Appointment comes as North Korea negotiations continue, US-China tensions increase, and nontraditional security issues such as artificial intelligence emerge.
WASHINGTON, DC – The Atlantic Council announced today that Dr. Miyeon Oh has been named the first director of the Asia Security Initiative within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Dr. Oh was previously a senior fellow in the Scowcroft Center. In her new role, Dr. Oh will oversee the Asia Security Initiative’s expanded scope to foster trans-Atlantic-Pacific partnerships that can adapt, revitalize, and defend the rules-based international order in Asia.
“Miyeon has grown the Atlantic Council’s Asia efforts by leaps and bounds through her tireless dedication and strategic leadership,” said Frederick Kempe, CEO and President of the Atlantic Council. “The Trans-Atlantic-Pacific relationship is more important than ever before due to regional security sector shifts of global consequence. This appointment demonstrates the Atlantic Council’s commitment to addressing a host of emerging challenges.”
The Asia Security Initiative develops purposeful programming to address both traditional and non-traditional security issues. As transformations in the region’s political-economic architecture lead to increasing great power competition, traditional issues—such as the North Korean challenge and US-China tensions—will remain central to any discussion of Asia-Pacific regional security. At the same time, emerging strategic challenges demand greater agility and innovation from policymakers, as resource scarcity issues related to food, water, and energy rise in importance, and old paradigms are upended by disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, robotics, and biotechnology.
The Asia Security Initiative’s model of active partnership has been most visible in its relationship with the Republic of Korea, as it aims to unite experts and policymakers from the United States and the Republic of Korea to develop a forward-looking vision for the US-ROK security alliance and economic partnership. The Asia Security Initiative, along with the Korea Foundation, hosted in 2017 the inaugural Atlantic Council-Korea Foundation Forum with then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to explore how the US-ROK relationship fits into the administration’s emerging strategy toward the Asia Pacific. The Asia Security Initiative is also launching this year a journalist fellowship program with the Korea Foundation, which will host American journalists interested in learning about Korea, and will include private roundtables and a trip to Korea.
“We are thrilled that Dr. Oh has been promoted to be the director of our rapidly growing Asia Security Initiative,” said Barry Pavel, Senior Vice President, and director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. “She has already demonstrated extraordinary leadership and a laser-like focus on impact in her relatively short tenure as a senior fellow, and this bodes enormously well for the Scowcroft Center’s intensifying efforts under her leadership to help advance US relations with our most important Indo-Pacific allies and partners.”
“I am honored to be named as the director of the Asia Security Initiative and to further develop my career with the Atlantic Council, one of the most vibrant and impactful think tanks in international affairs,” Oh said. “It has been rewarding to promote mutual understanding between the United States and its allies and partners, and to fill policy gaps where there exist different approaches. I am fortunate to be a part of this evolution of policy in the face of pressing global challenges.”
Dr. Miyeon Oh is also a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she received her PhD. She has been selected as the 2017 Strategy and Policy fellow by the Smith Richardson Foundation and was a foreign policy pre-doctoral research fellow at the Brookings Institution. In addition, Dr. Oh has a significant background in public policy and international affairs with two master’s degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Yonsei University in Korea, as well as public sector experience with the United Nations and Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
For more information, please contact press@atlanticcouncil.org or 202.778.4993.