The Camp David summit represented a high point in trilateral cooperation among the United States and its two key democratic allies in the Indo-Pacific. Since the summit, over 70 meetings and a new secretariat have aimed to institutionalize these relations despite the difficult political history that has impeded cooperation in the past. In 2025, however, domestic leadership changes in all three countries raise questions about the long-term future of this multilateral cooperation.

About the Speaker

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 the distinguished university professor and professor of government at Georgetown University.

He was appointed in 2021 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) and was responsible for Japan, Korea, Australia/New Zealand, and Pacific Island nations.

Dr. Cha was U.S. deputy head of delegation at the Six Party Talks and received two outstanding service commendations during his tenure at the NSC.

He is the author of eight books, including the award-winning Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford, 1999) (winner of 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, 2018), Korea: A New History of South and North (Yale, 2023), and The Black Box: Demystifying the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea (Columbia University Press, 2024).

Dr. Cha is a two-time Fulbright scholar, former Olin fellow at Harvard, and former Hoover, CISAC, and Koret fellow at Stanford.

He currently serves on 10 editorial boards of 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 and is a senior fellow at the George W. Bush Institute.

He is also a foreign affairs contributor for MSNBC and NBC News.

Dr. Cha received his PhD, MIA and BA degree from Columbia University and a BA Honors from Oxford University.