Fallout: The Inside Story of America’s Failure to Disarm North Korea

Speaker: Joel S. Wit, Distinguished Fellow in Asian and Security Studies, The Stimson Center

Moderator: Barbara Demick, the author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (2009) and Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins (2025).

Joel S. Wit is a Distinguished Fellow in Asian and 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 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).

Joel S. Wit will discuss his book Fallout: The Inside Story of America’s Failure to Disarm North Korea on Friday November 7, 2025.

Wit’s upcoming book “Fallout: The Inside Story of America’s Failture to Disarm North Korea provides a masterful account of why U.S. efforts to halt North Korea’s nuclear ambitions have repeatedly fallen short. Drawing on more than 300 interviews with policymakers in Washington, Beijing, Seoul, and even Pyongyang, Wit reconstructs the high-stakes negotiations and secret diplomatic strategies that shaped nearly four decades of nuclear diplomacy.

He challenges prevailing narratives by offering a nuanced portrait of Kim Jong Un—not as irrational or impulsive—but as a strategic negotiator using nuclear escalation as leverage. He argues that transformations under the Obama and Trump administrations accelerated Pyongyang’s capabilities, making the North a threat to every U.S. city.

This event is hosted by the Center for Korean Research at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.

PLEASE NOTE: For non-Columbia guests, registration is required to access the Morningside campus 24 hours prior to the event. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 12:00 PM on Wednesday, October 8 for campus access.

Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event and subsequently reviewed. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event.

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