KCN-eh? September’s other North Korea Developments

Andrea Berger 0:02

And our republic has come to possess a powerful and reliable war deterrent which no force and nothing can reverse. You're listening to the Arms Control Wong podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. My name is Andrea Berger, and I'm a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. And I'm joined this month by John Hemmings, who's a friend of the pod and back again.

John is the director of the Asia Studies Center at the Henry Jackson Society. Welcome back to the podcast, John.

John Hemmings 0:36

Thank you for having me.

Andrea 0:37

So we have had such an eventful month, but before we get into the most interesting pieces, I think we probably need to talk about how the month really started, not with a bang, but with a whimper in the form of North Korea's military parade. What did you make of it, John?

John 0:56

Yeah, I think there was like much ado about nothing. Everybody was anticipating it, looking forward to it. We knew it would be a signal as to whether the regime was serious about the whole negotiating process or whether the Pompeo visit had gone down so badly they were going to do something and really kind of show off some sort of new missile system.

But in the end, there was none of that. It was a fairly innocuous parade. But I think the main takeaway was that there wasn't The signal. There wasn't the aggressive missiles paraded down the main thruway there. There was a clear signal I think from the north that they're still willing to play ball.

Andrea 1:36

Yeah, it's sensible that they didn't wheel out that missile arsenal because they're clearly in a good place with the trajectory of inter-Korean dialogue, at least. And it would have been a lot harder, I think, for Seoul to keep going as fast and as fully down the dialogue path if the North Koreans had intervened. Made this big show of their nuclear arsenal and the missiles designed to carry them at this military parade.

So sensible that they kept a lid on everything at this moment in time. It was interesting. There's a lot of people asking questions about, well, you know, how is it that previously analysts, when they look at these military parades and they see certain missile types, suggest that these parades are so significant, but yet at the same time, you can Look at the parade and what didn't happen and suggest that still, you know, despite the fact that Kim Jong Un didn't wheel out stuff, that's not an indication that he intends to renounce nuclear weapons.

How can those two things both be true?

John 2:43

This is I mean, this is always the case with these kind of Soviet systems where you have, you know, who walked by the casket, who wasn't there, where we do a lot of Byzantine tea reading. And to some extent, people argue and say, well, they're reading too much into it. But we also know that these states Do believe in these symbols and that they do use these very, very subtle changes to indicate whether they're happy with something or not happy with something.

I think one of the takeaways that I've heard, which I agree with, is that North Korea is a little bit on a charm offensive. It wants to get the ball rolling on the peace treaty that they want very much to put ahead of any kind of disarmament process. They want sanctions relief earlier rather than later. They want to kind of loosen the consensus among the international community that was built up Over the past year by the Trump administration.

So I think all those things, they're kind of behaving in a way that indicates for the moment that they're trying to get away from where they were this time last year, which was in a very different spot diplomatically. We have to remember we were just outside of the Kuala Lumpur airport attack. We were just outside of all the fire and fury rhetoric.

Andrea 3:59

ICBM and nuclear tests. Absolutely. No, that's right. I think when you do see the North Koreans wheeling out missiles, particularly new systems, it's obviously a capability demonstration. But when you don't see those things happening, it can still be a political signal of what impression they want to send, especially not only to their domestic population, but to the international community as well.

About you know what their intentions are or are not at this time and what they hope the atmosphere to be in the context of other countries engagements with them these are events where they invite a whole bunch of foreign delegations right you got guys coming in from uganda and wherever else around so it is a really big signal to both of those constituencies whether we're talking about the presence or the absence of things either way it's significant And I would just add that actually they did wheel out new systems.

So, you know, in so many of the past parades that we've looked at, the North Koreans make a point of putting something new and shiny in there. And that may not have come in the form of missiles this time, but they were wheeling out new systems, for example, for anti-tank capabilities.

John 5:11

Oh, that's interesting.

Andrea 5:12

Yep, so there was bits and pieces there, and, and, especially, they paraded a system that had upgrades in many respects. So, you know, the types of vehicles or armaments that they did put out, while conventional, were ones that have been upgraded. Their moves further away from those old communist block systems that They relied on so heavily in the Cold War period.

So it was very much, you know, this is North Korea and we have a capable conventional force as well. That message was still on display, even if most analysts didn't pay a huge amount of attention to it.

John 5:50

There was said to be a new, I think it was a short-range ballistic missile that was said to have gone by, I think, what's it called, the It supposedly shares features with South Korea's Hyunmoo-2 missile. So was that the first time we've seen that in a parade? And for people who are listening, what is the signal if you're having short-range missile systems that are being... And they're still ballistic missile, but they're not ICBMs, they're not intercontinental.

Is that still showing some kind of regional muscle? I mean...

Andrea 6:28

This is the system that also some were suggesting has a resemblance to the Iskandar. Is that the same one that you're referring to? That's right. So that one we've seen in a parade previously. So it's not totally new, but it is indeed a recent unveiling from the North Koreans. So, you know, still noteworthy.

John 6:51

I remember in 2012 when they first had the Chinese delivery vehicles in the parade, the TELs, And what a big splash that made at the time and still to this day is brought up regularly. So although I think many people tend to discount the parades, they can have a really big impact. I think for that one, it was questions were asked at the highest levels in Washington of Beijing on whether or not that system had been allowed to be purchased or if it was something that happened through lower level commercial to commercial entity.

So yeah.

Andrea 7:28

That's true, and I think it would have been probably more difficult to convince the Chinese to send a high-level representation to this military parade. They sent, what, the number three, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. And it probably would have been difficult to convince them to go if the North Koreans were going to wheel out modified Chinese...

Transporter erector launchers and launch vehicles where the photos would be of the Chinese representatives in the back with the systems that they sent to the North Koreans in the front. That would not have been a good image on the front page of the papers for them.

John 8:06

But it wouldn't be the first time either.

Andrea 8:09

Indeed. So, right. Wimper, not a bang, beginning of the month. We kind of then spent much of the middle of the month in anticipation of what was coming with the Moon Jae-in trip to Pyongyang. And just before that, you saw the Koreans really rushing to get this inter-Korean liaison office open at the Kaesong Industrial Zone, which was one of the Earlier pledges that Moon Jae-in had made that came out of earlier meetings between the North and the South as well.

So they got that standing up as the lead-in to the next high-level summit.

John 8:53

It's very much a sign that the Moon Jae-in administration is going to move things quickly along. And I think this is something that we're going to continue to discuss, not just in this podcast, but everybody's going to continue to discuss over the next year or so, is to what extent is the Moon Jae-in administration leading the Trump administration?

Is it going too far ahead? And to what extent will conservatives inside Seoul react to that and begin to react to that? Certainly at the moment, as we've discussed previously, Moon's polls have done well for the moment. Before they even had met in Pyongyang, you had the office opened up, indicating, I think, that at least they're going to get discussions for economic projects moving and try to discuss those.

What we've heard from South Korean officials is This is to keep the appetite of the North up. This is not to actually break sanctions, although if you drill down into that in the op-eds in Korean language, apparently there's a lot more forward thinking, shall we say. That's interesting. That pushes on the edge of where, after all, are they breaking sanctions if they're both Korean entities?

This kind of logic has been trotted out inside South Korean op-eds. But if I think Moon Jae-in follows the pattern that he's followed so far, he will maybe lead ahead of the Trump administration, but he won't jump so far ahead as to leave him Completely behind and risk the type of fallout that had with George Bush so many years ago.

Andrea 10:35

I have to go on a brief tangent on the liaison office for a moment because actually I really support the idea of a liaison office. I'm also a person who supports the idea of a US interest section in Pyongyang. So if you don't agree with that, then maybe take this with a little bit of a grain of salt.

But I was really surprised at the way that the Moon Jae-in administration went about setting up this liaison office. It was originally announced that they were going to apply for a sanctions exemption from the UN Security Council, the relevant committee, especially because they were importing for the purposes of this liaison office, goods prohibited by relevant resolutions. Now, The view that the administration then started to move towards was actually that you didn't need to do that, even though prohibited commodities were going in, because either this liaison office has diplomatic classification and is therefore automatically not part of the resolutions, and I'm not convinced a liaison office is, but that's a separate point.

But also that custody of those things is not being transferred to the North Koreans.

Other voice 11:53

Oh, interesting.

Andrea 11:54

And on the latter point, I mean, it is a nice point, but it's also just nonsense. Because back in 2013, do you remember that case where there was a North Korean ship that went through the Panama Canal with a whole bunch of weapons from Cuba? Of course. That the Cubans made this argument that it wasn't a sanctions violation because the weapons were just going to North Korea to be refurbished and then sent back to Cuba.

And custody of the weapons, the prohibited commodities, was never actually being transferred to the North, therefore not a sanctions violation. And the UN Security Council and the panel of experts had to weigh in on this specific question over whether transfer of custody or not is relevant for the purposes Of assessing if something violates or doesn't, a particular prohibition.

And the verdict that they sent back was, it does not matter. That is a clear sanctions violation.

John 12:49

That's actually quite useful. Because if you had that technical hang up, then what constitutes refurbishment? How many years does refurbishment last? What I'm quite curious is, after submitting their application to the UN, did they get an initial kind of no? Was there perhaps a behind-the-scenes rejection to which they just...

Andrea 13:12

The Cubans, do you mean?

John 13:13

No, going back to... The South Koreans. Yeah, setting up the liaison office.

Andrea 13:16

I don't think they actually applied at all.

John 13:19

But they made noises that they would.

Andrea 13:20

They initially indicated that they would. And it's kind of interesting because with other things where there's been activity, inter-Korean activity in the gray space of the sanctions regime, I would say. The South Koreans have covered their bases and applied. So for example, the Olympic delegation, some of them that came through involved representatives of entities that are sanctioned by the UN Security Council and therefore should technically also be covered by sanctions, but not totally clear.

They applied for the whole delegation to be exempted and got that approved.

John 13:55

That was with refueling the North Korean vessel, even so that it could get back.

Andrea 13:59

A whole bunch of stuff like this.

John 14:01

Fuel was one of the biggest issues that was on the sanctions list.

Andrea 14:04

So, I just, I think it's interesting that they didn't do that this time, and I suspect it's a signal of probably their approach to squaring their strong desire for inter-Korean cooperative projects with the sanctions regime going forward. They'll find those things that are probably in the gray space and not apply for sanctions exemptions. I think this may have been one of those.

Moments that was testing the waters in terms of actually what South Korea probably could get away with.

John 14:38

This strikes me as a fascinating point, but also a very dangerous one. At what point Will the Moon Jae-in government risk pushing forward projects to the implementation level at least, or breaking ground, so to speak, on these projects ahead of the actual disarmament process? Because if they go so far as to be breaking sanctions technically or untechnically or however you want to say it, How is the U.S. supposed to react to that?

So far, I think the main takeaway that we've all had with Moon is he's been really adept at handling the U.S., really adept at handling a very adversarial-style, fluid, kind of unpredictable president. He's, as they call it, he's had the Trump doctrine. He's a Trump whisperer, right? He's been really good at keeping Trump on side despite the two men coming from very different ideological positions.

But ever so often, people say there's going to be a real Problem coming for the alliance given his background as you know coming from progressive left and when he grew up the u.s alliance was that kind of foe so do we have conservatives in south korea worrying about that do we have the military worried about that and it all gets it starts to one of the things that's been most interesting about this particular negotiation process is how much the u.s rock alliance is really on the table more than Any other previous iteration of negotiations, whether that be the exercises or, as I said, the running ahead and doing projects Despite sanctions.

So we'll see.

Andrea 16:23

Yeah, I think that's a very good point. All these things taken together, it seems very much that the Moon Jae-in administration has prioritized the inter-Korean cooperative side, and then will make everything else work around it. Do you get that same impression?

John 16:40

I think so. He managed it with THAAD. I remember when he came to power and THAAD was the first thing that Landed on his desk.

Andrea 16:48

What's THAAD, John, for our listeners?

John 16:50

That's true. THAAD was the, well, it is a kind of short range missile defense system. You know, it's a battery of like a Patriot system, but a bit more advanced with a high frequency radar. The Chinese were very, very anti-Thad, if I can use that expression, simply because the radar system was seen to be able to reach quite far into Chinese territory and thus perhaps monitor aircraft and all kinds of missile tests that the Chinese might conduct.

So what ended up happening was, of course, the Park Geun-hye government quickly ran all that stuff past so that the first Thad system was being deployed in South Korea just as Moon was becoming elected.

Andrea 17:36

Things were being pushed through even as Park Geun-hye was awaiting trial.

John 17:39

She was in court. And they got it through. And in the end, of course, South Korea was punished quite heavily by China for it economically. But what Moon managed, which was very incredible, and going back to what we're talking about, whether the U.S.-ROK alliance is on the line, is that he gave a kind of guarantee to China called the Three No's.

I think it was the Three No's were no more THAAD systems, No more advancement of U.S.-ROK alliance relations, and that was a very ambiguous term, and also the first time China had ever had a U.S. ally restrict itself. And then the third one was no regionalization of the U.S.-ROK alliance. In other words, it can only be for defending South Korea.

It can't be for South China Sea, blah, blah, blah. And then, of course, the Moon Jae-in signed that and then walked away from it and said, well, actually, it doesn't read that in Korean. That's the Chinese translation. And the Chinese let that go. That's fine. So Moon's interesting. He's definitely a very interesting guy. He's willing to run very close to both sides of the great powers on either side of his borders and still try to keep in good communications with everybody, which has been pretty remarkable.

Andrea 18:54

So let's talk about actually once he got to Seoul, pardon me, to Pyongyang, because we had three days of Moon Jae-in optics, but then also some pretty big outcomes in the form of joint declarations and agreements. In Pyongyang itself, once that summit got underway.

John 19:17

I think it was pretty bizarre. We all watched him give the big speech. I mean, first of all, we saw him at the airport greeted with the military kind of marched by and the inspection. And that's all fairly traditional stuff. But they really didn't pull any kind of. Both of them lent themselves, their full individual authority into this.

You could see there was enthusiasm on both sides. I think what was interesting was using the kind of blue flag of a unified career in the background of one of the events where you also had him giving a speech to however many, was it tens of thousands of people? In the stadium. And I'm sure that was a jarring scene, again, for the conservatives in Seoul who have really fallen apart to some extent after Park Geun-hye's arrest.

So yeah, it's a fascinating moment. There are some good takeaways. It seemed to me fairly symbolic. Nothing really huge was done. But again, there's that little concession that's tossed out by Kim Jong-un, which is very interesting. I wonder about your take on that.

Andrea 20:24

Let's come back to that in a second.

John 20:25

Should we come back to that? Let's park that for a second.

Andrea 20:28

I wanted to just pick you up on the point about optics, which I thought on the part of the South Koreans was super slick. Moon, at one stage early on when he arrived, there was a group of North Koreans that had been gathered to greet him. And he did this sort of full 90 degree bow. To the people, which I thought was really interesting and a way probably to start changing the conversation about how whether South Koreans are respectful of their North Korean counterparts and creating this positive image of the South and its leadership in the minds of some people, especially if that image gets replay in North Korean media.

Similarly, his big speech to, as you say, that assembled crowd where he's addressing the North Korean people, fascinating. I think, excellent diplomacy and very much comes back to Moon Jae-in's kind of philosophy to addressing the problems on the Korean Peninsula. He seems, as do many others that he has put in the Blue House to surround himself, he seems to believe that the way to indeed minimize or reduce some of the security issues Issues on the peninsula is to start by actually going at the roots of why North Korea behaves belligerently, why it develops nuclear weapons, why it lashes out.

And he thinks, as far as I understand, that if you treat North Korea as a threat, it's going to behave in a threatening fashion. And so you need to warm up The inter-Korean relationship first and you'll then see benefits as a result of that in terms of North Korea's security behavior. I think that's the philosophy that's driving a lot of the South Korean government's approach right now.

A lot of their cooperative economic projects make sense in that context. The need for sustained high-level dialogue makes sense in that context. And you see this filtering down into South Korean policy already in a number of ways. You've got lawmakers who are putting bills through... Parliament in South Korea to reclassify abductees as missing persons to be less threatening to North Korea.

You've got a change in conversation over the forthcoming national security strategy where they want to reduce the discussion of North Korea as a threat in that context. So this is, I think, that top-down view of how to change North Korea's security behavior is really underpinning a lot of what's going on at this moment in time.

John 23:26

I agree that's what he's doing, but I'm not sure I agree that this idea that if you treat North Korea as a threat, that it will act like a threat. I think, you know, I'm with you for the record.

Andrea 23:39

Yeah, yeah.

John 23:40

I think there's and I think we can do and we could back and forth. What is what are North Korea's ultimate motivations or intentions? And they're actually unknowable. So, you know, it makes for an interesting conversation. But Not very good political science, but still, you know, there's elements to North Korean behavior where we can read things like, for example, the, you know, having the backup nuclear system in the early 2000s where they were pretty much getting most of what they wanted from the Clinton administration, the 94 greed framework.

So why go there? People always point to the insecurity North Korea feels without really noticing that it's Seoul that's next to the border, not Pyongyang. In terms of artillery, They've had deterrents since the 60s, really, since they built up their chemical and biological warfare capability and their ability to deliver those systems. And I think to some extent, my belief is that if they do feel insecure, it stems from the system that they've chosen to have, which is a fairly insular system.

Juche-Thai-style system. What they're really afraid of is that the system is the wrong one, that the people will rise up. They're constantly seeking ways to ameliorate their own systemic weaknesses. Instead of going after Chinese-style development for the last 30 years since the Chinese have been doing it, they've been looking for handouts through the nuclear program.

Andrea 25:07

But not only that, just to take your point further, I think the weakness of this view, if indeed I've characterized it correctly, is that it assumes to some extent that North Korea's security behavior, its pursuit of WMD capabilities, other conventional capabilities, Its general belligerent posture is a result of its purely of its security perception and its view that, you know, there is a hostile country to its southern border that is backed up by even more hostile power, big power.

And and I think that is somewhat interesting. True, like that, you know, North Korea is definitely aware of its security environment, but also these programs and North Korea's security behavior has a domestic political driver to it, too.

John 25:59

Domestic element.

Andrea 26:00

Yeah, sure. But also this is so embedded in the country's national psyche, its system of governance. Right. They have this threat based narrative of. Underpins the system. It helps the Kim family justify certain types of domestic security behavior, persecution of its own citizens. This really is pervasive within society, and I'm not convinced that spending... It's as simple a process as spending four years making inter-Korean relations warm and fuzzy again is going to solve all that.

John 26:38

What are they calling it? Sunshine Policy 2.0. And so why is it the second version? Well, the first version didn't work. And so if you look back at why Roh Moo-hyun's Sunshine Policy faltered, and it certainly faltered in South Korean Terms in terms of the South Korean public opinion and it's because there was a kind of one-way track you know every time they met I believe the North Koreans were paid in some form or other to actually meet so there was the sense that this isn't two countries coming together it's one country paying for the other To kind of come along and play along.

And to what extent Moon Jae-in is opening himself up for that. After all, when he does these parades and all these great things in Pyongyang, is he also legitimizing inadvertently or deliberately a regime that we still know has, you know, according to the UN, Itself like huge huge human rights issues whether or not you agree with its intentionality towards its own social system and what it wants for its people but so that there's a value side to it which moon jay and coming from the progressive left should be really attempt intent to he should be really focused on it as well but all of that gets pushed to one side and i think we'll see i i think he's learned as well from the first time with sunshine policy I think he'll be very careful not to rush ahead and to try to get some reciprocal moves from the North.

Andrea 28:12

Yeah, and that actually dovetails nicely with where we need to go with this conversation, which is what was in the Pyongyang Declaration and the corresponding military to military agreement that was signed. There was two pieces to the kind of formal outcome of the summit. So in terms of the Pyongyang Declaration, what did you think were the most important points?

John 28:36

I thought the main takeaway for me, which we mentioned earlier, is the possibility that the North Koreans would concede verification with inspectors. Now, I don't know how much was said about it and whether they went into detail, but of course people who are long followers of North Korea will know that the 2007 version of the Six-Party Talks It ultimately failed as far as it got and it did get very very far but it failed ultimately because the North Koreans did not want Americans and foreigners going around sensitive parts of their economy and their security industrial complex.

I think that's as big a concession I've heard from the North as the freeze that Trump gave them after Singapore. My only issue with it is that there's nothing behind it yet. It's just on paper, and it depends if we ever get to the stage where we can do verification. But the fact that it's on paper, one hopes that they won't take it back later.

Andrea 29:37

So it might be worth just actually reading out a few of the provisions in what is Section 5 of the Declaration. And remember, of course, that the order of things in these declarations matters a lot, at least to the North Koreans. So the fact that this is to the bottom of the agreement is significant. But what they did say on the nuclear point is the following.

And I'm actually going to use the North Korean English version of the declaration because the translations are different. So in looking at what the North Koreans might be thinking about what the declaration says, I'm just going to use their language. So they say that the North and the South shared the view that the Korean peninsula should be turned into a peace zone free from nuclear weapons and nuclear threats.

And necessary practical progress should be made as early as possible to this end. I think it's interesting there on that provision that nuclear threat is specified because that's probably a North Korean insertion that's designed to refer to the fact that South Korea sits under a U.S. nuclear umbrella.

John 30:42

So you think they're throwing the umbrella in there as well?

Andrea 30:44

I think that's a North Korean reference to the umbrella and indeed to the types of activities that get justified there. And partly under it.

John 30:52

Does it, does it, might it not include, you know, inspectors going into South Korea to make sure that South Korea doesn't have a weapons system? Or do you think it's absolutely the direction would be the umbrella?

Andrea 31:04

Good question. That's not to say it couldn't include. So I don't.

John 31:08

If you're North Korea, you want both, right?

Andrea 31:09

The point of this is I don't think North Korea is just referring to the idea that South Korea itself can't have nuclear weapons that it owns and controls. I think this is much more than that. In many of my discussions with North Koreans, when they try to articulate things like no first use declarations, which they have done, but are very unusual in the North Korean context, they say, we will never use nuclear weapons unless in response to a nuclear threat.

But then note that also when, for example, joint military exercises occur that include strategic assets, including dual capable assets, they refer to those as nuclear threats or, you know, Being part of a nuclear threat. So this is, in my reading of the declaration, to do with the South Korean-US alliance relationship and the nuclear umbrella extended over South Korea.

Others may have differing interpretations, but when I read that, I think that's where that's coming from.

John 32:11

It's huge. I think that is really, actually really, really huge because As all with these things, what's on the other side of the coin? We flip the coin, we say, will North Korea do X, Y, and Z? When we hear about demands for the U.S. troops to be withdrawn or for the umbrella to be removed, we start to get into very sticky territory on, again, the U.S.-ROK alliance.

It's not something that's recent. That goes right back to the history of negotiations. The North Koreans have always, to some extent, tried to use Denuclearization to kind of chisel the Americans off the peninsula. And it's always been, as far as I can tell, with the exception perhaps of Trump, we don't know with Trump, it's always been off the table completely from the American perspective.

The issue that makes it huge from this administration's perspective, of course, is the fact that despite the Washington bubble being extremely pro-alliance, status quo, U.S. system should be enhanced and blah, blah, blah, you do have some really extreme campaign rhetoric from Trump on the alliances. On whether they're paying their own way. You also have statements made at the end of the Singapore summit when he gave the freeze for the exercises on how provocative the exercises were and how expensive they were.

That word expensive, when you hear Trump mention something that's expensive, it's indicating, is this a businessman who's trying to cut some of his costs? I've said before to friends that one of the things that he seems to view allies as contractors to his business. He's the big mogul and they're contractors and they provide things. And that dynamic is always about a businessman being ripped off or overpriced for parts or what have you.

And then he views, it seems to me, competitors like Russia and China and perhaps to an extent North Korea as rival firms. So he gives them a certain level of respect, but he's also trying to drive them out of business. So although there's competitive tensions on both sides, you see him give that great amount of respect to Xi Jinping or to Kim Jong-un when he's not tweeting horrible things about him.

So anyway, I think that's really very, very useful for you to have brought that up.

Andrea 34:32

So the declaration then goes on to say the north side decided to permanently shut down the Tongchang-ri engine test ground and rocket launch pad with the participation of experts from related countries above all. And Tongchang-ri is another way of saying the Sohe satellite launch complex, which we've been watching very closely at CNS for the last few months because In the wake of the Singapore summit, especially, you know, there's this confusion over what Trump was talking about when he was saying that some engine test facility was going to be dismantled by the North Koreans and he knew it because of the heat.

When we were trying to figure out what on earth that was, it started to become apparent that this was actually about Sohey. And that they were taking apart bits of Sohae. And that was observable through commercial satellite imagery and on the front pages of various papers as it was occurring. So the North Koreans have solidified that. It's therefore not in itself a new development.

But it's interesting that they say they're going to open that up to the participation of experts from related countries. Who the related countries are, I don't know. And remember that this is the inspection Primarily missile testing facility and so you know this is not going to be IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors which would be relevant for Sites that are producing fissile material, for example.

So who those are? It might be an inter-Korean inspection team.

John 36:06

Can I jump in on something here? Because I was at something recently where we were discussing what the disarmament process would look like, and we had a lot of really great technical experts around the table. I am not a technical nuclear expert in terms of materials and stockpiling and how do you Disarm it. So, do we have a sense of deadlines? Because that, you know, the ability, like, is it two years? Is it 20 years? Is it 15 years? How long would it actually take if the North Koreans were sincere? I mean, we had today, I believe, or yesterday, and I hope I'm not jogging ahead here, at the UN, Trump walked back on the two-year line that Pompeo had trotted out.

2021. So do we know? I mean, do we have a sense? We don't even know how many materials there are to disarm.

Andrea 36:57

So I was just going to say, you know, it's difficult to answer that with precision for a number of reasons. One of the ones is the lack of transparency over the full complex. You know, we have a fairly good idea that there are Undeclared sites, and the probable number of undeclared sites, for example, for uranium enrichment. But we don't have a full picture of the North Korean complex, and that makes it challenging to assess. But also, there's various ways you could go about a verified disarmament process, and there's various levels of verification. There's shortcuts in places, right? so Trump actually, in the Singapore summit presser Referenced Siegfried Hecker, who's the only American to have seen some of the more recent North Korean nuclear facilities, I think.

And he said 15 years. And so when Trump was babbling about 15 years, that's what that seems to be in reference to, Siegfried Hecker's commentary on that. So there are different assessments of how long it would take, but it's shades of long-ish. That's not to say that if Trump turned around tomorrow and was like, you know, and North Korea was willing and said, we're going to go in and disarm North Korea in six months, go do it, that...

You know, folks in the U.S. nuclear enterprise wouldn't have to figure out how to make that happen within the time period specified by the commander in chief. But yes, it's a challenging process and going to be especially challenging given the opacity over parts of North Korea's program.

John 38:40

And it totally relates to what we've discussed so far in terms of Moon Jae-in wanting to move ahead with at least talking about economic projects. So if it's a Libya model and it takes 15 years or what have you, is that the kind of time frame that the North wants to wait or that indeed Moon wants to wait?

Or even, for that matter, Trump, who is, like all good politicians, he's on a timeline of his own.

Andrea 39:07

Yeah, indeed. But this actually brings me on to the second thing that the North Koreans agreed to on the nuclear front, or, you know, agreement is maybe a strong word, and that'll become clear because this is very much a conditional statement. But it says the North side expressed its willingness to continue to take additional steps, such as the permanent shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facility, if the United States takes corresponding steps in line with the spirit of the June 12th DPRK-US joint statement.

So they're actually explicitly putting Yongbyon on the table. They say Yongbyon nuclear facility singular in the North Korean English version. I would be interested if I can get a Korean speaker, actually I'm going to bug one of my colleagues, but to see whether or not it's also singular in the North Korean version of the text. Because Yongbyon is a complex of facilities, right?

So are they just talking about the 5 megawatt reactor?

John 40:10

Oh, interesting.

Andrea 40:12

Are they talking about the whole complex? Probably not. I would guess not. And Yongbyon would be a great thing for them to get rid of from the North Korean perspective. You can do a lovely show like they did in 2008 where they can blow it up next to the cooling tower that they blew up in 2008 and didn't end up needing to use again to bring the facility back online.

So you could have a great spectacle there potentially. It would be verifiable without probably having to bring inspectors in if you didn't want them in.

John 40:46

Should we just say that it probably is the singular because...

Andrea 40:49

I would assume it's the singular.

John 40:50

As we've discussed and a lot of people have said, North Korea has the most to gain by stringing out the process, by getting as much gains for every single thing that it's willing to concede. So I'd imagine that you're absolutely right. The question, of course, would be whether they wanted to keep or whether parts of the entire structure were able to be transferred to civilian use.

And then you get into a whole murky territory of whether these kind of things are just not worth it. Just dismantle the entire system and start anew. From what I've heard, technical experts far smarter than I have said that the amount of money it would take and the time it would take to change those systems over from military use to civilian use are just not worth it.

So it strikes me from what is going on here is that he's basically selling one bead at the highest price he can, and it will continue to be that. And all the things that we've seen that he gave away, there was the collapsed missile site. You had a sense that he was giving away something that really he didn't have, or it was already kind of on its last legs.

Andrea 41:56

Well, also, there's less probably need for it now. And, you know, we can debate what North Korean bomb designs are and what types of material they require. But the North Koreans have newer, especially clandestine facilities for uranium enrichment. And that is a path to a nuclear weapon for them and to relevant fissile material. They probably don't have as much need for the young beyond five megawatt reactor which is like over 30 years old now and operates semi-sporadically as far as we can tell and you know as a piece is the you know the known long-standing center point of the nuclear program and therefore if it's not only not that needed anymore and the thing that The American public and indeed the global public knows as being most attached to the North Korean nuclear program and you can get rid of it, well, that's great propaganda benefit for you in terms of your relationship with Trump, right?

Because he's probably going to read that as being a massive thing that the North Koreans have given him and therefore potentially something worth trading for an end of Korean War declaration.

John 43:10

But this is also worrying, isn't it? I mean, if he's content with these kind of flashy things and he's not willing to listen to experts and sit down and go through, then he might not be the dealmaker that we thought if he's easily fooled. What did you think about Moon and China and North Korea all coming together over this insistence that there should be a peace regime first, because that seemed to be the kind of, that was the push at the UN.

And that's been an issue for a long time in North-South negotiations. And depending on who is in power in South Korea, you've had different responses. But Moon, we know, is for it. What's your take?

Andrea 43:57

Yeah, I think there seems to be an assumption. I'm not sure if the Blue House necessarily has the same assumption, but definitely some kind of in the community that's commenting on the DPRK issue has is that an end of Korean War declaration versus a peace treaty or a bigger peace regime. And these are all kind of fuzzy concepts.

Even peace treaty has multiple meanings in U.S. law. But If we're talking about just a public political statement that the Korean War is over, there is an assessment, at least by some, that that's not that big of a deal because it is just a political statement and doesn't result in any legal change.

John 44:38

So does that require Senate ratification? No, I don't think it would. You're just saying, just sign a piece of paper. We all agree that it's over?

Andrea 44:45

Yeah, I think what we're talking about here and when Moon Jae-in is referring to an end of war declaration, I don't think he means anything that has to be sort of legally signed off on either in the UN Security Council, because remember, the Korean War Takes the form of being started with a UN resolution that sets up the UN command, so you wouldn't necessarily have to put in another resolution to get rid of that or put anything through the Senate.

This is something that would be a political statement more than anything, and therefore I think is seen by some to be easy.

John 45:20

Now... Is it, though? I mean, this is...

Andrea 45:23

It's politically not that easy, but it gets you around those legal issues.

John 45:27

I've wrestled with the issue myself. I've come out against it previously in my analysis. One of the things that seemed to come out about it was that it might lead to a bring the boys home type of movement, either in the US. It might push forward progressive politics. It has a very strong impact on progressive politics in Seoul over conservatives.

There is some question, although I have to say I've heard pushback on this recently, about whether the UN command would be affected and how that looks. And then, of course, there's always the ever-popular OPCON, Operational Command, which is the, if I get this straight, the U.S. command of South Korean forces during a conflict.

Other voice 46:15

That's right.

John 46:16

That has long been a political issue for Korean nationalists on both sides of the spectrum. And depending on the intensity of North-South conflict, I think it's been dependent on that relationship. So, for example, if things are going well with North Korea, OpCon has been something that the Americans and the South Korean military have been kind of negotiating.

Let's transfer that ultimate wartime powers to you. And then as soon as things get tense, it always gets kind of pushed away, as happened under Lee Myung-bak. So what I'm curious about your perspective on this is, is the peace regime a feint? Is it by North Korea? Is it extending the timeline? Is it a good idea? Are there any kind of repercussions that I haven't mentioned or unintended consequences that you think the Americans are thinking about here, either for their own national interest and alliance system, Or maybe for the security of South Korea that maybe Moon has overlooked himself?

Andrea 47:18

I'm going to just because we're probably want to get through a few other things before we wrap the podcast up. I'm going to sort of skip your point, but skip it by saying I don't think we're at the stage about talking about a peace regime yet, which might encompass those much bigger changes. And I do think the Moon Jae-in administration is pretty intent on facilitating or at least starting the process of transfer of operational control Within their term.

So, you know, in the next few years, they've hinged that to the procurement of certain military capabilities that are still, you know, where that procurement effort is still underway. But ultimately, OPCON transfer is a, I would say, mostly political decision as well. And I think Moon seems pretty keen on it.

John 48:05

Is he pushed it? Do we know if it's happening?

Andrea 48:07

So he's hinged it to the so-called three-axis policy, which involves procurement of certain capabilities kill chain, Korean air and missile defense, and something called Korean Massive Punishment and Retaliation, which is more or less a decapitation force. Which is now like the Voldemort of South Korean policy, because no one can talk about decapitation, because that would be treating North Korea is a threat. so do you think, or is he just, he's not getting to it? I think he's just tied it more concretely to the achievement of certain capabilities, and is pushing forward on the procurement of those capabilities. Now, they're not going to be fully in place, I don't think, till about 2025, 2026, as far as I understand. So he's kicked it down the road, more or less.

Well, in some senses, yes. But remember that the Park Geun-hye administration had sort of indefinitely postponed OPCON transfer. Moon Jae-in has brought that back as not only something with a timeline, but something with a quite near-term timeline. He wants that to happen before he's out of office. And South Korean political terms are five years. So he's got to do that soon.

John 49:24

Once again, the U.S.-ROK alliance is on the table. And it's not just in the North, but it's also in the South.

Andrea 49:31

But to come back to your question, my sense is that when we're talking about an end of Korean War declaration, we're not talking about all of those things. We're talking about the political declaration that The war is over without the legal or structural change that underpins it. That's not to say that the North Koreans aren't then, if they get an end of war declaration, going to follow up and ask for those bigger things, because I think they undoubtedly will.

John 49:55

Of course they will. And who would give this? Would it be a three-way, South, North, and U.S.? I mean, China was officially not in the war. Of course, we know they were, but they weren't in any official capacity. So that makes sense. The other interesting point would be the Sixth Party. I mean, Japan and Russia have been kind of left on the sidelines for this, and we saw Abe in the UN kind of trying to bring the abductees issue back into it, very much failing at that.

Who's going to sign this?

Andrea 50:24

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm not even sure it has to be signed. This is a very fuzzy concept. Can it be verbal agreement? If it's a declaration, can it just be said?

John 50:34

Say it three times.

Andrea 50:37

That's a great question, John, and I'm really not sure. The maybe other thing to note here is how Moon Jae-in started to sell some of the nuclear points, especially back out to the international public when he left Pyongyang. And we've had the UN General Assembly going on this week with a lot of opportunity for high level statements to be made, including by Moon Jae-in himself, but also by Trump and Shinzo Abe.

And Listening to the way that Moon is communicating the outcomes of the Pyongyang summit is really interesting to me. So one of the key things I pulled from his UN speech is the following. He says, on April 20th, North Korea officially ended its policy of nuclear development and has since devoted all of its efforts towards economic development.

And I think that is an enormous misreading of not only that North Korean statement, But others as well. He also, in the same UN speech, refers back to Kim Jong-un's New Year's address on the 1st of January 2018 to say that Kim Jong-un announced that he was done with nuclear weapons and willing to move forward on economic development.

And I think that's also a misreading of that statement. It's fascinating to me that that New Year's speech is

John 52:05

It's being played up.

Andrea 52:07

It's being played up and pieces of it are being recalled without looking back at the whole speech. It's like, do you remember when Obama went to Prague in 2009 and gave that big speech that says, you know, He wants to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons. And it was very kind of pro arms control, wanted to push greater disarmament efforts with Russia.

And a lot of people focused on that portion of the speech without also acknowledging that Obama caveated that he didn't think disarmament was going to be possible within his total global nuclear disarmament was not going to be possible within his lifetime. And as long as there are nuclear weapons out there, the U.S. is going to retain a safe, secure and effective Of nuclear arsenal.

It's like that because Kim Jong-un in his New Year's speech also said something, caveated this quite similar and said, by conducting various means of nuclear delivery and super intense thermonuclear weapons, we attained our general orientation and strategic goal with success. And our republic has come to possess a powerful and reliable war deterrent which no force and nothing can reverse.

That is in the same statement that Moon Jae-in keeps quoting from in the UN General Assembly and elsewhere.

John 53:26

So I take these two things apart because I think there's two points that you put out which are really interesting. First, there's one is that he has decided to throw all in into the economy and that, too, he's willing to trade that economic power Growth and investment and aid and sanctions relief for the nuclear weapons. Those are two really separate topics.

They absolutely get put together by everybody, including the North, including the Chinese, including the Americans, the Trump administration, It's also made the same points of where is it coming from? Well, the North has been extremely clever. They've thrown out that speech, but they've also used diplomacy and symmetry to message very quietly that this is the new direction.

We saw Moon Jae-in in Singapore with this long documentary. In which he pointed out how wonderful the capitalist economy of Singapore was, which of course was unheard of. Ten years ago, there was no way a North Korean leader would be demonstrating how superb the electricity is in somewhere where they have a different economic model. And a lot of North Korea watchers, very smart ones like Anna Fifield from the Washington Post, were immediately pointing out, well, this is new.

This is revolutionary. There's definitely, you know, from 20th of April, he did announce like victory of the one, and now it's going to be economics first. And you saw also the Chinese respond to this. I think in the second summit when Kim Jong-un went to Beijing, Xi's speech was very, very much praising them for this new shift towards, he says, Xi Jinping says, we're happy to see the DPRK made a major decision to shift the focus to economic construction.

And the development of the DPRK socialist cause has entered a new stage in history. Comrade Chairman has made positive efforts for realizing denuclearization and maintaining peace on the peninsula. So again, even the Chinese are carrying along this narrative. The question, of course, is, is it true? I mean, are we all just carrying water here for the North Koreans?

Are they going to try to keep both? Are they going to try? I think in the first instance, you're right. Everyone quotes what they like about the speech and misses the point that Internally they speak about the North Korean weapon in a very different way, that it's a part of the national constitution, will never be removed. And then they kind of quietly go and sign a kind of vague statement in Panmunjom or Singapore saying denuclearization, which, of course, they can always walk away from because of hostile negotiations on the Americans part or some other excuse one imagines.

So I you know, Andrew, you and I, about, I guess it was four or five months ago, took part in a massive roundtable where we got a bunch of experts together with King's College, so as The Middlebury Institute, and a number of different groups of us were arguing this very point. To what extent are they really willing to exchange economic growth for the weapons?

Certainly, it seemed to us, and I think in this report that we published in which you were a great and wonderful contributor of, it does seem as if they have turned the corner On wanting economic growth and an economic kind of change and a shift and being more open to markets. The question is, do they want both?

And, you know, if it was me, I would want both. I would play it out as long as possible, you know, weaken sanctions, work on getting rid of little superficial bits of the infrastructure, the weapons infrastructure that I don't need. Really break down the solidarity between the U.S. and ROC alliance, particularly on economic growth. And when the Americans are throwing up their hands and trying to rebuild maximum pressure, you're off to the races.

You're already getting promises of investment from ASEAN, from Russia and China. So I would think that the only way that the Trump administration is going to succeed in thwarting that is by Maintaining that maximum pressure up to the very point when they really start to get rid of certain systems.

Andrea 57:42

Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, Moon is is very fairly noting that the North Koreans put out a new strategic line that is emphasizing economic development that I totally agree with. What I'm concerned about is the expectation mismanagement around the nuclear part of this and telling the UN General Assembly that North Korea is done with nuclear weapons development is I think an example of that gross expectation mismanagement and that is being picked up by Trump as well.

So that's more where my grievance is registered. I'm totally with you. I think they do genuinely want to pursue greater marketization, try to get greater foreign investment and push past the sanctions regime that has been imposed against them. I'm completely with you on that front.

John 58:34

If I can be so bold, and I know we've got so much time in this podcast, I think one of the reasons they are more comfortable with it is that they've seen that the Chinese authoritarian capitalist model has succeeded in safeguarding the party. As far as they can tell, Xi Jinping is leader for life. He's turned the corner.

He's done, you know, previously China was the sellout, right? If you were in Pyongyang, you looked at them and you thought, what happened? You guys gave up Stalinism and you've gone into capitalism and God knows when the party will fall. And actually somehow this past year, I think in the West, we've watched China really reestablish its party control while still having a very strong economic system.

So my guess is that that's helped him shift his mind, but I have no way of proving that. Pet theory, pet theory.

Andrea 59:20

Yeah, that's an interesting one. We can probably debate that for a lot longer. I just, I did want to note as well that there was a military to military agreement that Was signed in Pyongyang, also, and that, I think, is pretty broadly positive. It's modest and very detailed. I encourage everyone to go have a look at it. We'll put it in the show notes as well. and deals with a whole bunch of tension reduction measures on land and sea areas, maritime zones, and in the air as well.

John 59:55

In terms of those agreements, do you think they hold much water? My sense is that on the northern limit line, for example, is there anything concrete in there that you see that says we're going to build a buffer zone between us or try to have some negotiating process to get rid of it? This perennial conflict they have in nearby waters.

I'm just concerned that a lot of those kind of agreements tend to set up things like emergency phone lines, which are then snipped during the crisis. How authentic do you think that is?

Andrea 1:00:31

So to some extent, it's probably, and I'd love your view as well, I think there's a positive aspect, which is just the fact that there is such a continuing dialogue at the military-to-military level, which has to be good for crisis management. Yeah, that's true. So I really hope that continues and the regularity of it continues as well, even if they're producing these very small incremental steps for tension reduction.

Great you know those are things that can be built upon. My view is the most interesting part of that military to military agreement is actually the bit about the air component, because it requires suspension in. Unmanned aerial vehicle flights and the North Koreans have been doing quite a number of those over the years, sending drones. Into South Korea for reconnaissance over the Blue House and everywhere else.

And this does At least on paper, suggests that there's going to be a stop to that practice. So if that occurs on an ongoing basis, that would be, I think, probably good. And it's interesting that the North Koreans agreed to it.

John 1:01:45

Yeah, I think you're right. I shouldn't sound so cynical. I worry that a lot of what we are seeing are things that can all be walked back on, but then that's just the nature of Negotiations, and it's better than nothing. It is indicative of a slow moving together on issues that are normally where we flare up, where we have problems. Probably the most useful thing I've heard recently, I suppose I should say, it's an, you know, an insider From the South Korean side saying that there's fairly regular talks between the U.S., South Korea and North Korea at the moment, which I think is very reassuring in all intents and purposes.

So whether or not these agreements in terms of the mil-to-mil side are kept and maintained, I'm a bit cynical, but I'm willing to believe if they are steps to a greater cause.

Andrea 1:02:41

Yep. Right. Let's end with... Some very brief points on stories you may have missed. We're going to have to save my favorite game, which is what would you do if you were Kim Jong-un? Another time? Another time. You're taking away the best part. I know, it is the best part. I love playing that game. Okay. But we don't have enough time.

John 1:03:01

So... Is this the hacker?

Andrea 1:03:03

Yeah, so I think that's one of the big stories from September that people may have missed, which is the US Department of Justice putting out an indictment of a single North Korean hacker who was involved in a number of the high-profile North Korean cyber incidents, WannaCry attacks, the Sony hack, and a number of others. And they laid out in the document some really detailed Information on how they pieced together his involvement and the connections of the North Koreans to these incidents.

John 1:03:41

But it's a farce, right? This is a farce kicked up by the US Treasury, according to North Korea. And my favorite quote from the KCNA Is that he's a non-existent entity. Yeah, I loved it. At least the Russians admitted these guys exist. I would have liked if they'd said, no, no, those guys on video, they're not real.

Andrea 1:04:00

That was the thing. This was like the day or two after the Brits publicized information about the two Novichok attackers. Russian came into the UK, went to Salisbury for a day and flew back out. And the Russians initially denied that these people even existed. So when the North Koreans came back and denied that Park Jin-hok, this guy, existed, I was like, oh man, I joked on Twitter that he was going to end up on RT like two days later.

And pretending to have wanted just to go to the NHS to see the inside, which was what they did with the WannaCry tax. Yeah.

John 1:04:42

So it's a British side to the story. I mean, how much did it cost the NHS? I can't remember the cost, but it was fairly, fairly amazing that they find. I think this is the first instance where I've heard it may be the Chinese PLA. Guys were also mentioned before, but how do they find hackers, you know, state hackers?

It must be a fascinating process, how they identify them.

Andrea 1:05:06

Well, I recommend you read the document, because, yeah, it talks a little bit about the attribution to this individual.

John 1:05:11

Interesting.

Andrea 1:05:12

I was speaking with my colleague, Shay Cotton, who's in our Monterey office about this. What did they say? Shay and I are both sort of Export control, sanctions, case nerds. We love this stuff. And Shay was reminding me that it's only quite recently that the US has started to take legal action against individuals in cyber cases. Rather than, you know, the discussion over whether or not if a person's acting on behalf of the state, they are responsible for all of the state-based attempts for things.

Right.

John 1:05:48

They're not charging the PLA with these actions or the cyber unit.

Andrea 1:05:52

This individual, right?

John 1:05:53

So how useful is that? I mean, I guess it's useful in the sense that if that individual ever wants to travel or... Defect or get out or whatever, they've got to think twice about that. But I suppose it's an interesting legal decision to decide, all right, that guy is individually responsible for his actions rather than the state that we know is driving him.

Andrea 1:06:12

Yeah, it really is. And it's only been done in a couple of other cases with China, I think, and maybe one with Russia. The timing's very odd. Since like 2014 or so. So it's quite a recent approach to this issue, which I think is really fascinating.

John 1:06:27

What did they say in the document how they found him? Was there any technical detail? I have to go back.

Andrea 1:06:32

It is a long document. Oh, there's tons of technical detail. So yeah, it really is an interesting read. And again, we can put some of it up on the show notes for folks who want to take a deep dive into that one.

John 1:06:42

Absolutely.

Andrea 1:06:43

So that was an interesting one. And then the last story I'll end on is one from another previous podcast guest of ours, Hamish Macdonald at NK News, who did some photo analysis of the Rassan Trade Exhibition and noticed that one of the Chinese companies there who was marketing Sanctioned goods is a subsidiary to the big chinese state-owned firm that has been involved in icbm production in china and the manufacturer of other chinese strategic weapon systems so the fact that they showed up in rassan was pretty interesting and hamish's article is worth a read on that one too that is fascinating and do we have anything else to promote And we have an excellent report put out by John Center in partnership with some other institutes, which is called Negotiating the Peace Diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula and summarizes our lovely roundtable that we did a few months ago.

John 1:07:39

Thank you. Plug. Plug. And you can find it online.

Andrea 1:07:45

And you can find it online. We'll put it in the show notes. John, thank you so much for joining me. It's been great having you back on the podcast. Always a pleasure. We'll make you do it again. And I'm going to turn it over to Scott, who can tell you all about how you can get involved in our Slack channel or contribute to the podcast on Patreon.

But for now, thank you for listening.

Other voice 1:08:05

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