Broadcast Advisory: Carnegie Mellon University's Kiron K. Skinner Available to Discuss Wikileaks, North Korea

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Nov 30, 2010, 10:45 ET

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --

The Story: U.S. foreign policy currently faces two big challenges: the latest Wikileaks documents and the Korean crisis. Carnegie Mellon University's Kiron K. Skinner is one of the country's most renowned experts in international relations and U.S. foreign policy. Skinner, an associate professor of social and decision sciences and director of CMU's Center for International Relations and Politics, serves on the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Executive Panel, the National Security Education Board and the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2001-2007, she was a member of the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Policy board as an adviser on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Skinner sees a strong comparison between the Wikileaks and the 1979 Spy Den documents -- when Iranian radicals published classified cables from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran to Washington, D.C. "This type of violation of international understandings among states undermines the capacity of U.S. leaders to conduct diplomacy, as it did during the Iran revolution," Skinner said. "Documents are published outside of the larger context in which they are written; cables written by lower level officials, many of whom may not be in the decision loop, get magnified. This suggests that the U.S. cannot keep secrets, inflames opposition from radical corners and confuses the public."

Noting the escalating tension on the Korean peninsula, Skinner feels that the U.S.'s options are limited. "The gateway to North Korea is through China, and China has few incentives to 'solve' the North Korean problem," she said. "A unified Korean peninsula would put a democracy on China's borders and lead to a refugee crisis. Addressing North Korea as a problem also means facing the failure of Communism in the region. Trying to get China to see North Korea from our perspective is perhaps the biggest foreign-policy challenge outside of the Middle East."

About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 11,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon's main campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California's Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university is in the midst of a $1 billion fundraising campaign, titled "Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University," which aims to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements.