Meet our Next Speaker
Joel Wit
November 9, 2026
Topic: What to Do About North Korea: Past, Present and Future
Joel S. Wit is a Distinguished Fellow in Asian Security Studies at the Stimson Center. Wit is an internationally recognized expert on Northeast Asia security issues. As a U.S. State Department official, he helped negotiate the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework and was subsequently in charge of its implementation until he left government in 2002, holding countless talks with North Korean officials, including the military and nuclear establishments.
Wit served as a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies US-Korea Institute from 2007-2018, a Senior Fellow at CSIS from 2002-2006. He has previously served a consultant to the National Academy of Science and an Adjunct Senior Researcher at Columbia University’s Weatherhead Institute for Asian Studies.
Wit is the author of Fallout: The Inside Story of America’s Failure to Disarm North Korea (Yale University Press, 2025), which draws on decades of firsthand experience and extensive interviews to examine U.S. diplomatic efforts to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Wit is also a co-author (with Robert Gallucci and Daniel Poneman) of Going Critical: The First North Korea Nuclear Crisis, the winner of the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2004 prize for best book. He has written extensively in publications ranging from Foreignpolicy.com to the New York Times and is a regular expert guest on television shows (e.g. PBS Newshour, CNN’s The Situation Room and BBC) and radio (e.g. National Public Radio and BBC Radio).
Meetings open to members and members’ guests only. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings take place at Elk Hall, 210 Rankin Street in Rockland. The speaker begins promptly at noon and lunch is served from 1 PM.
Audios of Past Presentations
Listed below are links to recent presentations. Click to listen:
- Brian Latell: Cuba at the Crossroads
- Ambassador Steven Pifer: Russia and Ukraine (click here for accompanying slides)
- Dan Poneman: Prospects for further nuclear weapons proliferation
- Sir Masood Ahmed: World Development and the US Role
- Dr. Isaiah Wilson: Why America Keeps Winning Battles—and Losing the Peace
- George Chalos: Anchoring Power – The Rise of the US as Global Enforcers in the Maritime Industry Click here for Slides.
- Christina Bobrow: Ice in the Mediterranean: Frozen Conflict on the Island of Cyprus Click here for Slides
- Nader Habibi: The Economy of Iran in the Shadow of International Sanctions and the Supreme Leader
- Blas Nuñez-Neto: Status of Asylum Laws and Practices Click here for Slides
- Jane Holl Lute: Securing the Homeland Since 9/11: What Have We Learned?
- Silkroad Trio (Soft Power in Action) Introductory Panel Silkroad Performance
- Ambassador Christopher Hill: Foreign Policy Challenges in Uncertain Times
- Mohamed Bouabdallah and Carla Canales: Soft Power — An Essential Element of Foreign Relations
- Farah Pandith: SOFT POWER — How We Win: The Threat from Hate and the Power of Compassion
- Sherri Goodman: Arctic Security in a Changing Environment and Sherri’s Slides: Threat Multiplier
- Kenneth Frankel: How Current US Policies Create Uncertainty in Western Hemisphere Relations
- Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman: Adrift: The UN, Multilateralism, and US Disengagement
- Joshua Landis: Syria and the Middle East
- Martin Mühleisen on The IMF and World Bank in the New Geopolitical Environment
- Admiral Michael Rogers on Current Hot Spots of the World
- Henry Haggard on The US-Korea Relationship in Transition
- Ambassador Douglas Lute on The Future of NATO
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