With South Korea’s presidential election in full swing, the campaign teams of the leading candidates have spent the past week squabbling over how experts in the U.S. perceive their North Korea and foreign policies.

The controversy started last Friday when progressive Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party asserted in a television debate that his conservative opponent’s DPRK policy “heightens” the risk of war on the Korean Peninsula. Lee cited an opinion piece by retired U.S. Army officer and professor at the University of Illinois Chicago Choi Seung-whan, prompting People Power Party candidate Yoon Suk-yeol to dispute the writer’s credentials.