2 security advisers drawn from academia

If the two countries’ foreign ministers come from vastly different backgrounds, the closest senior aides advising the presidents on national security share a background in academia.
South Korea’s national-security adviser, Ra Jong-yil, was ambassador to the United Kingdom in the Kim Dae-jung administration, but his roots are in education, as a professor and college administrator at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. A specialist on international relations, he was regarded as an unofficial ambassador to Britain before his assignment there; his ties with that country began when he attended Cambridge University in the 1970s. His association with former President Kim dates back to Mr. Kim’s visit to London in 1992 after an earlier lost presidential run.
Mr. Ra prompts negative assessments of his integrity and qualifications from some Seoul officials, whose reaction progressed from surprise at rumors that he might be offered a key post in the Roh Moo-hyun government to outright disbelief when he was named national-security adviser, a cabinet-level appointment. “You have to question whether he has the substance to be given that kind of responsibility,” a senior Seoul official said.
Substance, as far as diplomacy and national security are concerned, requires not only having a strong grasp of one’s subject and its potential implications for national interest, the official said. Also needed is the skill to assess risks and minimize them. It is debatable, the official said, whether Mr. Ra has shown such talents.
On the other hand, Mr. Ra’s resume presents a dizzying list of credentials and portfolios. His association with public service was mainly with Kim Dae-jung’s administration and Mr. Kim’s political party before that. After holding numerous party positions, Mr. Ra was the first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, overseeing international affairs through much of 1998 and 1999.
U.S. national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice’s government service goes back to 1989; she was appointed, at age 35, to the National Security Council of the first President Bush as the top Soviet specialist. Since then, she has shuttled between government and the private sector. She was provost at Stanford University and on the board of Chevron.
Although she has spoken of an anti-moralist (i.e., “realist”) influence in her foreign-policy thinking, Ms. Rice has clearly come to embody that wing of U.S. policy that calls interventionist policies justifiable. Preemption and the use of America’s absolute military superiority are key elements of the National Security Strategy compiled by Ms. Rice’s office and issued by the White House in September, days after the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, some months before the U.S. war against Iraq.
But the possible risks involved in how the United States pursues foreign policy are not lost on her. She has talked of the importance of anticipating unforeseen consequences and trying to mitigate them.
“But it is not acting, or acting too late, that has had the greatest consequences for international politics,” she said, in an interview with a U.S. publication last year.
That is a point some find lacking in Mr. Ra as national-security adviser. The Seoul official who criticized him went to some lengths to describe the importance of risk assessment and mitigation in foreign policy ― and to add that he has not detected these as strengths in Mr. Ra so far.
Seoul officials who know Ms. Rice speak of her in much the same terms as her Washington colleagues. She immediately comes across as very intelligent, one official said, but the way she conveys her thoughts is truly captivating. “She makes a terrific partner in discussions,” he said.