KEI is pleased to hold a program titled, Recalibration in the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives from the Region. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and ongoing U.S.-China strategic competition raises critical questions for U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, including: Will narrowing strategic space between the United States and China force regional states into increasingly challenging foreign policy dilemmas? Alternatively, will regional states assert agency and seek greater autonomy? To what degree are we already in a multipolar international order and, if so, what affect will an intensifying U.S.-China competition have on that order?

Please come join KEI’s program with regional experts, which offers a two-part panel discussion featuring South Korea, Japan, Australia, Vietnam, and Singapore’s perspectives on these and other important questions facing the region. The panelists’ research will be featured in the spring/summer 2025 issue of KEI’s flagship journal, Korea Policy, due to be published in digital format in early June.

In 2024, Korean shipbuilders Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries both entered into Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) agreements to support U.S. naval vessels in Korean yards. That same year, Hanwha acquired Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, while HD Hyundai partnered with Anduril and Palantir to advance artificial intelligence innovations in unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and autonomous naval systems, building on previous partnerships with Palantir to develop smart shipyard solutions. As the United States experiences a dearth of both naval and commercial shipbuilding capacity, U.S.-China competition at sea has led Washington to consider additional ways of revitalizing America’s once dominant position in the maritime domain. Legislative efforts such as the Ensuring Naval Readiness Act include potential to leverage allied support in strengthening the U.S. shipbuilding process, as does greater cooperation between the U.S. and Korean governments through the White House’s newly announced Shipbuilding Office. With Korean shipbuilders leading in advanced maritime technology and industrial capacity, their role in servicing and constructing U.S. naval and commercial maritime assets—both domestically and overseas—is poised to grow.

Please join KEI for a discussion with experts in the field to assess the status and prospects for the US-South Korea strategic cooperation in shipbuilding. Colin Grabow, Associate Director at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, and Michael Viggiano, Director of Government Affairs for Defense at Hanwha USA, will discuss these topics and more.

KEI is pleased to host an exclusive event titled Siloed No More: The U.S.-ROK Alliance and a Taiwan Conflict, which examines whether and how the U.S.-ROK alliance is situated to respond to a potential conflict over Taiwan.

KEI Fellow and Director of Academic Affairs Dr. Clint Work will discuss this project, which builds upon previous research on Seoul and Washington’s rhetorical alignment on the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Alexis Turek, Research Assistant at the Coalition for Defense of Taiwan (CDOT), a joint initiative between the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), will join Dr. Work on stage and offer insights into how his findings fit into broader strategic thinking about Taiwan from a U.S. perspective.

Through dozens of interviews with U.S. and ROK current and former government officials, think tank experts, and academics—as well as open-source research—Dr. Work will distill insights on the evolution and state of U.S.-ROK alliance discussions on a Taiwan conflict; key challenges obstructing such discussions; and critical variables and dynamics the alliance would have to consider and navigate in the event of a contingency.

KEI will publish an executive summary of Dr. Work’s research as well as the full special report concurrent with the event.

This is a follow-up conversation to the live event KEI hosted about the survey results. You can find that event here: https://youtube.com/live/IQdVPZOKGpo?feature=share .

NATO’s 75th Anniversary Summit was held in Washington, DC, on July 9–11, and its Indo-Pacific Partners (IP4)—Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand—attended as they did NATO’s 2022 Madrid and 2023 Vilnius summits. NATO has made clear that although it remains dedicated to the defense of its Transatlantic area, the challenges with which it is dealing are global and immediate. The attendance of the IP4 is a demonstration that NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners perceive common interests in coping with an increasingly dangerous world. On July 18, 2024 KEI hosted a discussion of the Washington NATO Summit and the future of cooperation with the IP4 with NATO’s Director for Partnerships and Global Affairs, Kristian Meszaros, and leading experts on Japan, Korea, and Australia and New Zealand: Mirna Galic from USIP, Dr. Hyun Ji Rim from SAIS, and Kathryn Paik from CSIS. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Clint Work, Fellow and Director of Academic Affairs from KEI.

On January 16, 2024, KEI hosted a discussion with Scott Snyder, author of The U.S.-Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not, on what domestic political developments in both countries mean for the future of the U.S.-Korea alliance.

James A. Siebens is a Fellow with Stimson Center’s Reimagining US Grand Strategy program, where he leads the Defense Strategy and Planning project. His research focuses on grand strategy, military coercion, and gray zone conflict. Building on a co-edited volume titled, Military Coercion and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Use of Force Short of War (Routledge 2020), a book on U.S. strategy and military operations since the end of the Cold War, James is also the editor of China’s Use of Armed Coercion: To Win Without Fighting (Routledge 2023), a recently published study on China’s use of military and paramilitary forces for purposes of coercion.

The second part of our conversation focuses on the application of his analysis to the Korean Peninsula – both historically and in a more contemporary context – and James’ thoughts on what the United States has gotten right and wrong on China and some related policy recommendations.

James A. Siebens is a Fellow with Stimson Center’s Reimagining US Grand Strategy program, where he leads the Defense Strategy and Planning project. His research focuses on grand strategy, military coercion, and gray zone conflict. Building on a co-edited volume titled, Military Coercion and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Use of Force Short of War (Routledge 2020), a book on U.S. strategy and military operations since the end of the Cold War, James is also the editor of China’s Use of Armed Coercion: To Win Without Fighting (Routledge 2023), a recently published study on China’s use of military and paramilitary forces for purposes of coercion.

Our conversation is split into two parts, the first of which focuses on: the motivation behind his latest book project and what sets it apart from other work on China; key terms and concepts used throughout the book, such as coercion, deterrence and compellence; and the overall content and structure of the book as well as some of the representative examples of China’s use of armed coercion and whether they were effective.

On February 8, 2024, KEI hosted a discussion on these and other issues related to the growing relationship between North Korea and Russia with long-time North Korea expert Dr. Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University.

On September 21, 2023, KEI hosted a discussion on Korea and Japan’s efforts to achieve energy security with Dr. Seong-ik Oh who discussed his new book, Overseas Energy Investment of Korea and Japan: How did Two East Asian Resources-Rare Industrial Giants Respond to Energy Security Challenges.