North Korea

Douglas Dreger
Associate professor of geophysics
Phone: (510) 643-1719
Email: dreger@seismo.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Robert Sanders, (510) 643-6998 or rsanders@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Dreger is working on a project to better distinguish the seismic signatures of a nuclear detonation from those of an earthquake. Seismic waves carry distinct signatures that can be used to determine details about their source.

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.

Per Peterson
Professor and former chair of nuclear engineering
Phone: (510) 643-7749
Email: peterson@nuc.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741 or scyang@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Peterson's research focuses on problems in energy and environmental systems, including inertial confinement fusion, high-temperature reactors, high level nuclear waste processing, and nuclear materials management.

Daniel Sargent
Assistant professor of history
Phone: (510) 643-3159
Email: daniel.sargent@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Kathleen Maclay, (510) 643-5651 or kmaclay@berkeley.edu

Expertise: U.S. foreign policy, the history of U.S. foreign relations, and global and international history. He is interested in the challenge that North Korea presents to the Obama administration, particularly in terms of U.S. enforcement of nuclear non-proliferation and what U.S. policy towards nuclear proliferation may become.

"For perhaps the first time in history, a small and reckless state is on the cusp of becoming a nuclear power," says Sargent. "While Israel and Pakistan are 'small' powers in most respects, neither is reckless and both are counterbalanced by powerful local adversaries. It's intriguing that there are no obvious historical precedents for this, with the possible exception of Cuba in 1962."

Should the U.S. and the international community fail to stop North Korea's nuclear program, their inaction "may signal a broader dispersion of nuclear capabilities – all of which will increase the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used in anger," says Sargent.

Steven Weber
Professor of political science
Phone: (510) 642-8739 (office) or (510) 928-0657 (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.