James Schoff

About James Schoff

Jim Schoff has spent over twenty-five years working in both the private sector and the defense policy community on Japan and East Asia-related issues, including five years living in Japan. He is currently a Senior Associate in the Asia Program (and Japan Director) at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Prior to Carnegie, Jim served as a Senior Advisor for East Asia Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (until 2012), where he was responsible for strategic planning and policy development for U.S. alliance relations with Japan and the Republic of Korea, trilateral initiatives, and regional security cooperation issues including missile defense, counter-proliferation, North Korea, and disaster relief. He received commendation from the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) for contributions made in support of Operation TOMODACHI in Japan (following the earthquake and tsunami disaster in 2011) and for policy strategy development following North Korean provocations in 2010, as well as being awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Prior to serving in the Defense Department, Jim was Director of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he specialized in East Asian security issues, international crisis management, U.S. alliance relations, and WMD nonproliferation. He also lectured on Japanese foreign policy at Boston University for one semester. Prior to joining IFPA, Jim served as Program Officer in charge of policy studies at the United States-Japan Foundation in New York, and he developed new business and managed multi-site projects for Bovis Japan and Bovis Asia Pacific, an international construction and project management firm. Jim has written extensively on East Asian security and foreign policy issues. His articles have also appeared in The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, the International Journal of Korean Unification Studies, Political Science Quarterly, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Sekai Shuho, U.S. News & World Report, Deutsche Welle, National Interest, Yomiuri Shimbun, Far Eastern Economic Review, and the International Herald Tribune, and he has provided testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Asia Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.Jim graduated from Duke University and earned an M.A. in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He also studied at International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, Japan.