People

Victor Cha is president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a distinguished university professor and professor of government at Georgetown University.

From 2021 to 2025, Victor was appointed by the Biden administration to serve on the Defense Policy Board in an advisory role to the secretary of defense. From 2004 to 2007, he served on the National Security Council (NSC), where he was responsible for Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific Island nations. Victor was the U.S. deputy head of delegation at the Six Party Talks and received two Outstanding Service Commendations during his tenure at the NSC.

Victor is the author of eight books, including the award-winning Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States–Korea–Japan Security Triangle (Stanford University Press, 1999), which won the 2000 Ohira Book Prize; The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (Ecco, 2012), selected by Foreign Affairs as a “Best Book on the Asia-Pacific for 2012”; Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton University Press, 2018); Korea: A New History of South and North (Yale University Press, 2023); and The Black Box: Demystifying the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea (Columbia University Press, 2024).

Victor is a two-time Fulbright scholar and a former Olin Fellow at Harvard University, as well as a former Hoover, Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and Koret fellow at Stanford University. He currently serves on the editorial boards of ten academic journals and is coeditor of the Contemporary Asia book series at Columbia University Press. He serves on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy, Korea Society and is a senior fellow (non-resident) at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas.

Formerly a foreign affairs contributor for NBC News and MSNBC, Victor appears frequently on national and international media to give expert commentary on U.S.-Asia relations. His op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, The Atlantic, Fortune and other major media outlets.

Victor received his PhD, MIA and BA from Columbia University and a BA with honours from Oxford University.