Experts

Scott A. Snyder

Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy

Programs

About the Expert

Expert Bio

Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His program examines South Korea’s efforts to contribute on the international stage; its potential influence and contributions as a middle power in East Asia; and the peninsular, regional, and global implications of North Korean instability. Mr. Snyder is the author of the forthcoming The United States-South Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not (December 2023), coeditor of North Korea's Foreign Policy: The Kim Jong-un Regime in a Hostile World (January 2023) with Kyung-Ae Park, author of South Korea at the Crossroads: Autonomy and Alliance in an Era of Rival Powers (January 2018), coauthor of Domestic Constraints on South Korean Foreign Policy (January 2018) with Geun Lee, Young Ho Kim, and Jiyoon Kim, and coauthor of The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States (May 2015) with Brad Glosserman. Mr. Snyder served as the project director for CFR’s Independent Task Force on policy toward the Korean Peninsula. He currently writes for the blog Asia Unbound.

Prior to joining CFR, Mr. Snyder was a senior associate in the international relations program of the Asia Foundation, where he founded and directed the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy and served as the Asia Foundation’s representative in Korea (2000–2004). He was also a senior associate at Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Snyder has worked as an Asia specialist in the research and studies program of the U.S. Institute of Peace and as acting director of Asia Society’s contemporary affairs program. He was a Pantech visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during 2005–2006, and received an Abe fellowship, administered by the Social Sciences Research Council, in 1998–1999. Mr. Snyder has provided advice to nongovernmental and humanitarian organizations active in North Korea and serves on the advisory council of the National Committee on North Korea.

Mr. Snyder received a BA from Rice University and an MA from the regional studies East Asia program at Harvard University. He was a Thomas G. Watson fellow at Yonsei University in South Korea.

Affiliations: 

  • Japan Bank of International Cooperation, consultant
  • National Committee on North Korea, co-chair

Current Projects

Top Stories on CFR

Myanmar

Myanmar's military has recently suffered a string of defeats—but the U.S. government seems unprepared to face the country's potential state collapse.

Ukraine

The authors, including a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, UN Undersecretary-General for Legal Affairs, Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the inaugural U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, urge the imperative of prosecuting alleged Russian crimes of aggression in Ukraine, and present two practical options for doing so.

China

The passing of America’s preeminent foreign-policy thinker and practitioner marks the end of an era. Throughout his long and extraordinarily influential career, Henry Kissinger built a legacy that Americans would be wise to heed in this new era of great-power politics and global disarray.