Victor Cha

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Victor Cha is a professor and author, as well as former Director for Asian Affairs in the White House's National Security Council, with responsibility for Japan, North and South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.^[1] He was President Bush's top advisor on North Korean affairs^[2]. He currently holds the D. S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies and is the Director of the Asian Studies program at Georgetown University^[3].

Dr. Cha is the author of numerous articles, books, and other works on Asian security. He authored Alignment Despite Antagonism (2001), recipient of the Ohira Book Prize, which presented a new, alternative theory regarding Japan and South Korea's political alignment despite their historical animosity. Dr. Cha wrote this in response to previous research on the subject, which he felt focused too heavily on their respective historical antagonism^[4]. In 2005, Cha co-authored Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies with Professor David Kang of Dartmouth College and its Tuck School of Business. The co-authors presented their respective viewpoints on the best way to handle the Korean situation, with Dr. Cha presenting a more "hawkish" approach and Dr. Kang presenting his more "dovish" arguments^[5].

Dr. Cha is currently planning on publishing two new works on East Asia: a book on "Sports diplomacy and the Olympics in Asia" and a monograph concerning “Origins of the Postwar American Alliance System in Asia"^[6].

Dr. Cha received both his A.B. and his Ph.D. from Columbia University, as well as a B.A. (and subsequent M.A.) from the University of Oxford.^[6]

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