Victor D Cha
Biographic Data
| ID | 254343 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Victor D Cha |
| GIVEN NAMES | Victor D |
| FAMILY NAME | Cha |
| SIGNATURE | CHA V D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 184 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Eyes Wide Open: Strategic Elite Views of South Korea’s Nuclear Options
Collective Resilience: Deterring China's Weaponization of Economic Interdependence
Since the 2010s, China has used economic coercion against Western and Asian states to achieve territorial and political goals. China's leveraging of its market is a form of “predatory liberalism” that weaponizes the networks of interdependence created by globalization. The United States and other like-minded partners have mostly used piecemeal “de-risking” measures such as decoupling, supply chain resilience, reshoring, and trade diversion to red…
Allied Decoupling in an Era of US–China Strategic Competition
The turn towards an openly competitive relationship between the United States and China today carries acute consequences for U.S. policy toward North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK). The military and economic requirements of enacting such a policy of competition with China complicates U.S. policy with its ally South Korea, as it exacerbates three core dilemmas that the ROK contends …
Informal Empire: The Origins of the U.S.–ROK Alliance and the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty Negotiations
The creation of the security alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States offers a historical case of how great powers maximize their strength in regional security. The case of Korea demonstrates how the United States imposed ''informal'' order by establishing a normative hierarchy in which sovereign states deem as legitimate the hegemon's leadership and comply with rules and order imposed by the hegemon. The great power also esta…
The Case of the Pivot to Asia: System Effects and the Origins of Strategy
ALMOST FROM THE MOMENT IT WAS ANNOUNCED, the so-called pivot or rebalance to Asia1 under President Barack Obama generated a great deal of commentary, both negative and positive. Critics have argued variously that the pivot is unrealistically sanguine about the ability of the United States to manage a complex region,2 that it needlessly antagonizes the region’s emerging great power, China,3 that it lacks resources and substance,4 that parts of the…
Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia
The North Korea Question
The North Korean state under a young and unproven leader faces severe challenges. The regime will not change because of a leadership transition or because of the West’s hope of reform. It could crack because its ideology is at odds with the country’s incremental societal change
Winning is Not Enough: Sport and Politics in East Asia and Beyond
Avery Brundage, once head of the International Olympic Committee, described politics as ‘a savage monster’ always trying to disrupt sport. But Brundage was defending the decision not to withhold the 1936 Olympic Games from Nazi Germany. Thus, defending the sanctity of sport can itself be political. Sport is especially political in Asia. In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese ran a gauntlet of political causes ranging from corpora…
Dialogue about Elections in Japan and South Korea
The year 2012 was fascinating for domestic politics and international relations in Northeast Asia. Perhaps most notably, every country in the region experienced a change of leadership. China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan all saw new leaders begin their tenure. In addition, regional relations took a turn for the worse, with numerous countries engaging in territorial and maritime disputes, disagreeing over interpretations of their sh…
A North Korean Spring
Complex Patchworks: U.S. Alliances as Part of Asia's Regional Architecture
Complex Patchworks:U.S. Alliances as Part of Asia's Regional Architecture Victor D. Cha (bio) Keywords United States, Alliances, Security Architecture, China [End Page 27] Executive Summary This article examines the significant role of existing U.S. bilateral alliances in the complex interplay of emerging regional security architectures in Asia. Main Argument The continued relevance of the U.S. bilateral alliance system in Asia appears most teste…
The End of History: ‘Neojuche Revivalism’ and Korean Unification
South Korea in 2010
For the Obama administration, unforeseen dynamics in East Asia over the past year have escalated the importance of the U.S.-ROK alliance to unprecedented levels for the United States. But the alliance remains vulnerable to external shocks, rendering the continuation of the current phase of unmitigated harmonious ties far from certain
Politics and the Olympic Transaction: Measuring China's Accomplishments
Any country that hosts the Olympic Games must contend with the ‘Olympic transaction,' or the costs and benefits of the international attention that the Games attract. The ‘Olympic transaction' for China was that it wanted the chance to showcase its greatness and importance as an international player to the world, but at the same time, the Olympic limelight brought intensified international pressure for political change and greater global responsi…
Powerplay: Origins of the U.S. Alliance System in Asia
In East Asia the United States cultivated a “hub and spokes” system of discrete, exclusive alliances with the Republic of Korea, the Republic of China, and Japan, a system that was distinct from the multilateral security alliances it preferred in Europe. Bilateralism emerged in East Asia as the dominant security structure because of the “powerplay” rationale behind U.S. postwar planning in the region. “Powerplay” refers to the construction of an …
A Theory of Sport and Politics
The study of international relations purports to explain how nation-states and individuals interact around the globe. Yet one major area of such interaction – international sport – remains exceedingly understudied. This in spite of the fact that countries have gone to war over sport, fought for sovereign recognition through sport, and that citizens around the world have it as a daily part of their lives. Indeed it is astounding that a phenomenon …
What Do They Really Want: Obama's North Korea Conundrum
We remained deadlocked over a particular clause in the document. Our counterparts across the table demanded language that we thought to be unacceptable. Yet, in an effort to move the already falter
Beijing's Olympic-Sized Catch-22
Additional informationNotes on contributorsVictor D. ChaVictor D. Cha is director of Asian studies and the D.S. Song Chair at Georgetown University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Council for International Policy. He was director of Asian affairs on the National Security Council from 2004 to 2007. He is author of Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia (Columbia University Press, 2008)
Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies
Introduction: The Debate over North KoreaVictor Cha: Weak but Still ThreateningDavid Kang: Threatening, but Deterrence WorksResponse: Why we must pursue hawk engagement (Cha)Response: Why are we so afraid of engagement? (Kang)Crisis Redux: The 2003 Nuclear CrisisBeyond Hyperbole, Toward a Strategy
South Korea in 2004: Peninsular Flux
The variables presaging fundamental change on the Korean Peninsula are many. This assessment of South Korea seeks to lay out the political, economic, and military events of 2004 and their relationship to South Korean grand strategy. It also seeks to analyze the linkages between Seoul's grand strategy and the U.S.-led global war on terror
Shaping change in the alliance
Can North Korea be Engaged
Discussion of North Korea's nuclear programme and what to do about it has become ideological and emotionally charged. Convinced that good policy serving American and allied interests is unlikely to emerge from such a debate, Korea experts Victor Cha and David Kang decided to step back from the histrionics and engage in a reasoned, rational and logical exchange on the nature of the North Korean regime and the policy that should be followed by the …
The Debate Over North Korea
VICTOR D. CHA is associate professor of government and D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies at Georgetown University. He is the award-winning author of Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle and coauthor, with David Kang, of Nuclear North Korea. Cha serves as an independent consultant of the U.S. government and financial private sector and has testified before Congress on Asian security issues. DAVID C. KA…
America and South Korea: The Ambivalent Alliance
If South Korean resentment of America's military presence is less clear-cut than many would suggest, so, too, are the policy differences supposedly dividing American and South Korean leaders
The Korea Crisis
Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea
For decades, area specialists have argued that international relations (IR) theory cannot adequately explain security dynamics in East Asia as a result of cultures, histories, and traditions distinct from the West. A shining anomaly put forth in this regard is the relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Why have these two powers had such volatile relations, despite their élite ties, economic complementarities, and shared secur…
Powerplay: Origins of the U.S. Alliance System in Asia
In East Asia the United States cultivated a “hub and spokes” system of discrete, exclusive alliances with the Republic of Korea, the Republic of China, and Japan, a system that was distinct from the multilateral security alliances it preferred in Europe. Bilateralism emerged in East Asia as the dominant security structure because of the “powerplay” rationale behind U.S. postwar planning in the region. “Powerplay” refers to the construction of an …
Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History
Journal Article Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History Get access Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History by Bruce Cumings. New York, W.W. Norton, 1997. 448 pp. Cloth $35.00; paper, $17.95. Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha Georgetown University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 113, Issue 3, Fall 1998, Pages 545–547, https://doi.org/10.2307/2658105 Published: 15 February…
America’s Asian Alliances
Journal Article America’s Asian Alliances Get access America’s Asian Alliances by Robert D. Blackwill and Paul Dibb. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2000. 143 pp. Paper, $17.95. Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha Georgetown University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 116, Issue 4, Winter 2001, Pages 654–656, https://doi.org/10.2307/798235 Published: 15 February 2013
A Theory of Sport and Politics
The study of international relations purports to explain how nation-states and individuals interact around the globe. Yet one major area of such interaction – international sport – remains exceedingly understudied. This in spite of the fact that countries have gone to war over sport, fought for sovereign recognition through sport, and that citizens around the world have it as a daily part of their lives. Indeed it is astounding that a phenomenon …
Hawk Engagement and Preventive Defense on the Korean Peninsula
International Security - Volume 27, Number 1, Summer 2002
Hate, Power, and Identity in Japan–Korea Security: Towards a Synthetic Material-Ideational Analytical Framework
(2000). Hate, Power, and Identity in Japan–Korea Security: Towards a Synthetic Material-Ideational Analytical Framework. Australian Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 309-323
Globalization and the Study of International Security
In spite of the plethora of literature on security and globalization, there is relatively little work written by security specialists that interconnects the two. In the case of security studies, this has been in no small part because the field remains entrenched in the `foodfight' of competing realist, liberal, and constructionist research programs. In the case of the globalization literature, it has stemmed from a relatively stronger focus on th…
Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea
Collective Resilience: Deterring China's Weaponization of Economic Interdependence
Since the 2010s, China has used economic coercion against Western and Asian states to achieve territorial and political goals. China's leveraging of its market is a form of “predatory liberalism” that weaponizes the networks of interdependence created by globalization. The United States and other like-minded partners have mostly used piecemeal “de-risking” measures such as decoupling, supply chain resilience, reshoring, and trade diversion to red…
Allied Decoupling in an Era of US–China Strategic Competition
The turn towards an openly competitive relationship between the United States and China today carries acute consequences for U.S. policy toward North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK). The military and economic requirements of enacting such a policy of competition with China complicates U.S. policy with its ally South Korea, as it exacerbates three core dilemmas that the ROK contends …
What Do They Really Want: Obama's North Korea Conundrum
We remained deadlocked over a particular clause in the document. Our counterparts across the table demanded language that we thought to be unacceptable. Yet, in an effort to move the already falter
The Korea Crisis
The Case of the Pivot to Asia: System Effects and the Origins of Strategy
ALMOST FROM THE MOMENT IT WAS ANNOUNCED, the so-called pivot or rebalance to Asia1 under President Barack Obama generated a great deal of commentary, both negative and positive. Critics have argued variously that the pivot is unrealistically sanguine about the ability of the United States to manage a complex region,2 that it needlessly antagonizes the region’s emerging great power, China,3 that it lacks resources and substance,4 that parts of the…
The North Korea Question
The North Korean state under a young and unproven leader faces severe challenges. The regime will not change because of a leadership transition or because of the West’s hope of reform. It could crack because its ideology is at odds with the country’s incremental societal change
Winning is Not Enough: Sport and Politics in East Asia and Beyond
Avery Brundage, once head of the International Olympic Committee, described politics as ‘a savage monster’ always trying to disrupt sport. But Brundage was defending the decision not to withhold the 1936 Olympic Games from Nazi Germany. Thus, defending the sanctity of sport can itself be political. Sport is especially political in Asia. In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese ran a gauntlet of political causes ranging from corpora…
Dialogue about Elections in Japan and South Korea
The year 2012 was fascinating for domestic politics and international relations in Northeast Asia. Perhaps most notably, every country in the region experienced a change of leadership. China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan all saw new leaders begin their tenure. In addition, regional relations took a turn for the worse, with numerous countries engaging in territorial and maritime disputes, disagreeing over interpretations of their sh…
Beijing's Olympic-Sized Catch-22
Additional informationNotes on contributorsVictor D. ChaVictor D. Cha is director of Asian studies and the D.S. Song Chair at Georgetown University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Council for International Policy. He was director of Asian affairs on the National Security Council from 2004 to 2007. He is author of Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia (Columbia University Press, 2008)
The Debate Over North Korea
VICTOR D. CHA is associate professor of government and D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies at Georgetown University. He is the award-winning author of Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle and coauthor, with David Kang, of Nuclear North Korea. Cha serves as an independent consultant of the U.S. government and financial private sector and has testified before Congress on Asian security issues. DAVID C. KA…
North Korea's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Badges, Shields, or Swords
Journal Article North Korea's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Badges, Shields, or Swords? Get access Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha VICTOR D. CHA is associate professor of government and director of the American Alliances in Asia Project in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 117, Issue 2, Summer 2002, Pages 209…
Strategic Culture and the Military Modernization of South Korea
Two schools of thought in international relations theory have sought to explain the accelerated pace of arms acquisitions in Asia. The "arms" school posits that weapons purchases are a function of emerging peer competition. Countering this view, the "affluence" argument focuses on economics and status-hierarchy factors as the proximate cause for the buildup. This article tests these schools against the Republic of Korea (ROK) case, and finds both…
The continuity behind the change in Korea
Is There Still a Rational North Korean Option for War
A North Korean Spring
Korea's Place in the Axis
ON JANUARY 29, President George W. Bush announced what seemed a new U.S. policy toward the Korean Peninsula-and threw observers worldwide into conftision. In his state of the union address that night, Bush outlined the steps to come in his administration's war on terrorism. Among them was a tough new approach to what he termed an axis of evil: North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. The president's speech seemed, at first, to bring new clarity to the U.S. s…
Politics and Democracy under the Kim Young Sam Government: Something Old, Something New
Research Article| September 01 1993 Politics and Democracy under the Kim Young Sam Government: Something Old, Something New Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1993) 33 (9): 849–863. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645233 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permis…
Is There Still a Rational North Korean Option for War
Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History
Journal Article Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History Get access Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History by Bruce Cumings. New York, W.W. Norton, 1997. 448 pp. Cloth $35.00; paper, $17.95. Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha Georgetown University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 113, Issue 3, Fall 1998, Pages 545–547, https://doi.org/10.2307/2658105 Published: 15 February…
The Rationale for "Enhanced" Engagement of North Korea: After the Perry Policy Review
The Rationale for "Enhanced" Engagement of North Korea: After the Perry Policy Review
Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea
"Three-Stage" Approach to Korean Unification: Focusing on the South-North Confederal Stage
Japan's Grand Strategy on the Korean Peninsula: Optimistic Realism
Korea is one of the most complex, critical, and yet understudied of Japan's foreign policy relationships. While much attention in US policy and academic circles has focused on Japan's future relations with China as the key variable for regional stability in the twenty first century, an integral part of the security dynamic in East Asia has been driven by the Japan–Korea axis. In the late-nineteenth century and early twentieth century, two major p…
Hate, Power, and Identity in Japan–Korea Security: Towards a Synthetic Material-Ideational Analytical Framework
(2000). Hate, Power, and Identity in Japan–Korea Security: Towards a Synthetic Material-Ideational Analytical Framework. Australian Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 309-323
The continuity behind the change in Korea
Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea
For decades, area specialists have argued that international relations (IR) theory cannot adequately explain security dynamics in East Asia as a result of cultures, histories, and traditions distinct from the West. A shining anomaly put forth in this regard is the relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Why have these two powers had such volatile relations, despite their élite ties, economic complementarities, and shared secur…
Globalization and the Study of International Security
In spite of the plethora of literature on security and globalization, there is relatively little work written by security specialists that interconnects the two. In the case of security studies, this has been in no small part because the field remains entrenched in the `foodfight' of competing realist, liberal, and constructionist research programs. In the case of the globalization literature, it has stemmed from a relatively stronger focus on th…
Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle
The second nuclear age: Proliferation pessimism versus sober optimism in South Asia and East Asia
Strategic Culture and the Military Modernization of South Korea
Two schools of thought in international relations theory have sought to explain the accelerated pace of arms acquisitions in Asia. The "arms" school posits that weapons purchases are a function of emerging peer competition. Countering this view, the "affluence" argument focuses on economics and status-hierarchy factors as the proximate cause for the buildup. This article tests these schools against the Republic of Korea (ROK) case, and finds both…
America’s Asian Alliances
Journal Article America’s Asian Alliances Get access America’s Asian Alliances by Robert D. Blackwill and Paul Dibb. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2000. 143 pp. Paper, $17.95. Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha Georgetown University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 116, Issue 4, Winter 2001, Pages 654–656, https://doi.org/10.2307/798235 Published: 15 February 2013
Japan's Engagement Dilemmas With North Korea
Research Article| August 18 2001 JAPAN'S ENGAGEMENT DILEMMAS WITH NORTH KOREA Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (2001) 41 (4): 549–563. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2001.41.4.549 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite …
Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle
Focus on the future, not the north
The U.S.‐ROK alliance is slowly but steadily approaching a pivotal reassessment. It is time to stop thinking about the alliance in ad hoc terms and start creating the vision for the future U.S. presence in Northeast Asia generally and in Korea specifically
Hawk Engagement and Preventive Defense on the Korean Peninsula
International Security - Volume 27, Number 1, Summer 2002
North Korea's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Badges, Shields, or Swords
Journal Article North Korea's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Badges, Shields, or Swords? Get access Victor D. Cha Victor D. Cha VICTOR D. CHA is associate professor of government and director of the American Alliances in Asia Project in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 117, Issue 2, Summer 2002, Pages 209…
Korea's Place in the Axis
ON JANUARY 29, President George W. Bush announced what seemed a new U.S. policy toward the Korean Peninsula-and threw observers worldwide into conftision. In his state of the union address that night, Bush outlined the steps to come in his administration's war on terrorism. Among them was a tough new approach to what he termed an axis of evil: North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. The president's speech seemed, at first, to bring new clarity to the U.S. s…
America and South Korea: The Ambivalent Alliance
If South Korean resentment of America's military presence is less clear-cut than many would suggest, so, too, are the policy differences supposedly dividing American and South Korean leaders
The Korea Crisis
Shaping change in the alliance
Political science (46 works) · Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies (31 works) · Law (31 works) · Politics (24 works) · Law (22 works) · Economics (18 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Political economy (15 works) · China (14 works) · Computer Science (14 works)