Chung Min Lee is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., and a Senior Advisor for International Strategy and Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. Lee has worked at top research institutions and universities in the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore for the past 41 years. He works primarily on East Asian defense strategies, weapons systems, future wars and conflicts, and net assessments.
Prior to joining Carnegie in 2018, he was a Professor of International Studies at the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS), Yonsei University, in Seoul (1998–2018), where he also served as Dean. From 2021–2023, he served as a Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST). In public affairs, Lee served as the ROK’s Ambassador for National Security Affairs (2013–2015) and Ambassador for International Security Affairs (2009–2011). He has published widely and is the author of Fault Lines in a Rising Asia (Carnegie, 2016) and The Hermit King: The Dangerous Game of Kim Jong Un (St. Martin’s Press, 2019). His forthcoming book, Fight Tonight: Fixing South Korea’s Defence Deficits and Preparing for Future Crises, will be published by IISS/Routledge at the end of 2026. He is currently co-authoring a book with Yoichi Funabashi entitled Shared Fate: Korea, Japan, and the End of the American Shield, which will be published by the Lowy Institute/Penguin Books in early 2027.
Lee received his BA in political science from Yonsei University (1982) and his M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (1988). He has lived in ten countries and is fluent in Korean and English, with proficiency in Spanish and elementary Japanese.