On October 27, the Strauss and Clements Centers’ Asia Policy Program hosted Benjamin Young, Assistant Professor of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, for a talk on his recently published book Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World. Sheena Greitens, director of the Asia Policy Program and associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, moderated the talk.

Young’s presentation explored North Korea’s transformation in the Third World from model developmental state to reckless terrorist nation, and how Pyongyang’s actions ultimately backfired against the Kim family regime’s foreign policy goals. He examined the intersection of North Korea’s domestic and foreign policies and the ways in which North Korea’s developmental model appealed to the decolonizing world. Young also discussed North Korea’s longstanding relationship with Cuba, which the North Korean state-run media has labeled as “brothers-in-arms.”

Young fielded questions ranging from how has North Korea’s posture changed from leader to leader, the history of North Korea’s cyber-activities, the role of communist China in its interactions with North Korea, and more.

Biography

Benjamin R. Young is an Assistant Professor of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World (Stanford University Press, 2021). He received his Ph.D. from The George Washington University in 2018. He has previously taught at the U.S Naval War College and Dakota State University. He has published peer-reviewed articles on North Korean history and politics in a number of scholarly journals and is a regular contributor to NKNews.org.

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