James JB Park, a Captain (R) of the Republic of Korea Army, is a 2024 Non-resident James A. Kelly Korea Studies Fellow. He began his public service as an interpreting officer stationed in the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, liaising between the two great nations’ servicemen. He was awarded several commendations from the Eighth United States Army and the Combined Forces Command.
From 2017 to 2019, Captain Park served as a staffer in Korea’s Presidential Blue House and its Office of National Security (U.S. National Security Council equivalent), wherein he served as a bridge between the Blue House and the White House and high-profile U.S. generals and ambassadors. Captain continues to seek ways to make the Korean military more agile to volatile security landscape in the Indo-Pacific. His research interests include multinational organizations, the UNC and the QUAD, alliance formation, and the Korea-U.S. alliance structure. Beyond his recent media presence, including the Wall Street Journal and Asia Times, Captain Park is a Young Leader of the Pacific Forum and a NextGen member of the Royal United Service Institute. He holds a BA in politics from New York University, and is in the process of withdrawing/reapplying to his MA in International Affairs at Columbia University due to unfortunate family concerns.
