North Korea

Politics and U.S. foreign policy

Michael Nacht
Professor of public policy, former Aaron Wildavsky Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy
Phone: (510) 643-4038
Email: mnacht@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Kathleen Maclay, (510) 643-5651 or kmaclay@berkeley.edu

Expertise: U.S. national security and foreign policy, management strategies for public organizations. Nacht stepped down in mid-2010 after serving as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs for more than a year. He also served a three-year term as a member of the U.S. Department of Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee, for which he chaired panels on counter terrorism and counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, reporting to the deputy secretary of defense. He continues to consult with Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories on national security and homeland defense.

Steven Weber
Professor of political science
Phone: (510) 643-3755 (office) or (415) 203-8432 (cell)
Email: steve_weber@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Kathleen Maclay, (510) 643-5651 or kmaclay@berkeley.edu

Expertise: National security and politics. Weber was a consultant to the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, has held academic fellowships with the Council on Foreign Relations and was director of UC Berkeley's of Institute of International Studies.

North Korea is fond of "saber rattling," says Weber, but beyond that Western analysts "trying to imagine what they would do if they were North Korean leader Kim Jong Il" haven't been able to say definitively what North Korea's intends or is trying to signal' by turning up the political heat.