Ken E. Gause, Research Analyst, and Acting Director International Affairs Group

Expertise
  • North Korean leadership
  • Iranian leadership
  • Russian leadership

Ken Gause is a senior analyst in CNA Strategic Studies and is currently serving as the acting director of the International Affairs Group. Gause oversees most of CSS’ foreign leadership work, with a particular focus on the leaderships of hard-target countries. Gause began his analyst career in the early 1980s studying the Soviet Union for the U.S. government. For the past two decades, his work has focused on North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, and Russia. He has published numerous articles on leadership structures for such publications as Jane’s Intelligence Review, RUSI’s China Military Update, and the Korean Journal for Defense Analysis.

Recent Work: North Korean succession politics, police state, and civil-military relations; IRGC in Iranian politics; Iranian regime dynamics; Russian leadership politics under Vladimir Putin.

Education: MA in Soviet and East European Affairs from George Washington University, BA in Political Science and Russian from Vanderbilt University.

Languages: Russian

Publications of Interest

  • “North Korea’s Political System in the Transition Era: The Role and Influence of the Party Apparatus,” in Scott Snyder and Kyung-Ae Park, eds., North Korea in Transition (Lanam, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, forthcoming in 2011).
  • Police State: North Korea’s System of Control, Surveillance, and Punishment. (Washington, DC: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, forthcoming in 2011).
  • How North Korea is Ruled: Leadership Politics in the Kim Chong-il Era (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishers, 2011).
  • “A Maritime Perspective of North Korean WMD,” Paper presented at the 4th Annual Conference Co-Sponsored by the Center for Naval Analyses and Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy (October 2010). Published as a chapter in The Republic of Korea’s Security and the Role of the ROK-U.S. Navies (Seoul: Korea Institute for Maritime Studies, 2011).
  • “Future North Korean Crises: Scenarios and Signposts,” Paper presented at a seminar on Promoting Stability on the Korean Peninsula co-hosted by the Brookings Institution and the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis (June 2009).
  • “The Rise of Kim Jong Un,” Foreign Policy Magazine (April 2009).
  • “Managing Future North Korean Crises: Scenarios and Signposts,” Paper presented at Conference in Seoul hosted by the Institute for National Security Studies (October 2008).
  • “Can The North Korean Regime Survive Kim Chong-Il?” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol. 20, No. 2 (June 2008).
  • North Korean Civil-Military Relations: Military First Policy to a Point (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, September 2006).
  • “Sino-North Korean Military Relations: Comrades-in-Arms Forever?” China Military Update (May 2004).
  • The North Korean Leadership: System Dynamics and Fault Lines. Chapter in Kangdon Oh, ed., North Korean Elites (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analysis, 2004).
  • “Can the Iraqi Security Apparatus Save Saddam?” Jane’s Intelligence Review (November 2002).

gausek@cna.org    703.824.2451