North Korea: A Town Hall

SPEAKER:     Philip Yun, Executive Director, Ploughshares Fund; Former Senior Member of U.S. Delegation and Negotiator, Peace Talks with North Korea

David Straub, Associate Director, Korean Studies Program, The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, Former U.S. State Department Officer for Korean Affairs

Dr. Gloria Duffy, President and CEO, Commonwealth Club – Moderator

TITLE:           North Korea: A Town Hall

DATE:            Monday, April 8th 2013

TIME:             5:30 p.m. check-in, 6:00 p.m. program

 

PLACE:          SF Club Office, 595 Market Street, Second Floor, San Francisco CA

PRICE:           FREE

CONTACT:  (415) 597-6712

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North Korea recently shocked the world when it threatened nuclear war with the U.S. and announced it was severing the armistice signed in 1953 signifying the end of the Korean War. What does this threat mean for the U.S., and particularly for those living on the West Coast? Experts well acquainted with North Korea weigh in on both the political climate and military threat in the short as well as the long term. Just the other day, the United States launched F 22 stealth fighter jets for military exercises just one day after Kim Jong Un said it entered into “a state of war” with South Korea.  Last week, North Korea said it had moved strategic rocket and artillery units into top combat position in preparation for a strike against the United States.  In fact, North Koreans are saying they can hit mainland U.S. with missiles from a hovercraft. Tensions are building.  South Korea’s President Park has issued a strong warning back, saying if North Korea attacks South Korea, it will strike back militarily. How seriously should the world take the North Korean threats?   How should South Korea respond?  What more should and can the United States do to help stave off these provocations- and a possible all-out war?

Philip Yun is the Executive Director & COO of the Ploughshares Fund in San Francisco, and has a long history of working with Asian political security issues, as well as with numerous organizations such as the Asia Foundation which he served as Vice President of Resource Development.  Mr. Yun is a graduate of Brown University and the Columbia University School of Law.

David Straub is the Associate Director of the Korean Studies Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and focuses on U.S.-South Korean relations, and is also a member of the New Beginnings policy research group on U.S.-South Korean relations.  Beforehand, Straub was a U.S. Department of State senior Foreign Service officer that spanned 30 years in Northeast Asia.

Dr. Gloria Duffy served in the Clinton Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, negotiating nuclear and chemical arms pacts with the countries of the former Soviet Union. Among her accomplishments, she negotiated 50 agreements with the governments of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, through which they agreed to give up the several thousand nuclear weapons on their territories and become non-nuclear weapons states, signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty.   Dr. Duffy, who earned her M.A., M. Phil. and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, also worked as US Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction.