North Korean Nuclear Tunnels

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

I'm going to have to hang on. 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 0:26

And I'm Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Jeffrey 0:32

Hey, Aaron, how you doing?

Aaron 0:33

That's pretty good. You've been traveling. I think you were in Europe.

Jeffrey 0:37

I was in Austria, and we were at a resort in Krems. And as people who are like me and who love spas may know, German speakers, whether they are German Germans or Austrian Germans, they do the co-ed naked spa.

Other voice 0:57

I've never been to the spa in the German-speaking country.

Jeffrey 1:01

I saw a lot of little tiny German penises, I have to say. Is that G-rated for the pod? I don't know. It was elderly naked German men. There was actually a pool at this place. There was an indoor pool and an outdoor pool. And when you go in, by the way, there's a little sign with a bathing suit with a line through it.

It's not that it's bathing suit optional, right? It's bathing suit prohibited. And the pool, the outdoor pool, because it was unseasonably warm, was empty. And yet it was still surrounded by nude Germans sunbathing. Nude Austrians, I guess.

Aaron 1:40

So it's a little bit different than your experiences that you often tweet out down at the Monterey. Which hotel is that, the Monterey Peninsula Hotel? No, the Portola. Portola, that's right.

Jeffrey 1:51

My reliable steam room options are the Portola and then out in the Valley Refuge. But I get very little reception in the Valley, so I seldom tweet pictures from there. Yes, those are places where people wear swimsuits.

Other voice 2:05

As opposed to Austria, where they do not. No, they are prohibited. I don't think we called in today to talk about your excursion to the spa in Austria, did we?

Jeffrey 2:16

Well, I'm scarred, okay? I saw a lot of things that are going to take me some time to unsee, Aaron, and I thought maybe we could talk about that and it would make me feel a little better.

Other voice 2:27

This is your therapeutic experience before we get into the DPRK?

Jeffrey 2:31

Yeah, we should talk about the DPRK's nuclear test site, and in particular, Kim Jong-un's offer to close it and invite international observers. Oh, I would love to go, although I don't think Mrs. Lewis is going to allow that. There's been a lot of garbage reporting out there, Aaron.

Aaron 2:50

Yeah, I mean, you guys, I think, did a lot of work on the test site. So you know its innards and its outers and all sorts of radar imagery to look at it.

Jeffrey 3:03

So I guess we probably got to, we should start with the status of the site before we get to the North Korean offer. Because it seems that people have maybe the wrong idea.

Aaron 3:18

Yeah, yeah, there's this idea that it doesn't work anymore.

Jeffrey 3:22

Yeah, can you just give me a second, Aaron? I'm going to have to hang on. Okay, I'm back. What was that? That was me screaming in pain about these claims that the test site doesn't work.

Aaron 3:38

Yeah, you've been pretty active about that on Twitter and you don't, let's say you don't buy that the tunnel has collapsed.

Jeffrey 3:44

Well, so there are a couple of things here. I mean, the first is there are two academic papers, one of which was published in early March. I guess it was published in mid-April. And the other of which is accepted for publication, but they're both online so you can read them. And they say something that we already knew, although they're science.

And so they used seismology to prove something, maybe I shouldn't say we knew, that we strongly suspected. When a nuclear explosion occurs in a tunnel in a mountain, it creates a cavity, right? Yeah. When North Korea, you know, obviously the larger a cavity, you know, a small cavity in a granite mountain is likely to be able to, like, hold up.

Right? But the bigger the cavity, the less likely it is that the cavity will be self-sustaining. It's more likely that it will collapse. I mean, I think that's intuitive, right? The bigger the cavity, the more likely it is to collapse. When North Korea conducted that really large nuclear explosion in September, almost immediately there was a second seismic event.

And The most likely explanation was that the cavity had collapsed and that, I guess that was the sound. It's a ground motion, but I think of it as sound, the sound of the cavity collapsing, right? That's the ground motion created by the impact, which we knew because we published, hello, with Airbus, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, we published a synthetic aperture radar image.

Showing that the mountain had subsided a small but detectable amount. And so it, you know, given that all that rock had been displaced, it seemed really rather likely that the cavity had collapsed. But that's just, you know, inferring and likely. And then these two papers came along and they did a proper scientific analysis that looked at the waveforms.

And concluded that the waveforms were consistent with the cavity collapsing. So like, yay, science, you know something.

Aaron 6:14

Yeah, but I think it's important to talk about what the test site may actually look like and why it may not be that big of a deal.

Jeffrey 6:21

Right, so the way that the test site is laid out is there's a central support area with buildings, you know, like a sawmill to make logs to shore up the tunnels and stuff like that. And then there are mountains around it. And into at least three mountains, there are tunnels. And those tunnels are like big tunnels and they represent the entrance to a tunnel complex.

So, you know, it's not like the Soviets used to dig one tunnel and then do the test at the end and then dig another tunnel and do the test at the end. The North Koreans do it more like the United States or the Chinese, which is they dig one big tunnel and then they dig branches off the tunnel and they conduct tests at the end of those branches.

So what you end up with is a tunnel complex. And because the cavity collapsed, it doesn't mean that the tunnel complex collapsed.

Aaron 7:14

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 7:15

Exactly. And it certainly doesn't mean that the other two tunnel complexes under the other mountains collapsed. That's right. And if you read the scientific papers, none of them say that it collapsed. You know, they just say that the cavity collapsed. And so, you know, you get this... Terrible, terrible reporting that goes so far beyond what the underlying scientific paper actually says.

And I think some of it arose from one of the abstracts that got published because these were these these papers were presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in, I think, December.

Aaron 7:50

Mm hmm.

Jeffrey 7:52

And as anybody who's ever written a conference paper knows, sometimes, you know, you say things in your first abstract that later you want to be more careful about. But people were running with it. But it really, like, there's, like, no reason to think that anything happened other than the cavity collapsed, which is something we already kind of knew or something.

It shouldn't seem to be new because it's a valuable, like, it is real science to prove it, but something we presumed to be true.

Aaron 8:21

Yeah, and I think it's – okay, so that's important. And then that leads us to what the North Koreans has offered as part of – was this part of the inter-Korean summit or leading into the Trump meeting in July?

Jeffrey 8:35

Actually, can I make one more complaint about the way that these papers got covered? Sure. Why not? This is your podcast. Or our podcast. It's our podcast. But it strikes me as a little bit racist. And I think we need to not do this. We need to do better. These papers are routinely described as Chinese papers. And it is true that the lead authors are Chinese.

And so... I kind of understand that. But people then immediately assume that because these are Chinese academics, that these are really government papers. And they're not. They have authors on them who are not Chinese. So the first paper that got published, while it does have a lead Chinese author from a Chinese institution, it also has a Greek and a Czech co-author.

And the second paper, which is only accepted for publication but gets more attention because it's got the more famous co-author. Again, it is true that the lead author is, well, I should say the corresponding author, is definitely Chinese. Like, that is, that's absolutely true. But the most famous author is a guy who is ethnically Chinese. And for all, you know, I've never asked to see his passport, for God's sakes.

Maybe for all I know, he is a Chinese citizen. But he is a professor at Stony Brook in New York.

Aaron 10:14

What does it matter? I didn't even know this. I mean, you're telling me this. I'm sort of, like, scratching my head as to... Because they're real academics.

Jeffrey 10:22

Of course they are. Yeah, well, the coverage sort of acts like they're, like, fake academics who maybe are publishing, you know, secret Chinese government reports. And, like... Really? Yes. And I see this all the time, where, like, Chinese academics are, like... Derided or treated as though they're, you know, not real academics. And these are real academic papers by real academics at real universities who collaborate internationally with real academics in the West.

And, you know, in the case of one of those persons, it really bothers me because just because he has a Chinese name does not mean that he isn't a real academic at a real American institution.

Aaron 11:14

Well, I mean, I'm sighing because I don't know what to say other than that's absurd. But I think it brings us back to the main point is the status of the test site and then what that means for the offer that was made from the North Korean side about bringing in people to go look at the test site.

And again, I know you would like to go and look, as we said in the intro. I don't think you'll get the invite. But... Sort of framing this in terms of what this actually means.

Jeffrey 11:45

Do you remember when the press got invited to go to see the space launch? Jim Oberg managed to get a journalist credential and go. That's right. Just tell your wife you're going to Beijing. I haven't completely given up hope, but I think if anybody goes, it probably won't be me. Right. Yeah, so Kim Jong-un, and by the way, there's a great translation of his remarks floating around.

He's offered to close the test site. This may be about closing the test site, but it may also be about shooting down rumors that the test site is unusable. Because he literally said, I guess... That when observers come to see the closure, they'll see that the test site actually is in perfect condition and that the other two tunnels are even bigger than the ones he's been testing in.

Aaron 12:38

Well, I mean, we just talked about why that's probably the case, but go on.

Jeffrey 12:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, but I mean, I think it gets to... Right now, we have an offer from North Korea to close the test site. They say that they've completed development of the nuclear weapons they need, which is plausible. They tested a very large nuclear weapon and that they're willing to close it and invite people to see that.

I think it does raise a really interesting set of questions about like. What verification of a test site closure would look like. Because while I am glad that he is making this offer, I think it's a very little technical value.

Aaron 13:21

Yeah, I think that's right.

Jeffrey 13:23

But go on, explain to the listeners why. Okay, so we've only had one test site get closed down in a verification context, right? I mean, we've got, and that's the South African test site. There's another case that's analogous, which we'll talk about in one second. You know, that was pre-CTBTO, so the IAEA handled it. True. Which probably would be an interesting fight if the, who will the North Koreans invite this time, right?

Do they invite the IAEA, thus edging out the CTBTO, or do they switch it up and invite the CTBTO, which is, you know, a preparatory commission, right? That's right.

Aaron 14:04

In the South African context, they were vertical shafts, right?

Jeffrey 14:07

So they were dug straight down. And what the South Africans did was they filled them up and took a video and then sent the video to the IAEA. You mean they self-inspected? They self-inspected, yeah. This was one of the cases when people were like, no one ever gets to take a video of them doing the work. And it was like, well, actually, the South Africans did it.

Right.

Other voice 14:27

It's almost like this is a tried and true practice of international verification.

Jeffrey 14:31

Sorry. Keep going. I do think there was an IAEA visit just to sort of like scope things out, but whatever. Yeah, whatever. But these are not vertical shafts. Like the thing with vertical shafts is if you fill them with a bunch of garbage, you render them useless because it would just be easier to dig a new one.

Right? Yes. Straight down. Like, why not dig through, you know, nice clean dirt rather than try to, like, dig through, like, rebar and all the, like, crap you've dumped in. So these, though, are horizontal tunnels. And the only experience we have with a case like that is Degalen Mountain in Kazakhstan at Semipalatinsk after the Soviets left. And, you know, the U.S. sealed all those tunnels, right?

But scavengers just popped them right back open.

Aaron 15:20

Yeah, I mean, it's a great study of how the scavengers went back in.

Jeffrey 15:26

And so they had to reseal all those tunnels. And then, you know, put surveillance and all that kind of stuff going on. But, like, it... That doesn't, you know, like, if you're the North Koreans, like, you put some concrete up at the tunnel entrance, like, you can still just pop the tunnel back open.

Aaron 15:50

Right, you're saying it doesn't fundamentally alter the fact that they have a nuclear weapons program. It just, it's, I mean, could it be called a confidence-building measure even if it's just, I mean, relatively, I guess, not all that important?

Jeffrey 16:05

Yeah, I do, I think, and I think when we get to the end of this conversation, we'll talk about, like, Why I think people don't understand what it is that the North Koreans are offering and and and so yes, I'm glad that they're offering this, and I think that you know we should encourage them to seal up the tunnels, and we should definitely see if we can put some monitoring on the site. it's fine, like it's, that's, that's good but we just have to keep in mind that it's not It's not really a barrier to them resuming testing any more than the Bush administration's PR stunt when they had the North Koreans knock down the cooling tower at Yongbyon was a barrier to North Korea restarting its reactor.

So it's valuable, but it's not of a huge value and has some risks.

Aaron 16:57

Right. I mean, I think that's important because this is being covered as... A major concession where we can't figure out why it's a concession at all. And I think the cooling tower is analogous. I mean, before this came up, before we started the podcast, I was asking you about it because I'm a very passive observer of the DPRK and learned most of it from the podcast, you know, but like why this is similar to that in terms of it doesn't really set back the program.

Jeffrey 17:24

Yeah, I mean, you kind of have to go back. In 2008, the Bush administration got very close to a deal with North Korea. And that deal, you know, it was the context of that. I don't know if people remember this, but the reason that the Bush administration had criticized the agreed framework that the Clinton administration had negotiated is the Clinton deal was a freeze.

Right. And the Bush people said, we don't want a freeze. We want dismantlement. We want CVID, complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement. Something Pompeo lately has been echoing. The problem is North Korea was not interested in CVID, but they were interested in a freeze. And so Condi Rice and Chris Hill got a freeze out of the North Koreans again.

But they couldn't admit that it was a freeze. Right. Because they just spent like six years all over the idea of a freeze. And so they made up a word. They called it the disablement of North Korea's facilities. That's a good one.

Aaron 18:26

Kind of sounded like disarmament.

Jeffrey 18:33

You know, it had dis in it, but disable is, you know, like disablement is not a word. And so they came up with a series of disablement steps, which were modest things that would stretch the timeline for the North Koreans to resume production of plutonium. You know, so they took out different bits of equipment, right? They extended the breakout time.

That's right. Keep this going. That's precisely what they did. You know, whatever. They're Republicans and clear-eyed. They can get away with it. They can do it. They can do it. They're allowed because they love our freedoms. So the problem is... A great example of this is that they took out the piping inside the cooling tower.

Other voice 19:24

Yeah, we got some cool pictures of that.

Jeffrey 19:26

Well, but the problem is you can't see... Like, yeah, like Sig Hecker in like a, you know, in like a bunny suit, you know, staring at like an empty room isn't a great photo op. And so the Bush administration actually went back to the North Koreans and said, this is great that we have all these disablement steps.

We're really happy. And actually, I remember I think Glenn Kessler later reported that, you know, they said they wanted a nice photo op. So they went back and they made them blow up the cooling tower. And they invited the press to come look at it. Right. Which is very analogous to what's happening now because it was a stunt.

Aaron 20:03

Yes, it was.

Jeffrey 20:03

It did not extend the breakout time at all, but it looked cool. And then, of course, what happened is when this deal went sideways under the Obama administration, I mean, it started to go sideways under the Bush people, but then, you know, Obama did his, you know, my outstretched hand if you'll unclench your fist.

Other voice 20:27

The North Koreans just, they unclenched. Raised one finger. One finger, right? Yeah. They raised one finger from that unclenched fist.

Jeffrey 20:35

Is this unclenched enough for you? Yeah, it's unclenched. What was so funny is when they restarted Yongbyon, what they did was they built a pump house. Like the one that they built at Al-Kabar for the Syrians. That's right. Our last podcast together. But they told people it was for the light water reactor. And everyone was like, oh, okay.

Well, the North Koreans would never lie to us. And then they just connected the big Yongbyon reactor to the pump house and started the thing up again. And so it actually, you know, the PR stunt in the end blinded us to the resumption of plutonium production. Like it helped them camouflage a signature because we were like, well, if they're not rebuilding the cooling tower, then the reactor can't get turned on.

So like, again, like I don't want to be overly negative, but like we should be on the hunt for proverbial pump houses. You know, it's not like North Korea has a shortage of mountains. It's not like it has a shortage of tunnels. And so while it is great that they're willing to agree not to test and we can verify that seismically To the extent that What the disablement of this facility does is tell us that there are there's a time period there will be visible signs as they move to resume testing we have to be really careful because you don't actually even know that and You know, if you only look at this test site, then if this deal starts to go sideways, one thing you would want to look for is a resumption of activity at Punggye-ri, but you're also going to have to look for testing in other places because, you know, it wouldn't be the first time that they fooled us.

Aaron 22:19

Before we pivot to the actual... Maybe to the handshake and to the Trump thing is this doesn't happen in a vacuum either. They are at a specific place in their... We've talked about this before in their testing schedule to where they have a lot of usable data already in terms of comparison to early nuclear weapons programs from other different states.

Jeffrey 22:40

Yeah, I mean, they've got six tests and a deliverable thermonuclear device, I think. And so they don't... And in their statement, they said they were doing subcritical testing, which really got my attention. And so they probably don't need to test. Now, typically, we've seen that when you build nuclear weapons, you create this nuclear weapons design bureaucracy, and tests are like they're deliverable.

And so those bureaucracies do want to keep testing. But we live in a different era, and most major powers, I guess all major powers, have figured out that they can buy off their test bureaucracies with fancy computers and lasers and other toys. So I do think that they... Don't really need to test you know, I'm a little torn because actually I'm glad that they're not testing, and I don't want them to keep testing, and I'm willing to pay to keep them from testing but we are kind of showing up a little late to this party, you know, the time to, the time to buy them off would have been, I don't know, before they tested the compact thermonuclear weapon that can arm a missile, right? Yeah.

Aaron 24:04

But we are where we are. That's right. And so I think it's now important to put this into broader context. You know, we had over the weekend sort of the famous handshake. CNN was invited across the DMZ. And I think we saw the president of South Korea say Trump should get a Nobel Prize today.

Jeffrey 24:24

It's so hilarious to have a president of the United States who is susceptible to flattery. You know, he's going to people, you know, everybody's talking about the great job I'm doing. Some people think I should get the Nobel Prize. Like it totally is like they're writing the tweets for him.

Aaron 24:42

Yes, there's an inherent assumption amongst foreign leaders that our leader is very dumb and very vain and therefore is easily manipulated. And I think we can close maybe with the Israeli version of that, too, because this could be a megapod. But. I don't think this has anything to do with Donald Trump. I mean, again, I'm a passive observer of the DPRK.

Other voice 25:02

I do the Middle East.

Aaron 25:04

I just look at this as like, I think it's a change in government in South Korea and them willing to bend to North Korean terms.

Jeffrey 25:11

So this is the third inter-Korean summit. I think it's the fact that Moon stepped into North Korea allowed news organizations to describe this as a first.

Aaron 25:23

But it ain't a first. It is the third inter-Korean summit.

Jeffrey 25:26

Every progressive president of South Korea has had an inter-Korean summit. In fact, you know who was in charge of organizing the 2007 inter-Korean summit under President Noh? That would be Moon Jae-in. So we've done this before. And that doesn't mean that I think these are bad things. Like I think that inter-Korean summits are good things. But I also know that in the past, the South Koreans have paid for that.

And I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that they paid for the Olympics and paid for this summit. And I mean, the way I look at what North Korea is doing is the reason this summit Worked is because the North Koreans are basically saying, look, We're willing to turn denuclearization, which doesn't really mean North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons, into some vague aspiration.

You know, equivalent to President Obama in Prague saying that he, you know, seeks the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. You know, like Obama said that in Prague, nobody flew C-17s to the United States to pick up our bombs, right? Like we all knew that that was an aspiration. And what he's willing to do in the interim...

Is set the terms for North Korea being a nuclear power. Like, North Korea gets to be a recognized nuclear power, de facto, de facto recognized, as long as they stop testing ICBMs and IRBMs, stop testing nuclear weapons, don't export that technology to other countries, tighten up their declaratory policy so that they're not threatening to use nuclear weapons first.

Like... Basically, they get to keep the bombs as long as they're of responsible nuclear power. And we're now negotiating over the terms of what responsible nuclear power means. And that's why they get the summit. Like, if you look at the summit agreement, which is a good agreement. Like, by the way, I actually think, like, I have long thought we need to accept the reality that North Korea has a nuclear weapon.

So it's not when I say that we're doing this terribly controversial thing in D.C., I think it's wrong that it's controversial. Like, we should be doing this. But when you look at the summit agreement, the reference to denuclearization comes after a general paragraph on South and North Korea disarming. Like, denuclearization follows conventional disarmament?

Aaron 27:56

Yeah, and there's a lot of steps that the U.S. has to take as well.

Jeffrey 28:02

Yeah, so, like, it's Section 3, which happens at the very end, right? They're going to establish a permanent and solid peace regime, end the armistice, So they reaffirmed their non-aggression agreement. They agreed to carry out disarmament in a phased manner as military tension is alleviated and substantial progress is made in military confidence building.

Other voice 28:25

Then they agreed to trilateral meetings or quadrilateral meetings to get a peace treaty.

Jeffrey 28:34

And only then, number four, is the common goal of realizing through complete denuclearization a nuclear-free peninsula. Like, it's, you know, Panmunjom is down there with Prague. Right. Which is fine. Like, I actually think that's a good thing. Like, we have the reality of North Korea with nuclear weapons that can hit the United States. We are in the business of deterring them.

Part of deterring them means establishing lines for acceptable behavior. So that's in our interest to agree to this. Yeah. But that is also an abandonment of 30 years of American national security policy, which I thought was dumb and should be abandoned. But let's be honest, that's what this deal is about.

Aaron 29:23

So that's exactly how I think about it, is that the party that has changed its position – The most is the United States. And this isn't because Trump was super hawkish at the beginning and was able to increase leverage. It's that he's bent to an aspirational goal where the DPRK will denuclearize sometime in the undefined future. And what he's actually doing is signaling I don't want to call it American capitulation because I don't actually think the Trump administration is wrong here.

But, you know, is that there are interim steps that have to be taken like a peace treaty, like withdrawal of American troops and deeper South Korean, North Korean talks before we even get to that point.

Jeffrey 30:12

Absolutely. One of the – I mean, it's kind of encapsulated by the fact that Trump is willing to front load the summit meeting, right? The summit meeting was always imagined as a thing that you do to reward the North Koreans for giving up the bomb. And I think the idea was always if you have the summit meeting, the summit meeting that you, the North Korea you have the summit meeting with, that's the North Korea you're agreeing to live with forever.

And so in a way, I think what has changed is the president has signaled that he's willing to live with North Korean nuclear weapons forever as long as there is this aspirational goal of denuclearization and as long as there are these respectable behaviors. I think that makes sense for then what you see Bolton doing, which is trying to sabotage this by continuing to talk about a Libya-style deal.

Aaron 31:07

What bullshit? That is what he's trying to sabotage his own president.

Jeffrey 31:12

Yeah, I think that he's trying. No, I think that's exactly what he's trying to do is he's trying to misalign expectations. And so he is trying to push the president to expect that when he shows up for that summit meeting, that Kim is going to like tell him where all the weapons are and encourage him to fly in a plane and pick them up.

And that's precisely what Bolton's doing. And then you also saw a little hint of this at the end of the New York Times article where anonymized officials attributed to both the U.S. and South Korea, so it was actually really unclear who was saying what, were saying that they were going to insist on a time-bound pledge to eliminate the weapons no later than the end of Trump's first term, which is in a little more than two years.

And that is... Not what Kim is agreeing to. And if there is an insistence on a time bound pledge, it is precisely like the president gives the speech in Prague where he says, I want this big lofty goal. It may not happen in my lifetime. And, you know, then the disarmament folks turn around and say, No, there needs to be a timeline.

Right. And then it turns out that the Obama administration is the biggest opponent of efforts to ban nuclear weapons. And like people are like shocked by this turnaround. But it's because for Obama, it was an aspirational goal. You know, I mean, what Sam Nunn used to say, I mean, I've been joking. It's an old Korean proverb. Sam Nunn used to say disarmament is like a mountain top and it's, you know, shrouded in fog and you don't know if you're going to get there, but you know, if you're heading up or down.

This is what Kim is saying, you know, Mount Baekdu, it's like Mount Baekdu shrouded in fog. You don't know how to get to the top, but you know, if you're heading up or down and he's what he's saying is I'm willing to take five or six steps up, but like no more unless things really change. And I think we should be pleased with that.

And what I worry about is that Bolton, by raising this Libya style deal, and frankly, when other people in the press talk about how Kim's going to give up nuclear weapons, I think you're creating this like really high expectations that will make the real deal on offer, which is a good deal. It will make that deal look bad.

And then the result is this whole process will collapse. And then 2019 will be way worse than 2017.

Aaron 33:24

I think that's right, because it's now being framed sort of in a whataboutism, like if this wasn't Trump, we would be cheerleading. And therefore, our skepticism is about Trump himself. Which, to be fair, I mean, the man is an idiot.

Jeffrey 33:44

I found myself in like... I mean, he's a... I would... I'm not quite sure. He's not really self-aware to be conscious, but he's a semi-sentient Cheeto.

Aaron 34:00

It's not about Trump. Well, it's that Trump has front-loaded this thing in exactly what you just said.

Jeffrey 34:05

Trump was too dumb to know what the traditional American catechism was, and so he actually does— He skipped a step. He skipped steps, right. He opened the process of dramatic policy change. It's just the problem is he doesn't necessarily know that he did it, and my worry is— Will he change his mind when he understands what he did?

Or will he just quadruple down on his buddy Kim Jong-un? And then Trump, Dennis Rodman, and Kim Jong-un will be eating overcooked steaks with ketchup.

Aaron 34:35

That's exactly right. And milk on Trump's side. But that's exactly right. It has actually nothing to do with Trump per se, other than the fact that Once it becomes very, very apparent that if this gets to a point where there is a document and it's drafted, that it is a significant climb down from stated American policy. What does the blob do?

How does the blob then push up on the administration? And then does Trump listen to the blob? Because Bolton is sort of blobby's on the right encapsulated. And then say, oh, and then like retroactively impose things. That then lead us to a point of escalated tensions, even though I think we would all agree that his instincts on this, and I can't believe, not his instincts, his ignorance on this has led him to the point where we have to get to if we actually want to solve this, but it skips so many steps that it may get us into trouble.

And I think that's what we're worried about.

Jeffrey 35:39

Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, it's such a bizarre experience for me because I think we have to recognize North Korea's nuclear arsenal and we have to learn to live with it. And so the idea, the thing that the moon people are doing, which is saying like, okay, okay, okay, can you at least say in principle you'd be willing to give them up someday?

And until then, we'll come up with a whole bunch of rules because this is not NOM. Like, there have to be rules. Like, all of that is awesome, and that is great, and I would bribe the North Koreans to do that. I would give them their summit. I would give them all of that stuff, because I'm all about, like, you know, living long enough to see the fourth inter-Korean summit.

But, you know, like, you just know that Bolton doesn't believe in any of that. And you know he's deliberately raising the Libya deal both to remind Kim that he doesn't want any part of this because it's a sharp stick in the butt. And to raise the president's expectations. And I just think that one of the big challenges, which I didn't mention, was Mike Pompeo, when he was at CIA, I saw it reported.

There's a rumor going around that he would basically just tell the president whatever the president wanted to hear. And so he gave the president a really rosy assessment of the impact of sanctions on North Korean decision making. And that in combination with the fact that Pompeo was running the intelligence channel means that I think the president is going to hold Pompeo responsible for the outcome of this summit.

And that almost certainly means that Bolton is actively working to knife Pompeo in the back. Because that's just, I mean, Bolton's MO. And so, like... You know, I am convinced based on like the kinds of shit Bolton wrote in his book and the kinds of stuff he has said publicly that he has given Pompeo enough rope to hang himself.

And Bolton is going to keep misaligning those expectations. And Bolton's goal is to get the president in the room with Kim Jong-un and then have the president outraged. That Kim Jong-un won't give up his weapons. And then when that happens, Pompeo is a goner and, and Bolton is in full control. And it just, just, you know, I just, you know, like life lesson number one in Washington, DC, if John Bolton and you are rooting for the same thing, you are in league with the devil, right?

The walrus, cuckoo-choo, right? Repent all sin. You know, if John Bolton is like, yeah, that's a really good idea, stop and think about what you're doing. Because chances are, you know, it's not going to be good.

Aaron 38:27

So... Normally we would wrap up now, but since we've been on the pod, it's now 1.52 East Coast time, which makes it 8.52 time in Israel. Bibi Netanyahu gave his sort of state of the PMD on Iran as we count down to May 12th. Do you want to talk about that now or should we roll into a different pod?

Jeffrey 38:51

I think we should roll that into a different pod because I haven't had a chance to... Oh my god, it's totally warmed over bulls**t. There's some good stuff in there.

Aaron 39:03

There's actually some cool pictures. But it's... I think I know what it is. And there's some cool pictures in there.

Other voice 39:15

But it's warmed over bulls**t.

Jeffrey 39:18

Oh, my God. All right. Well, we will do a separate podcast on on that because we're going to have to go through it carefully. But like, oh, my God.

Aaron 39:30

Well, OK, so let's wrap up on the DPRK. I mean. So what's the best case scenario here? I mean, is is that Trump? Quadruples down. Bolton gets, not you know, his knife fight in the phone booth, accidentally stabbed himself in the, in the femoral artery, and he bleeds out, and we pretty much, and we win. Yeah. I, the thing is, I mean, for all that I hate the old racist windbag he is vain.

Jeffrey 40:06

And cares only about himself. And so he desperately wants this summit. For the same reason that they did the Saudi summit, which is with the Mueller investigation and all of the bad press at home, I think he feels like having a summit will present him in a different light. And Moon knows this, and that's why Moon is like, he should get the Nobel Peace Prize.

You know, it's all about playing to his vanity. And so I think there is a chance that the president is in fact willing to accept North Korea as a nuclear power, provided that it follows certain rules, and he's going to be willing to do that because he wants his summit so badly. And I think there is, you know, the best case scenario is that Bolton's efforts to sabotage, like Pompeo, Pompeo is like a fantastic sycophant, right?

Like he knows exactly what the president wants. And so Pompeo, who is this crazy, you know, Tea Party hawk, you know, is now like negotiating the disarmament of the North Koreans because that's what Trump wants. And like, you know, Pompeo will lick his boots to shiny, shiny, you know, like very clean. I think Bolton is too ideological to do that.

I think Bolton is going to get crosswise with the president's desire for a summit. And his trick has to be to pretend to be for it while being against it. And so our best case scenario is he screws that up. And then Trump realizes that Bolton is really against the summit and doesn't trust him and gets annoyed with him and starts to fixate on the mustache he hates.

And then Trump just ignores him and goes ahead and does it and does the summit and basically says, you know, Kim Jong Un's a great guy. I totally believe that he's going to give up the weapon someday. We're all working toward that goal. And for now, he's agreed to stop testing and he's closed his test site and all in a day's work.

Where's my Nobel Prize? Like that's our our best case scenario is that Trump just bulldozes over Bolton in a desperate rush to get a Nobel Prize. And it's a total deal from a disarmament perspective. But it accomplishes what I want, which is, you know, if not learning to love, at least learning to live with North Korea's bomb.

Aaron 42:33

And given recent precedent, that means the GOP Congress is going to have to ratify it, right?

Jeffrey 42:38

No. See, I don't think they do.

Aaron 42:40

Jeffrey, I was kidding. Oh, Jesus. It's a joke.

Jeffrey 42:44

Yeah, that's right. Right. Exactly.

Aaron 42:47

Exactly. I'm sorry. It only applies to Barack Hussein Obama.

Jeffrey 42:50

Yeah, I was like, no, they don't have to.

Aaron 42:52

That was crazy.

Other voice 42:56

That's right. That's my happy doubt.

Aaron 42:59

Yeah, but at least if we have regime change over here, maybe the next guys won't rip it up.

Jeffrey 43:04

Yeah, I mean, look, the reality is Saddam got rid of his nuclear weapons program and he ended up hanged. Qaddafi got rid of his nuclear weapons program and he ended up dying a grisly death that we don't need to talk about anymore. Kim Jong-un kept his nuclear weapons program and he's going to get a summit. And all he has to do is give the North Korean equivalent of the Prague speech, talk about how Baek-do is a mountain shrouded in fog, and let some people run around the test site.

And people are going to let him keep his nuclear weapons and talk about what a great guy he is. And that's a great deal for him. It's not such a great deal for us, but on the other hand, compared to the catastrophe we were heading for last year, I'll take it.

Aaron 43:50

That's right. And I think that's our happy note. So with that, you know, Scott is, I think, traveling from the beach. God only knows what beach he was at. So if you would like to learn more about these internal discussions, probably the Slack channel going crazy about the Netanyahu documents and the upcoming summit, you can head on over to patreon.com slash ACW podcast.

And for as little as $3 a month, if you're a student, you can join our private Slack channel. And for $5 a month, if you are not a student, you can also join And with that, Jeffrey? Hey, thanks so much for being with me. Yeah, it's been a pleasure to get the band back together after our brief European hiatus in spas.

Tiny German penises.

Jeffrey 44:35

Tiny, wrinkly German penises.

Other voice 44:37

I think that's it for today. Thank you for listening.