatic opportunity to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons – especially in light of the announcement of harsh new sanctions. But others are more pessimistic, arguing that we’ve been down this road before and that denuclearizing North Korea is more of a pipedream than a legitimate strategic goal. Can Trump and Kim strike a deal to halt North Korea’s nuclear aggression? Or will the talks inevitably fail, heightening tensions and increasing the likelihood of fatal miscalculations?
The Debaters:
Suki Kim
Award-Winning Author & Investigative Journalist
Suki Kim is a novelist, investigative journalist, and the only writer ever to go live undercover in North Korea to investigate and write a book from the inside. Since 2002, she has traveled to North Korea, witnessing both Kim Jong-il’s 60th birthday celebrations as well as his death at age 69 in 2011. Her best-selling book of investigative literary nonfiction, “Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korean Elite,” sheds a new light on the understanding of the North Korean society. Kim’s first novel, “The Interpreter,” was a finalist for a PEN Hemingway Prize, and her nonfiction has appeared in New York Times, New York Review of Books, Washington Post, Slate, and The New Republic, where she is a contributing editor. A recipient of a Guggenheim, a Fulbright, and a George Soros Foundation’s Open Society fellowship, Kim has been featured on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, Amanpour on PBS, and The Daily Show.
Suzanne DiMaggio
Senior Fellow, New America & U.S.-DPRK Dialogue Director
Suzanne DiMaggio is a director and senior fellow at New America, where she focuses on U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, and Asia. She has been leading Track 1.5 and Track 2 diplomatic initiatives on regional security, terrorism, nonproliferation, and governance for nearly 20 years. DiMaggio is currently directing a U.S.-DPRK dialogue that has included several visits to North Korea, most recently in February 2017. As part of that process, she facilitated the first official discussions between the Trump administration and North Korean government representatives in Oslo in May 2017. Before joining New America, DiMaggio was the vice president of global policy programs at the Asia Society and the vice president of policy programs at the United Nations Association of the USA. She is a frequent commentator in the news media and her op-eds have appeared in national and international press outlets.
Bonnie Jenkins
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution & Former Ambassador, U.S. State Department
Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution where she focuses on nuclear security, weapons of mass destruction and geopolitics. In 2009, she was nominated by President Barack Obama as the Department of State’s Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. In her role, she promoted the coordination of Department of State Cooperative Threat Reduction and U.S. government programs in chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological security, and was the Department of State lead on the Nuclear Security Summit. Jenkins is the founder and president of Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security and has taught at Georgetown University Law School, where she earned an LL.M. in international and comparative law. A retired Naval Reserve officer, she completed a year-long deployment to U.S. Central Command and received numerous awards for her service.
Sue Mi Terry
Former CIA Analyst & Senior Fellow, CSIS
Sue Mi Terry is a senior fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Prior to joining CSIS, she had a long and distinguished career in academia, policymaking, and intelligence, serving as the deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council from 2009 to 2010, the director for Korea, Japan, and Oceanic affairs at the National Security Council from 2008 to 2009, and a senior analyst on Korean issues at the CIA from 2001 and 2008. She has received numerous awards for her leadership and mission support, including the CIA Foreign Language award in 2008. Terry is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and other publications.
Mira Rapp-Hooper
Senior Scholar, Yale Law School & China Center
Mira Rapp-Hooper is a senior research scholar at Yale Law School and a senior fellow at Yale’s Paul Tsai China Center. She studies and writes on U.S.-China relations and national security issues in Asia. Rapp-Hooper was formerly a senior fellow with the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Asia Program, and the director of the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. Rapp-Hooper’s academic writings have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Security Studies, and Survival, and her analysis is published in The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She is a David Rockefeller Fellow of the Trilateral Commission, an associate editor with the International Security Studies Forum, and a senior editor at War on the Rocks.
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