In Focus: Korea Expert Sung-Yoon Lee (full video)

Over the past seven decades, life in North Korea could be summed up in one word: repression. Now in its third generation, what makes the Kim dynasty tick? And how close are we to war on the Korean Peninsula? Assistant Professor and Korea expert Sung-Yoon Lee argues that political survival and a sense of competition with their more affluent southern neighbors motivate North Korea’s domestic and foreign policy decisions. By closing off his country to the outside world, Kim Jong-un has managed to keep his stranglehold on power, while bullying the rest of the world into making concessions. Here, Lee dives into all of this and more, and argues that decades of miscalculation and patronization, and recent fiery rhetoric from President Donald Trump, has hindered a successful U.S. approach to dealing with North Korea and their growing nuclear arsenal.