International Diplomacy Challenges: North Korea

About the event:

Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun discusses U.S. policy and strategy for achieving the denuclearization of North Korea and the transformation of U.S.-North Korean relations. Biegun provides an overview of events since his appointment as Special Representative a year ago and discusses prospects for diplomacy with North Korea going forward.

This event will be live streamed. Please check back here shortly before the event to watch online.

Co-sponsored by the University of Michigan's Nam Center for Korean Studies.

From the speaker's bio:

Stephen Biegun serves as the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, a role he has held since August 2018. On behalf of the Secretary of State, he directs all U.S. policy on North Korea, leads negotiations, and spearheads U.S. diplomatic efforts with allies and partners. Biegun has three decades of experience in the Executive and Legislative Branches in government and in the private sector. As national security advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, he provided analysis and strategic planning for the U.S. Senate’s consideration of foreign policy, defense and intelligence matters, and international trade agreements. Prior to that, Biegun worked in the White House from 2001-2003 as Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.

Before joining the White House staff, Biegun served for fourteen years as a foreign policy advisor to members of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (1999-2000) and as a senior staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs. From 1992 to 1994, he served in Moscow, Russia as the Resident Director in the Russian Federation for the International Republican Institute, a democracy-building organization established under the National Endowment for Democracy.

In the private sector, Biegun most recently was vice president of International Governmental Relations for Ford Motor Company, where—as a third generation Ford employee—he oversaw all aspects of Ford’s international governmental interactions including throughout the Indo-Pacific Region. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Biegun graduated from the University of Michigan where he studied Political Science and Russian Language. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, and has served on the boards of the National Bureau of Asian Research, the US-ASEAN Business Council, the US-Russia Foundation for Economic Development and the Rule of Law, and Freedom House.

About the lecture series:

This event forms part of the series in celebration of the launch of the Weiser Diplomacy Center (WDC), housed in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. WDC is a hub for practical training and policy dialogue on diplomacy and foreign affairs. WDC trains students for careers in international service, provides a meeting point for academics and practitioners, and serves as a bridge between U-M and the foreign policy community. WDC engages Professors of Practice and regular visiting practitioners and aims to be one of the country’s leading loci for the study of foreign affairs.

Hosted as part of the Ford School's Conversations Across Difference Initiative. 

• North Korea
• Conversations Across Difference
• Weiser Diplomacy Center
• Stephen Biegun
• Weiser Diplomacy Center Launch Series
• Democracy and Debate
• Michael Barr