Junotane

My name is Jeffrey Robertson, aka Junotane. On this site, I write on foreign policy, diplomacy and the Korean Peninsula.

As an advisory warning, it’s direct, no holds barred, cutting commentary from in-country. It may offend. There’s no government baloney, no corporate cream, and no thinktank spruiking. Just free-thinking insight - commentary, analysis and fiction.

From here you can head on over to read About Junotane, including subscriptions and contact details; or you can head straight to the Writing section where you will find Analysis, Commentary, and Fiction on the Korean Peninsula and the the region.

Thanks for visiting and remember: be thankful, be nice, and help people - life is short :)

Ten step plan to become a North Korea watcher
Ten step plan to become a North Korea watcher

So, you completed your liberal arts degree and discovered there were no jobs. You enrolled in a master’s degree in international studies and at the halfway point with poor grades, realized there are still no jobs. What do you do?

2025 05 13

Understanding continuity in South Korea’s foreign policy
Understanding continuity in South Korea’s foreign policy

Yoon has left the building - but what happens to his foreign policy ideas? What happens to closer South Korea - U.S. relations, closer South Korea - Japan relations, and closer trilateral relations?

2025 05 12

Algorithmic foreign policy influence
Algorithmic foreign policy influence

Ideas in foreign and strategic policy are no longer formulated in academia and passed to the government in cheap lunchtime meetings or over stale coffee at poorly catered academic-government 1.5-track conferences.

2025 05 12

Why the U.S. and NATO failed to secure South Korean support on Ukraine
Why the U.S. and NATO failed to secure South Korean support on Ukraine

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. (Biden Administration), NATO, and European governments worked tirelessly to rally support from democratic allies around the world.

2025 05 09

The international relations academic paper is dead
The international relations academic paper is dead

I’m reading acacdemic papers written about Korea from the 1950s. You can tell these papers would have been shared among colleagues, perhaps even discussed in closed-door seminars or cited in speeches. These academic papers mattered.

2025 05 09

Speculative fiction as a tool for rethinking policy on Korea
Speculative fiction as a tool for rethinking policy on Korea

Read about Korea policy for more than ten minutes and you’re head explodes in a cloud of tedious talking points, over-technical documents, and dense strategy papers that have not changed for 30 years. If the goal is to craft better policy, then traditional methods are no longer enough. It is time to embrace a sharper tool: speculative fiction.

2025 05 09

East Asian scholars for hire
East Asian scholars for hire

Every funded op-ed adds more distrust to the world of misinformation, disinformation, and post-truth society where scholars are less respected and repeated talking points more effective.

2025 05 09

A turning point in U.S. strategic thought on Asia
A turning point in U.S. strategic thought on Asia

The passing of Richard Armitage, Joseph Nye, Henry Kissinger, and just under ten years ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski, marks more than just the end of an era of iconic U.S. foreign policy thinkers. It symbolizes a broader intellectual shift.

2025 05 09

Korea policy in the age of narcissism
Korea policy in the age of narcissism

It is a strange time to be a thinktank policy analyst in Washington. On one hand, the policy papers keep coming—well-researched, sober, often sensible attempts to offer realistic paths forward on North Korea and the ROKUS alliance.

2025 05 07

SK Telecom cyber attack implications remain unclear
SK Telecom cyber attack implications remain unclear

Significance. The April 2025 cyber attack on SK Telecom, South Korea's largest mobile carrier, has exposed critical vulnerabilities in the nation's digital infrastructure.

2025 05 06