A Trump/Kim Summit

Jeffrey Lewis 0:05

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:24

I'm Aaron Stein, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Kariri Center for the Middle East. What the fuck, dude? I think they're trolling us. I mean, on our last podcast, which we just put to bed, I said that the most predictable person in this relationship will be Trump because we know they aren't going to have talks.

And like 12 hours later, like, holy shit, Donald Trump is flying to South Korea.

Jeffrey 0:45

Hold my beer. Well, maybe. Or maybe North Korea or Kim's coming here. I don't know. You know, it's like if Nixon went to China. Right. But if Nixon were very, very stupid.

Aaron 1:01

I'm afraid to say anything. I'll screw it up again. My own interpretations and predictions about this event are not good, and listeners should tune me out.

Jeffrey 1:10

Well, I mean, the thing is, the president's a child. I mean, I'm trying to put something together that's organized, but I think the reason it is so fundamentally disorienting is that A consistent goal of North Korean diplomacy since the Clinton administration has been to elicit a visit from the president of the United States. Yes. And we have always imagined that such a visit must come at the end of a negotiation because it is the thing the North Koreans want the most.

And it is the thing that they will pay the most for because they want to be seen as a normal and legitimate country. And the hang-up has always been that if you go, you are then granting them that legitimacy. You know, the North Korea that the president visits is the North Korea you are buying forever.

Aaron 2:12

No, absolutely. The visit was always intended to be a reward, the culmination of a process, and therefore bestowing upon them legitimacy that they had held up there under the bargain. They flipped it. And so now... They get all the goodies up front. They do get all the goodies up front. But is that a bad thing? I mean, has the old way proved effective in the past and therefore could maybe this disruption and sort of this orange blur of energy moving up to wherever they're going to meet maybe do something good?

Jeffrey 2:47

Well, so that's my fundamental worry, which is that because the president is child and because the people around him Handle or enable him. Everything this administration has said so far leads me to think that the president believes he is going to Korea to pick up Kim Jong-un's weapons. Like, they think they are going to discuss the denuclearization of North Korea.

Aaron 3:20

Yeah, they've made that clear. That's not what the North Koreans said. It's almost like It just happened. You know, it wasn't rolled out because, you know, when we finished the last pod, they had emailed talking points proactively about what their position was on the North-South summit and then the South conveying of the North Korean points. Then literally a couple hours later, they have the sit down with South Korean, is it defense minister?

Jeffrey 3:51

No, no, it's the... The South Koreans are so kind in that they give these people job titles that correspond to ours, even though they don't really. But it makes it easier for us. The National Security Advisor. Okay, yeah. The National Security Advisor, then brief. More complicated than that, but yes.

Aaron 4:06

Right. And then you get this announcement, and like, I was putting my kid to bed, man, and I was like, holy s***. Like, 12 hours ago, you were emailing out talking points and nothing was coming. And so I was caught off guard.

Jeffrey 4:17

Well, you know, it's crazy because, you know, First of all, again, I want to reemphasize, like, we don't have really anything from the North Koreans, right? We have the South Korean version of what Kim Jong-un said, which, by the way, we now know that there was a bunch of booze served. Have you seen? Like, people have actually been identifying the booze.

So we have a boozy lunch with Kim Jong-un, and then we finally got, Anna Fifield got an email out of the... North Korean mission to the UN, which doesn't mention denuclearization at all, at least not the part she quoted. Yeah, I mean, it basically just says the president can come to have North Korea's position explained to him.

Aaron 4:57

Yeah, I mean, I almost feel like it's worth reading the NFI field thing. And we're sort of doing this on the fly. So I'm pulling it up right now because it's quite it's quite stalking. To go back to the point you were making earlier, Trump is not coming there to take the weapons home, sort of metaphorically. Trump is going there to meet with Kim Jong-un to hear why they want the weapons.

Jeffrey 5:18

That's how I interpret everything the North Koreans have said. You know, that what Kim Jong-un said to the South Koreans was, you know, that it was his father's dying wish and it's still policy, which is what Kim Jong-il used to say about Kim Il-sung. But that North Korea would not... I mean, I shouldn't say but, but North Korea would not need nuclear weapons if there were no threats to its security.

Aaron 5:45

Yeah.

Jeffrey 5:45

But, like, that's... That is... You know, what the current wave of optimism rippling through our community reminds me of is when Barack Obama stood up in Prague and said we should seek a world without nuclear weapons. And people were like, he's going to get rid of our weapons. It was like, no. You know, like he said, not in his lifetime.

You know, like it's the tribute that vice pays to virtue. You know, when you say this. And I think that's very clear in the North Korean statement that they emailed Anna Fifield. Yeah. Do you want me to read it? Yes, I was stalling for you.

Aaron 6:25

Okay. The invitation was a result of Kim's broad-minded and resolute decision to contribute to the peace and security of the Korean Peninsula, said North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations in New York, who was responsible for handling communications with the United States. By the great courageous decision of our Supreme Leader, we can take the new aspect to secure the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the East Asia region.

Pak Song-il wrote in an email to The Washington Post, End quote.

Jeffrey 7:06

Yeah, that does not sound like, please come get our weapons.

Aaron 7:08

No, that sounds like, let's negotiate on sort of equal footing about aspirational disarmament, which is what they said in the South Korean, which is what the South Koreans had relayed in what we talked about in the last podcast.

Jeffrey 7:20

Yeah. So, you know, like, I mean, it's complicated because on the one hand, I do believe that we need... To understand that Kim Jong-un is not giving up his nuclear weapons. And so there's a part of me that thinks like, well, if the president goes to North Korea and recognizes North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and agrees to very aspirational denuclearization commitments, you know, like the blue sky, like when, you know, we've resolved all these issues and they start working out a peace treaty, like...

I guess that's good, but it's not like... It's not the way that you would want to do it, because you're really showing up to give the North Koreans what they want, to give them that sense of legitimacy. And you are either going to show up... Do you like how every one of my phones is ringing at once?

Aaron 8:21

I'm sure you're a busy guy today.

Jeffrey 8:23

That's exactly what today is like. That's okay.

Aaron 8:26

It adds an organic feel to this emergency podcast.

Jeffrey 8:28

Yeah, well, I love our listeners most of all, so everybody else can F off for the next 10 minutes. You know, you're either showing up to say, you know what? You can treat your citizens how you want. You can keep your portion of the peninsula. You can keep your nuclear weapons. And we're going to treat you like you're just any other country because, you know, that's that.

And the North Koreans are going to love that, right? They're going to say like, ah, look, Saddam gave up his weapons and he got invaded and hanged. Gaddafi gave up his weapons, right? And, you know, American air power helped rebels drag him out of his SUV and do bad things to him. Really bad things. I kept my weapons and I got a summit.

Like, at some level, like, you know, like, I've never considered maximum appeasement as a strategy. Like, give the North Koreans literally everything they want. Maybe they will behave. But I've always assumed that, like, that's a pretty risky thing to do. And it should scare the crap out of the South Koreans, except... You have a progressive government, and Trump has scared them more.

Aaron 9:38

Well, that's why I was going to get to that. You know, it would be one thing if this was done independently, but it's not being done independently. You know, he was in the Oval with a national security advisor, you know, in quotes, of South Korea, and therefore made the decision, it seems like, on the spot to make this announcement.

And so, I mean, let me play devil's advocate here. Is it time to try something else?

Jeffrey 10:04

Well, you know, I mean, it is such a weird situation because as you saw, both the South Koreans and Abe released a statement saying this was a good idea. And they both said the same thing, which is they gave credit to the president.

Aaron 10:16

Yeah, well, they've learned to play him, Abe in particular, but yes.

Jeffrey 10:19

But this is like the worst example of Stockholm Syndrome I have ever seen. Like, this man is literally holding us all hostage and we are all terrified that he is going to kill us. And so, like, we've come... To enable his every impulse. And I think it's true of his staff, who I'm certain have not told him either that, A, every single president has had this invitation sitting on the table, or, B, that Kim is not giving up the weapons, because they want him to be distracted.

Like, they want him to, like, not focus on Iran and not be threatening North Korea and, like, oh, think of the, like, fun trip you're going to have. But, like, what I worry about is, like, What happens when it becomes clear that North Korea is not giving up the weapons?

Aaron 11:02

Well, that's the question I have. Yeah.

Jeffrey 11:03

You know, and there are two sets of problems. Like one is, okay, Abe has this personal relationship with Trump, which really is like Stockholm syndrome. And Moon is a lovable lefty who believes in the sunshine policy and is almost certainly paying for this summit, right? Because they paid for the other summit. So what happens when you get a conservative government in South Korea?

Or what happens when Trump goes and Abe reverts to being a normal Japanese? Or what happens when Abe goes and is replaced by a normal Japanese who doesn't feel the need to flatter Trump? They're going to be seriously alarmed. My guess is the Japanese civil service is apoplectic at this point. But maybe not. And so that's one set is like that.

But then the other question is what happens when Trump realizes they ain't giving up the bomb? Is he going to like just not ever realize it because he's an idiot? Or is he going to... Be upset and he's going to blame Tillerson and then fire Tillerson, or is he going to blame Kim Jong-un for double crossing him? And then in which case, 2019 is way worse than 2017. I mean, the one thing we know is he's not going to blame himself. No, no, of course not. So like, if you were having to staff out the president's trip and you have to, you know, that they're not going to denuclearize.

Aaron 12:24

I mean, literally, unless something...

Jeffrey 12:26

I would resign. I would resign because you are not managing him, you are enabling him. But what would you ask him to bring home? I mean, you're not going to get anything good, because you are front-loading the thing that the North Koreans want.

Aaron 12:39

Yeah, you've given it away, that's true.

Jeffrey 12:42

And so, like, it's done. And I can't really resign. At least not... You know, I don't feel the... People who are detailed to the White House, I don't hold them to the same standard because it's an ethically different situation. You're front-loading it, so you're not going to get what you want. You're buying this North Korea. This is it.

You are going and you are recognizing North Korea. I think you try to get a peace treaty.

Aaron 13:15

I didn't think about that. I was thinking something smaller.

Jeffrey 13:20

Well no no because you're going huge and you're not going to get they're not going to give up the bombs and so I think what you say is like okay we're going to work out a peace treaty so that's like the other big thing you want right and you say like that's going to you got it like you're front loading the big thing so then you got to put the other big thing on the table and you got to try like you internally are going to accept that they're a nuclear weapons state And that unification is off the table.

And at this point, you're just, I think, trying to, you know, you're going for the whole enchilada because at the moment, the South Koreans are coming along and the Japanese are coming along. And I guess you try to pull it off. But like, I just, I would not have recommended this course of action, right? Like, so don't, like, I'm about to spin a Rosie scenario.

Don't think I believe this is going to happen. I'm just, we're here. So I guess we got to do it. I mean, what you're hoping is that by, Going for big settlement, right? Like, okay, this is the president who can ignore the human rights situation. This is the president who, you know, just has no problem managing the crazy right-wing people who freaked out when Obama went to Cuba, but like, who are, you know, All in on Cheeto Jesus going to North Korea, like, like whatever, like it's just, it is what it is. then I think you, you go for the big, the big settlement, and you hope that a flattered and secure and happy Kim Jong-un.

Feels like he has enough leeway to start loosening up to treat North Korean citizens better, to liberalize the economy, you know, and maybe he pulls a Milosevic. You know, Milosevic felt emboldened after the Operation Allied Force. Yes, he did. And was dumb enough to hold it, hold an election that he lost.

Aaron 15:27

That's right.

Jeffrey 15:28

So, you know, maybe, you know, your options are maybe you get like a China situation where things loosen. Or maybe you get a Yugoslavia situation where they they they loosen and fall apart. But like, you know, we're we're we're going we're we're I don't want to call it appeasement because it has such a bad name. Like but like we're going with like the big like let's really let's really bring the sunshine.

So I guess, I mean, I just, I would have not done it this way. I would have focused on limiting the missile program and trying to address these other issues. But, you know, what the hell? The South Koreans want to try big sunshine, and who, like, we're defending them, so if they don't want us... Well, I mean...

Right? Like, the Japanese are happy, the South Koreans are happy, I think they're freaking insane, but, like, okay. Yeah. You guys are way richer than the North Koreans. If you want to... Go ahead. Sunshine them.

Aaron 16:31

Yeah, I mean, the concern I have is a... Is the capacity in there to actually come up with something coherent? And actually, I do think that's there. And so all the civil staff will do their jobs, but will he take it seriously? I mean, or will he, has he told himself that he's the best negotiator in the world and therefore that he'll be able to ram his finger into his chest and say, give me the nukes, otherwise I'm turning around and walking out of here.

It was something crazy like that. And then ultimately you lead yourself to failure and then there's nothing left for the U.S. to give.

Jeffrey 17:06

So I teach the missile deal that Clinton almost reached with the North Koreans, and they had all these rounds in Kuala Lumpur at the expert level, and Bill Perry made a visit as a delegate of the president, and they had General Joe come to Washington, and they sent Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang, and they were this close, and they got to the point where it was clear that North Korea was willing to freeze.

They were willing to stop exporting. They were willing to stop testing. But what they weren't willing to do is give up the missiles they'd already built. And God knows they weren't willing to let the U.S. go into North Korean military units and inspect them. And Clinton decided he wasn't going to get on the plane, that it wasn't enough.

And the North Koreans were hinting, like, hey, get on the plane. You might get a little more. And Clinton was like, no, I'm out of time. I got, you know, Bush v. Gore. I got a Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. I got a Middle East peace process. Like, I can't get on the plane without knowing what I'm going to get.

And I'm sympathetic to that decision, actually. Like, I think in hindsight he should have gotten on the plane because, Jesus Christ, look how it turned out. But I know why Sandy Berger didn't put him on the plane. This is, like, exactly the opposite. Like, he's just... Just getting on the plane and has no idea what he's going to come home with.

The thing is, like, yeah, he's going to love it. Like Albright's trip. You know, she tells that crazy story about how she goes to this giant stadium and there's not a soul on the street. And then she gets in and they flip on the lights and the whole place is packed. Then these people have been forced to sit there with their little placards waiting for her.

And then they have to do like the lift up your cards show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's vaguely horrified by the mass participation, totalitarian aspect of it. Trump is going to lap that up. So he is going to have a great time. And by the way, his visit, it's going to be like Dennis Rodman. They're going to hang out and have a good time, which is just... You've made me thoroughly depressed.

Aaron 19:05

I wasn't this depressed before the conversation started. You've depressed me.

Jeffrey 19:09

Well, because... Well, look, okay, so the positive thing to say is it's better than having a nuclear war.

Aaron 19:13

That's ultimately where I'm getting at. I completely agree with everything you said. This seems half-cocked. I don't have any confidence in the president. I think they have mismatched expectations, and I worry that if he comes home in failure, what the policy options will be. But then I tell myself that you and I have been sitting on this podcast telling everybody that we have to go talk to North Koreans for the last two years.

I think we would have sent somebody else, of course. I mean, our last podcast, we were talking about pizzas and pancakes underneath the door. We were talking about a bureaucrat.

Jeffrey 19:45

Well, that's exactly the thing is, you know, because ultimately when we said that, we didn't think there was any chance of them giving up nuclear weapons. Our goal was to work the United States into a position where it could accept a deal that was less than full denuclearization. That's right. And if the president has had an epiphany like, oh, my God, they're not giving up these weapons.

We're in the business of tension reduction. We're stopping tests and further advancement and signing a peace deal. If he is in that other headspace, that's fine-ish. It's closer to where he needs to be.

Aaron 20:26

But he keeps saying that they're going to go and negotiate denuclearization, and that's not going to happen.

Jeffrey 20:33

And so my fear is, once that doesn't happen, where does that blame land? Because he is not going to blame himself. He's not going to say, you know, I really kind of went off a little half-cocked there. I probably shouldn't have just, you know... Gotten basically a, you know, secondhand account from a South Korean diplomat and said, I'll go. they're giving him up, like, you know, maybe, maybe we should have talked about that first, but he's not gonna do that, right? He's gonna blame Rex Tillerson you know, and, and you like John Bolton, who's telling him this is a terrible idea, is gonna look great. John Bolton's gonna say, oh god, this is horrible, you shouldn't go, they're gonna do, they're gonna hoodwink you, and, and then you know, like.

The North Koreans are not going to live up to Donald Trump's false expectations, and his response to that is going to be to imagine that it wasn't that he had the wrong expectations, it's that the North Koreans lied to him, and then next year is worse. That's what I worry about.

Aaron 21:30

Yeah, okay, so that's your worry, is that the mismatch of expectations raised the chance of failure, whereas if you went in clear-eyed and with a clear goal, there could be some positive things that come out, but one of those positive things will not be denuclearization.

Jeffrey 21:47

Right, and I think the fundamental problem here is, and you see this in Dan Dresner's beloved, I'll believe the president is growing into the role when his staff stops talking about him like a toddler.

Aaron 21:59

Yeah, that's a great Twitter.

Jeffrey 22:01

But they surely have not told him that every other president had this invitation. And they surely have not told him that Kim's not giving up the weapons. Because they think this will get him to not focus on Iran. And will instead get him to focus on North Korea, and it'll get him to focus on diplomacy as opposed to war.

I understand why they're doing that, but that is enabling him. You're not actually managing him. You're just getting through the next couple days, but then you're setting up all these other minefields that you're going to have to deal with later. And that's fundamentally what I worry about, that they're... They're so terrified that he is going to start a nuclear war with North Koreans or tear up the Iran nuclear deal that this is the least bad shiny thing to have him fixating on.

But he's going to f*** up. You're not managing him. You are enabling him. And, you know, I guess presidents aren't actually addicts. And so, you know, like they have the button and it's very different. And maybe you do have to enable them. But I just it feels to me like all the conversations I have with people about why this is a good idea.

This is all about managing Trump, not actually about fixing our problem.

Aaron 23:20

Well, you're pretty glum. I mean, you're fired up glum. Yeah, that's OK. What's the best case scenario when we come home? Is your hope that we have a peace treaty or that things don't get worse?

Jeffrey 23:34

The best case scenario is Nixon goes to China. You know, like, I always tell this story. If you had told Lyndon Johnson in 1964 that China testing a nuclear weapon was a great idea, a good thing for the American century, you know, whatever, he would have looked at you like you were a weirdo. And he would have wanted to know why the hell you think it's a good thing China's testing a nuclear weapon.

And you would say, well... You know, it's going to make China more secure. We're going to give up on our fantasies of getting rid of Mao. And it's going to empower people in the Chinese government who want a better relationship with the United States. And he's going to be like, wait, nuclear weapons are terrible. Hawks want nuclear weapons.

And you're going to have to explain, well, no, actually, you know, the... Interesting divisions in Chinese politics are between the veterans and the, the reds, and it's actually the reds who are crazy and hate the United States, and the veterans just really hated the Japanese, and they're communists because they want to build a strong country, but they're really going to push Mao to like open things up, and, and, and he's going to be willing to receive an American president, and, and Johnson would be like, gee, really, you know, and he's going to imagine himself in that role, and he's going to say, you know.

So what farsighted American president is going to do that? And you're like, Richard Nixon. And you'd be like, get the f*** out of my office, you know? Richard Nixon, the giant cold warrior. And so, like, you could imagine a situation where... Just suddenly all the things you hated, you now no longer hate because you don't have to worry about the American domestic political scene because conservatives will just back the president out of tribal loyalty even though he's doing the opposite of what they want.

And then you have this window in which you could build a different relationship. And we, you know... Tacitly which i think is what would happen with north korea tacitly except that we're vulnerable to their nuclear weapons you know it's there as a danger but kind of fades and then you hope you hope that the that the reduction in tension and engagement allows a different north korea to emerge that's better for its citizens but You know, like, I kind of, I've always said that we should be open to that outcome.

I just, okay. You know, that's a really rosy outcome where everything goes right. And, you know, like, even in China, like, okay, life for your regular Chinese person is way better than it was under Mao. But, you know, it's not like China got real free. And it's not like China and the United States have solved all our security problems.

You know, like, do I think Nixon going to China was the right thing? And, you know, we built a much better relationship. And, like, you know, yes. Yeah, that was worth doing. But, like, it's touch and go along the way. And I just, I don't know. Are these really the guys who are going to pull this off?

Aaron 26:40

I hope so. Good luck. I think it's a happy note. I mean, just wishing people good luck and that maybe there's a positive outcome coming out of this.

Jeffrey 26:48

I don't want them to fail. I don't want the president to humiliate himself in the country. Like, I don't, you know, yeah, I want it to be good.

Aaron 26:59

Well, you know, on that happy note, maybe I should talk about what's going on over at the Slack channel.

Jeffrey 27:05

Yeah, and you should talk, and I'm going to tease some stuff that's coming.

Aaron 27:13

Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, for people involved in our Slack channel, they've been talking a lot about this. And if you'd like to get involved with this conversation, you can head on over to our Patreon page, which is patreon.org slash acwpodcast. And for $5 a month, you can become a member and join the Slack channel if you were a student.

It's only $3 a month. And there's some really cool conversations going on in there now about imagery and presidents' expected visits. So lots to talk about.

Jeffrey 27:41

Yeah, and we now finally have worked out our first imagery purchase. Yeah, it's taken a while, but we got it figured out. Dave Schmerler is going to publish an article on Arms Control Wonk that looks at something very interesting, which I teased in the previous episode. North Korea is building monuments at all the launch sites associated with the ICBM program.

Well, not all of them. The first one, the first Hwasong-14. And the Hwasong-15 launch. And so he is going to publish that article using funds provided by our patrons and to pay them back or thank them or just engage them because they're awesome. He's going to lead a little discussion of how he geolocated the Hwasong-15 launch site and dump some extra imagery Of Pyongyang, which is North Korea's it's Missile Town DPRK.

And you know, in contrast to the enthusiasm for disarmament that appears to be breaking out That's actually a city that appears to be dedicated to the DPRK missile program that's getting bigger and with better perks. Not, I think, about to be impoverished by a sudden and unexpected disarmament.

Aaron 29:04

Well, that's a lot to look forward to.

Jeffrey 29:06

Aaron. Thank you for joining me in this emergency podcast. My pleasure.

Aaron 29:12

My pleasure. Thanks to Scott, by the way, for letting me use his computer because I left mine at home today. So big shout out to Scott. Otherwise, there would be no podcast. And thank all of you for listening.