John Chu was born in Seoul, Korea in 1972. The son of an immigrant, he grew up in California where he calls home.  John attended West Point and graduated with honors in 1995 and a commission as a Military Intelligence officer. John has held critical leadership and staff positions at every echelon, from platoon to Army staff. John has deployed twice to Iraq and once to Bosnia, with multiple overseas assignments to Korea, Germany, and Turkey. Prior to the start of his Senior Military Fellowship at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center), John served on the Department of the Army, Intelligence (G-2) staff as the Chief of Intelligence Training. He hopes to deploy to Afghanistan for his follow-on assignment.

At Stanford, Chu is researching the Korean armistice agreement and the United Nations mission to South Korea. He will also examine U.S. policy toward North Korea, particularly analyzing the “brink of war” tension and developing strategic deterrence measures to reduce risk of unwanted military escalation on the Korean Peninsula. For both research streams, Chu aims to produce analyses and recommendations that could inform a policy audience.