Jacqueline Hearne

Col. Jacqueline Hearne is a U.S. Army military intelligence officer and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) resident representative in South Korea, specializing in bilateral liaison with local intelligence services. In Seoul, Hearne maintains close ties with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the Ministry of National Defense’s intelligence directorate.

Hearne’s entire career has been rooted in military intelligence. She began in the 2000s as a fixed-wing and rotary aircraft pilot before transitioning into a staff officer role within U.S. tactical aerial reconnaissance battalions in Iraq, where she oversaw intelligence gathering using unmanned aerial systems. After completing the Military Intelligence Captain’s Career Course, she shifted her focus entirely to foreign military operations in Northeast Asia. In 2011 she enrolled in the Defense Language Institute, spending a year studying Japanese language and culture.

Japan remained the primary focus of Hearne’s assignments from 2011 to 2025. During this period, she graduated from the Japan Self-Defense Forces Command and General Staff College and served as a U.S. military attaché in Tokyo. She established strong networks within Japan’s Ministry of Defense, completing a strategic national security studies course designed for active-duty Japanese defense officials. Hearne also engaged extensively with local communities; in a 2017 television interview, she noted her close relations with several Japanese families living near the U.S. Army’s Camp Kengun. Additionally, she built ties within the domestic academic community by participating in regional national security conferences.