S. Korea: A Look at the Next U.S. Ambassador to Korea ("1989" coming to E. Asia?)

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 06/27/05

[TigerLikesRooster]

A Look at the Next U.S. Ambassador to Korea

Alexander Vershbow, who has been tentatively named the next U.S. ambassador to Korea, is a man confirmed by himself and others as a Russia expert.

Vershbow was U.S. ambassador to NATO, and after the Cold War specialized in European security and weapons of mass destruction. That is why his selection as ambassador to Korea is being read as en expression of heightened interest on the part of his government in the North Korean nuclear dispute and Northeast Asian security. But Russia experts have traditionally inherited high-ranking positions in the State Department. The current secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, and Deputy Secretary Robert B. Zoellick are both Russia and Eastern Europe specialists.

Since becoming ambassador to Russia in July 2001, Vershbow has acquired a reputation for bluntness. It is not an easy task for ambassadors representing their governments to speak diplomatically in Russia, but Vershbow’s running commentary on Russia’s handling of the Beslan hostage incident, democratic revolutions in former Soviet states and Russian democracy itself have left his host government perpetually embarrassed. He has stressed that Moscow needs to guarantee freedom of the press and freedom of corporate activity. He has more than once expressed concern about Russian democracy, not least in the case about Yukos and the arrest of its chairman, Mikhail Khordokovsky. While he is understood to be speaking for Washington and not for himself, Moscow has nonetheless reacted sensitively to his comments.

Russia is abuzz with rumors of his departure and speculation about what post he will get next. Leaving such a key position, rumor had it he was heading somewhere fairly important, what with the Moscow posting traditionally being second only to the ambassadorship to the UN. The Russian Foreign Ministry, too, seems surprised that Vershbow has been tabbed as envoy to Korea.

Vershbow graduated from Yale University in 1974 with a degree in Russian and Eastern European studies, and from Columbia University in 1976 with a master’s degree in international relations. He entered the State Department in 1977, serving as a diplomat in Russia, the U.K. and elsewhere.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

[TigerLikesRooster]

With Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Joseph, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, and now Alexander Vershbow, the presumed U.S. Ambassador to S. Korea, Bush must be trying to engineer another "1989" in E. Asia. One-time Soviet or E. European experts who dealt with the fall of E. Europe and the resulting radical geopolitical transformation, along with John Bolton, the nominee for U.S. Ambassador to U.N., are gathering together to bring about the same process in E. Asia, starting with collapsing N. Korea, and probably ending with imploding China, and resurgent Japan.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[BJClinton]

Well that's all fine and good but shouldn't we have some, I dunno, East Asian specialists in the mix?

[TigerLikesRooster]

RE #3

There are Eberstadt and a few others at think-tanks like AEI or Hudson.