What makes a good foreign policy analyst?

Can you really understand North Korea without speaking Korean?

There are plenty of debates on the importance of language to fully understand South and North Korea’s interaction with the outside world. As discussed previously, it’s a debate that derives from the split between area studies and international relations. The former emphasized the importance of a state’s history, culture (language), and society, in order to understand how decisions are made. The latter emphasized the importance of the international order, power, and the nature of states to understand how decisions are made.

The debate passed down through the generations and ended up with polarized tribes awash with social media vitriol. However, in the midst of these debates, people often forget the other qualities that contribute to good analysis. Here are just a few to bring up the next time someone says you don’t speak Korean well enough, or you didn’t study enough international relations.

In-country experience

In-country experience refers to first hand exposure to South or North Korea…