Korea: An Important Part of India's "Look East" Policy
Following the Cold War, India and Korea’s convergence of interests has been based primarily in terms of economic trade and partnership. A realization of a strategic partnership between the two rising powers, however, is in order - particularly by means of a sea lane defense partnership in securing imported energy from the Persian Gulf. This added security dimension will bring the two democracies closer together in the near future, in turn fortifying the existing institutional mechanisms for an increase in trade, investment, and joint development.
Based on his Working Paper, Dr. Walter Andersen, Associate Director of the South Asia Studies Program at SAIS, discussed Korea's role within India's greater "Look East" policy.
Tuesday, March 10
Kenney Auditorium
1740 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036
Transcript coming soon.
Born in New York City, Walter Andersen received his Bachelor of Science degree from Concordia College – River Forest Illinois, and did his graduate work at the University of Chicago, where he received a Ph.D. in Political Science. His area of specialization was Comparative Politics. Research for his Ph.D. thesis, Mobilization and Party Building, was carried out with Carnegie Grants in India.
Andersen was a teaching fellow at the University of Chicago, followed by an appointment in the Political Science Department of the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio. Besides teaching Comparative Politics and International Relations at the College of Wooster, he managed an overseas junior-year-abroad program for the Great Lakes Colleges Association, a consortium of 12 liberal arts colleges in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. He took leave to work as a special assistant for a member of the U.S. Congress in Washington D.C., and was responsible for the Congressman’s work on technology policy questions. He joined the State Department in the late 1970s as an analyst on India and Indian Ocean affairs in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he had a series of special assignments: one to Pakistan, then a frontline state in the effort to counter the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and the other to Moscow. From 1983-85, Andersen was on deputation at the East Asia Institute of the University of California, Berkeley, working with Professor Robert Scalapino on a study of Indian Ocean security issues. He was later an Executive Fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC, where he wrote The Brotherhood in Saffron, a study of the rise of Hindu nationalism in India. From 1988-91, he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy New Delhi and was special assistant to the Ambassador, writing analyses of policy options. On his return to the U.S., Andersen headed the State Department’s South Asia Division in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia. He joined the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University in the summer of 2003 as the Associate Director of its South Asia Studies Program. He had previously served as a teaching adjunct at the Nitze School.