KCN-eh? January’s other North Korea Developments

Jeffrey Lewis 0:05

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

Andrea Berger 0:22

And I'm Andrea Berger, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey with Jeffrey. For now, but you're leaving us. No. Yes, I am leaving you. This is my last KTNA episode. I am so sad.

Jeffrey 0:41

Do you want to tell listeners what you're off to do?

Andrea 0:46

Bathe in maple syrup. I'm going back to Canadian government for a few years to join... In Canada, what's known as the Privy Council Office, which basically serves cabinet. So kind of like your equivalent function of the cabinet office if you're a Brit or the NSC if you're an American.

Jeffrey 1:05

I am so sad. I heard you were giving pointers to staff the other day on your way out, which I thought was the funniest thing ever.

Andrea 1:15

Isn't that a thing people are meant to do? Like, handover, transfer of knowledge, all those, like, great buzzwords. I feel like that's just the responsible thing to do when you leave.

Jeffrey 1:23

Yeah, but it's absurd that you think that your greatness is transferable by advice. It's like Ted Williams, like, I don't know, just swing at the ball.

Andrea 1:37

Everyone can do think tankery. Sometimes it's just a little bit tricky and daunting if you're early career in the field, so... But we've got some great staff at CNS that I'm sure will roll very well without any of us, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey 1:50

I do not mean to degrade or demean the hard work that you put in, but there's a lot of natural talent there that we are going to miss and not be able to replace.

Andrea 2:01

Well, that's nice of you, but we have to cut short the niceties because there has been loads happening on the DPRK front, particularly on the diplomatic side that we need to talk through. And so, where shall we start? Should we maybe do a quick overview of Kind of the back and forth that's been happening between the US and the DPRK in a build up to what looks like a second Trump Kim summit?

Jeffrey 2:29

Yeah, I think that's worth doing because so much of the fighting about what's going on involves interpretations of words and meetings and things. And so I think having some sense of like, where we are, as it looks like Kim and Trump are headed to, I guess, Hanoi would probably be really useful for listeners.

Andrea 2:49

No idea. I think I think there was a media report or who was it that was quoted saying somewhere in Asia. And I was like, that's patently unhelpful.

Jeffrey 2:57

But I don't know why I keep hearing Vietnam, but maybe.

Andrea 3:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's the kind of key talking point.

Jeffrey 3:05

I mean, look, it only took 50 years, but we finally got Donald Trump to Vietnam.

Andrea 3:12

If I were Kim Jong Un, I would not want to have a second summit in Vietnam. Actually, I would want summits. It to be somewhere a little bit glossier than that. If Singapore was the first one, and the imagery around it was the way it was, I'd want to have it similarly kind of prestigious in that respect.

Jeffrey 3:28

Oh, that's interesting. So no chance for Donald Trump to be like in the stadium in Pyongyang with, you know, 10,000 people holding up little cards to make a picture of his face.

Andrea 3:37

Oh, so if you could, I was assuming that it's not happening in Pyongyang, but you're right, could be.

Jeffrey 3:42

Pyongyang would be best, but otherwise someplace glitzy. Do you have do you have guesses?

Andrea 3:48

Hmm, I don't I still I kind of wanted one to happen in Jeju, but that's less a prediction and more just what I would like if I were Kim Jong.

Jeffrey 3:59

Nice, good golf there.

Andrea 4:01

Yeah, and his plane can probably make it right. Well, his plane can definitely make it, I think, to Jeju. Let's not get over constant. Well, I wouldn't want to be the one ensuring that, let's put it that way. But on balance of probabilities, I feel like it would probably get the job done.

Jeffrey 4:20

All right. So heading up to this meeting, someplace in Asia, there's been some back and forth. And I wholeheartedly endorse your idea that we should have some kind of primer on where we are at the moment.

Andrea 4:30

Okay. So first set of interactions. Big interactions in 2019 is Kim Yong-chol, our favorite North Korean.

Jeffrey 4:40

He is such a dick. Heads over to the U.S. Yeah he's he's not terribly well regarded as being a nice person my favorite Canada won't be giving him a passport anytime soon I can't imagine say that too I mean my favorite is when he at the Olympics when people were protesting him for being the mastermind of the Chonan massacre he introduced himself as hi I'm Kim Young-chul you may know me as the mastermind of the Chonan massacre like come on yeah

Andrea 5:13

And I know that was meant to be a joke, but it's not funny if you actually are. Not funny. So, yeah, he was over in the U.S. And that seems to be where there was some good momentum made on getting working level talks going, in part because he went into the White House. He met with the fuller range of interlocutors on the U.S. side, Pompeo, Steve Biegun, etc.

And it sounds like a ball game.

Jeffrey 5:41

Started moving more quickly after that visit. What's your take? Yeah, I mean, he was supposed to go earlier and and and just didn't, didn't show in Beijing to catch his flight, which by the way was commercial, which I guess of course it is, but it's just weird for me to imagine Kim Jong-chol sitting in, you know, business class in in a United flight from Beijing to DC.

Andrea 6:03

How badly do you want to have been on that flight? Walk past and be like, do a double take.

Jeffrey 6:08

Yeah, I would probably try to get a quality Kim Jong-chol as a dick story for my grandkids, right? I mean, some off-color joke he tells. But, you know, my sense, and I don't know what you think, but I think that he didn't get on the plane the first time because Trump was not going to be available. And that I think from their perspective, they really want to seal things with Trump because I think they have the sense that when things only happen at the working level or even the Pompeo level, there are like demands for things that they're not willing to give up.

But then when they see Trump, they kind of get what they want. So

Andrea 6:48

Doors unlock. Doors unlock. Seems to be their assumption, yeah.

Jeffrey 6:51

That's right. And, you know, maybe they're right about that. Maybe they're wrong about that. You know, I don't know. But once it was clear to me that Kim was going to get the meeting with Trump, you know, I figured that kind of irrespective of what actually happened in the small meeting – and I will have to say, I mean – You probably now have to be more polite about this, but these people are all liars, right?

So I don't believe anything they say when they describe those events, but whatever they talked about, I think the only thing that matters is when Kim Jong-chol hands over the letter to Trump and Trump says, you know, I'd love to have the summit.

Andrea 7:26

Yeah, it's interesting just talking about, you know, in the past episodes, we've talked about how the North Koreans seem to be trying to Pick their interlocutor very carefully within the U.S. in order to maximize their own position, but the chances of momentum. And that's not a crazy or unusual negotiating strategy. Everyone does that.

Jeffrey 7:52

It's just not supposed to work.

Andrea 7:55

Yeah, and they've been so pronounced with it, right? And in being very vocal about it, I think have somewhat successfully sharpened the choices that Donald Trump is making. They clearly feel that interacting with Trump directly is what unlocks doors and gets things moving in a way that they are more happy with and that they would rather deal with him because he's going to give the better outcome and probably the faster outcome.

And so it's not surprising that they're doing that. They've been, I think, fairly transparent about it. But I'm at least heartened that what's happened now is that There's been a movement back after having seen Trump to the working level discussion, and that more looks like it's occurring on that front.

Jeffrey 8:44

So I will be honest, I am very skeptical that those are basically real meetings. I mean, there were a couple of working level discussions in advance of Singapore. I mean, I know the North Koreans ghosted a bunch of the first ones. But my sense is that the North Koreans will show up. And politely sit there and be told how important it is for them to give up the nuclear weapons.

And they'll kind of smile and maybe even nod. And US diplomats will decide that that must be assent to the plan. I don't think the North Koreans would do anything to screw up the summit. But I am really, really skeptical that, you know, we're going to get much more than, you know, maybe a maybe a kind of repeat of the thing we saw at Punggye-ri.

Andrea 9:27

Right. What I assume is that there's now at least a working level discussion over what to put in a second summit declaration. And they'll probably be exploring the range of possibilities associated with that. You know, I share some of your skepticism about what the boundings of the possible are on that front. And not only that, but what's most likely to come out of that set of conversations.

But nevertheless, you know, It sounds like we've got an agreement of a second summit and therefore a whole set of things need to be set in motion in order to make that happen. And one of them is talking about content. So at least we're talking about content.

Jeffrey 10:11

Right. Although, I mean, I, you know, it's hard to know because we're not in inside, but it seems to me that the things that are on the table or they might actually follow through on knocking down some of the concrete at, at Sohey, right. The, the space launch center.

Andrea 10:27

And we hadn't seen a whole lot happening at that site in the last few months, right? You guys have been looking at it more closely than I have.

Jeffrey 10:33

Right. I mean, you know, it's a combination. They partially dismantled things that were reassembleable, if that word makes any sense. And they kind of left things out. So, you know, it was a kind of visible signal to satellites that things were being partly taken down. But they didn't do anything irreversible like blow up concrete. And, you know, in the meantime, kind of normal maintenance at the site has continued.

You know, they're doing a little bit of construction on the main checkout building where the rockets go to get checked out before being launched. So, you know, it's kind of just sitting there. There's a possibility that they will, in fact, take it down. I mean, I hate to be so negative about it, but it's not like it's the only engine test stand in all of North Korea.

Andrea 11:26

No, quite right. But you think that's where they're going to put their effort in terms of offering something up to Donald Trump?

Jeffrey 11:34

Well, that's what they said in the Pyongyang summit.

Andrea 11:38

So there's also that tantalizing mention of Yongbyon in the Pyongyang summit. And we can come back to that because Steve Began picked up on that and expanded quite a lot upon it in some recent remarks he made at Stanford. But maybe let's come back to that.

Jeffrey 11:54

I think Steve is availing himself of our decriminalized situation for marijuana here in the Golden State.

Andrea 12:04

And maybe in Canada? I don't know. Yeah. So actually, let's talk about it now. Okay. So Biegun went to Sweden, had some discussions with his North Korean counterparts. And then at the end of January was part of a big lecture at Stanford where he gave some pretty fascinating remarks that we'll put up on the show notes so you can read them in full.

And Jeffrey, I would love your thoughts on them because everyone got very, very into unpacking his remarks. And it's, I think, somewhat divided the North Korea watching community. There's those who found his remarks about, you know, creating a new future for North Korea that has stronger economic potential where, you know, we need to create an end of war situation like that's over.

Peace needs to come. It needs to be permanent. People read a lot into that. And then other people kind of looked at some of his assessments on and statements on the WMD front and maybe weren't quite so heartened. What's your take?

Jeffrey 13:16

I think he's f***ing delusional. You know, I mean, my fundamental concern with that speech is that he continues to write checks that they can't cash. You know, like, I understand people are like excited that he's putting concessions on the table because that is a change and frankly that's an improvement. you know, that there's, there's sort of a, for the first time, real incentives for the North Koreans..

But these incentives are too little too late, given what he is promising that the North Koreans will ultimately do. And that's the part that bothers the hell out of me. Because as I have said before, this whole process is only sustainable because... Moon and Trump are willing to exaggerate what the North Koreans have offered. And the North Koreans, because they are getting benefits at the moment, don't feel the need to show them up.

Right. But I, you know. The moment you have a South Korean conservative president or the moment that Donald Trump turns on Kim the way he turned on Justin Trudeau because he didn't get what he wants, I really worry about how ugly this will get.

Andrea 14:40

I'm not sure if Biegun actually even mentioned Moon Jae-in or the South Koreans that much.

Jeffrey 14:45

No, no. I mean, he really focused on Trump.

Andrea 14:48

Yeah, he focused very, very much on Trump. And actually, that's one of the things I thought was most interesting. There were pieces of his remarks that I thought, okay, you know, that's a more sensible approach than what I thought the administration was previously articulating that I can kind of get on board with. Someone lobbed him the question about, you know, this all or nothing kind of rhetoric that had been coming out of the administration, you know, where you denuclearize North Korea, and then we'll think about getting some stuff.

And he at least articulated what I thought was a somewhat better response to that subject. Then there were other areas where he kept talking about how it's Donald Trump's wish that something happens. So, you know, Permanent peace, an end to the war, North Korea to be integrated into the economies of Northeast Asia, all that sort of thing. and I thought, okay, oh, he also said, you know, no one wants to end the regime in North Korea, and I was like, well, it's great that you're talking about Donald Trump wanting all of those things, but like, ask him what he wanted in mid 2017 and they were very different.

And, you know, ask him in two years time what he might want for North Korea, and they might be very different. I'm just not convinced that putting so much weight into Donald Trump's desire for a particular one outcome or the other is a very durable, coordinated approach. And And then I had pieces of vegan speech where I was like, what are you on about?

Like what? So I don't know if you caught some of those as well or had the same ones I did, but maybe we can talk about that too.

Jeffrey 16:41

Well, I mean, the one that nearly caused me to stroke out was the and more promise.

Andrea 16:49

Oh yeah. Okay. So do, did I take that on that note? Jeffrey, you maybe want to summarize what he said there. I didn't take down any of that.

Jeffrey 16:57

All right. So one of the big challenges facing the administration is that the North Koreans... It's not merely that they're kind of not yet coughing up weapons and missiles, which, again, I don't think they will ever do, right? And my view is it's not that the North Koreans are liars or cheaters. It's that... They're negotiating for a different kind of thing, right?

So let's be absolutely clear that I don't think the North Koreans, I think between DC, Seoul, and Pyongyang, I think Pyongyang has been like the most truthful in this entire process, which is not to say they've been entirely truthful. But what North Korea has offered so far, and I think Punggye-ri is an example of that. And I think the offer on Sohae is an example of that.

And I think the Yongbyon offer, These are gestures that mimic disarmament, right? These are not actual things that will result in the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities. And so when Begin Turns to this section of the talk where basically, you know, the Pyongyang summit document does have this reference to North Korea shutting down some of the facilities at Yongbyon or perhaps the whole facility at Yongbyon.

He's kind of mindful of the idea that Yongbyon is only a part of a much larger complex. Well, of a larger complex. And the way he addresses that is by saying, Asserting that at some point the North Koreans in referring to Yongbyon have used the phrase, and more, And he decides to interpret this sentence or this phrase, these two words, as evidence that North Korea is prepared to declare the existence of all of their enrichment sites and close those eventually, which is, I mean, that's why I said it's delusional.

You know, I mean, that to me is insane that in a conversation, because it's not in the Pyongyang summit document, right? But that in a conversation that someone would say, oh, Yongbyon and more. That that little couplet, right, those two words could then be spun into this elaborate disarmament fantasy.

Andrea 19:24

So I actually read the end more slightly differently because I got fixated on a paragraph just before that where he says the following. I'll read it out because maybe people will see what I became so hung up on. He says, in addition to the commitments on Tongchang-ri and Hongye-ri, Chairman Kim also committed in both the joint statement from the Pyongyang summit, as well as during the Secretary of State's October meetings in Pyongyang, to the dismantlement and destruction of North Korea's plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities.

This complex of sites that extends beyond Yongbyon represents the totality of North Korea's plutonium reprocessing and enrichment programs.

Jeffrey 20:08

Yeah, that's a lot.

Andrea 20:08

And I'm like... Where did it say that? Yeah, that's a lie. In the Pyongyang Summit, are you basically taking the word Yongbyon and then reading that to mean everything in Yongbyon and everything outside of it? Because that's not how I would interpret that. And that's sort of like the type of Interpretation issue that brought you Leap Day Deal problems.

Jeffrey 20:29

Yes, and that's actually... It strikes me. In my little notes, I have Leap Day Deal written right here.

Andrea 20:35

Because... I was like, oh no, not this again.

Jeffrey 20:38

But those two paragraphs work together. And I think maybe we both freaked out then about the same thing. Because the Pyongyang summit does not say what he said it does. Like, that is a lie. And I hate to be so... Blunt about it. But it does not say that. And by the way, I mean, one of my favorite things about the Pyongyang summit, which people don't realize, do you know the two Korean versions aren't even the same?

Andrea 21:04

Oh, no, I didn't know that.

Jeffrey 21:05

Yeah, they're not the same. Grace Liu here at CNS, Dave and I were looking at some pictures and they were, you know, they're each holding up the ones that they had signed. And Grace looks at that and goes, those aren't the same Korean words. So we went and we got the text in Korean. They're not the same.

And then they're not radically different. Like one change is the South Koreans use a word for like missile. Whereas when the North Koreans use the same word, they pick a more neutral word that means rocket, like missile. Okay. Interesting. The Pyongyang summit does not... Say that there's gonna be more than Yongbyon, and moreover, it doesn't even say the same thing in Korean.

So in my view, when they then start parsing words and phrases like and more, which apparently wasn't in the document, so it had to be in a conversation, if the agreed language is not the same in Korean, you cannot hang an entire policy on an offhand clause. That was probably spoken, you know, verbally. Sorry.

Andrea 22:10

This comes back to the same thing that we've been talking about as one of our kind of lingering concerns throughout the whole of the dialogue process is that there's expectation mismanagement happening. Yes. And I worry that this is a prime example that, you know, in a year's time we're going to turn to and we're going to look back at and go, yep.

That's where we got that wrong in terms of explaining what's going on.

Jeffrey 22:35

Well, and I very much worry about that because in my work with media, there is an incredible assumption that U.S. officials are truthful. And so if the North Korean statements don't match the U.S. expectations of They almost never, it's very hard to get a reporter to say Steve Biegun is incompetent or not telling the truth. They will default to Kim Jong-un is a liar.

And I think that's really dangerous, particularly once there is no longer a Republican president. Because... Republicans now accept this fantasy that the North Koreans have agreed to give up these weapons. And so when this doesn't happen, if you have a Democratic president, right, they are going to retreat to this fantasy that, you know, Trump had solved this problem and Trump had gotten the North Koreans to agree to give up the weapons and the North Koreans were in the process of giving up the weapons.

And it was, you know, the election of a Democratic president that destroyed this whole process. Like, even if we get through the Trump years without him freaking out, this is a landmine for future Democratic administrations because they have been able to so successfully set expectations in a false way.

Andrea 23:54

That's such an important point, though, that like this is not the North Koreans lying and that there's for some the preference to read it as such when that is just not the case. And one of the lessons that so many years of negotiating with North Korea have said is that if it's not on paper in agreed terms and specific terms, then it's probably not agreed. is this where we cry into our Molson about the Leap Day deal? Oh, I I would be crying because of Molson. I'm sorry not to not to hate on Molson, but to hate a little on Molson..

You've misplaced the problem there in that scenario. So can we talk briefly about the other part of the Began speech that I had an issue with, which was... Sure, you got past those two paragraphs.

Jeffrey 24:50

I punched my monitor, so I couldn't read anything after that.

Andrea 24:55

So let me find where the bit is. He basically, at one stage... Decide that denuclearization means all weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, I saw that.

Jeffrey 25:13

Yeah, I saw that.

Andrea 25:16

I'm sorry. I thought that was amazing. And she says it, I think, twice in the speech. Oh, he meant it. Yeah, and I'm like, I definitely don't think the North Koreans... Mean all WMD when they talk about denuclearization.

Jeffrey 25:33

I don't even think they mean nuclear weapons when they talk about denuclearization.

Andrea 25:37

Well, discuss. But yeah, the idea that that term for anyone has ever meant, you know, that broad a scope. Even for the US, I've never had the sense that the administration, even up until now, feels like

Jeffrey 25:58

Denuclearization covers all WMD in the concept, so I'm not sure like this is the, that was the first time I had heard that. Maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention. That was the first time I had, I mean, I have a hypothesis about this, the entirety of this speech, right, because like, why give this speech at all? you know, you don't need to give this speech for the sake of the North Koreans.

And in fact, giving the speech probably harms things with the North Koreans because now they will have questions about the speech. And why give it at Stanford? Right. So my interpretation is that this speech is about trying to consolidate support for this endeavor outside of the president's base. And I think that they are hoping to pick off pro-engagement people who are so desperate for any kind of progress that I think you send Steve Biegun, and he tries to be very reasonable, but you know that there is also a base to worry about, and there are bureaucratic issues within the U.S. government, and I'm guessing that in the course of getting that speech cleared, it was...

Much easier to make promises to get things through internally and sound good than it would be actually right to get those promises past the North Koreans or elicit those promises from the North Koreans. So and I think that you see that in the decision to go to Stanford, I think You know, if you give this speech in D.C., you're running the risk of a lot of people who are going to give Steve Biegun a real hard time.

Interesting. But you get out to Stanford, you know, it's further away. So there are like just naturally a smaller universe of people. You can curate who's going to be there. And I think you see it in the questions, right? The questions are all like softballs.

Andrea 27:57

Yeah, they're ones that he would definitely have heard a thousand times before.

Jeffrey 28:00

You know, it's not a tough audience. So, you know, I think this is a speech about trying to rebuild public support for the endeavor. Because, like... You know, like the president made these promises after Singapore and like nothing has happened except that they've built more ICBMs and nuclear weapons, right? Like, and so even if there haven't been tests, you know, I think most people are pretty cynical about this process.

And my sense is that that's what they went and did. And so I think it was just, you know, he's just... You know, it's like, what's that line in, is it Beauty and the Beast? Where the Beast is asking, like, what he's supposed to get beauty at the outset of the relationship. And one of the characters says, you know, oh, the usual.

And it's like, you know, it's a series of things, you know, like flowers. And the last one is, you know, and promises you don't intend to keep.

Andrea 28:50

Have you been watching a lot of Disney films recently?

Jeffrey 28:54

Yes, I have a daughter who is really into Disney princesses. So I'm familiar with the entire array. But like, I think that's what that speech is, right? Promises you don't intend to keep that nonetheless are meant to woo an increasingly skeptical community.

Andrea 29:10

Yep, that's an interesting take. And folks who are listening should go have a read themselves because there's some Some really fascinating stuff in there, whether you think it reveals the sort of behind the scenes of what's actually going on or you think it's more about messaging. So folks can go and have a check on that themselves. Maybe there is some classified intelligence report that says Kim Jong-chol said and more that means they're going to declare all nine uranium enrichment sites.

Yeah, maybe. He also, Began also says that, where is it? So before the process of denuclearization can be final, which supposedly means all WMD, we must also have a complete understanding of the full extent of the North Korean weapons of mass destruction and missile programs. And we will get that at some point through a comprehensive declaration. So again, expectation being set there for the North Koreans to tell everyone about What they have about everything.

Jeffrey 30:11

I know you're trying to wrap us up, but there are two little things I just feel compelled to point out. I mean, one, which is a recurring problem that those of us who look at nonproliferation and disarmament agreements have, when people who are not domain experts start talking about these subjects, they sound so dumb, to me at least.

Like, the idea, like, no declaration has ever been complete, right? Like, declarations... Declarations are nightmares because they get you started. But, you know, states don't always tell the truth. States don't always know the truth. Right. I mean, the actual act of collating the information, you know, that's a bureaucratic endeavor. You know, he speaks about a declaration like it's like a like a like a perp.

After a murder making a confession which is like exactly how somebody who is not an actual subject matter expert would talk about it but it never works that way right so again it as you say it creates this expectation that like not only is it not going to be fulfilled because North Korea is not going to fulfill it but like the initial South African declaration was not complete and You know, like no declaration is ever really complete in that way.

And so like it's it's one thing to set something that like not that the North Koreans won't live up to. It's another thing to set up a standard that is like historically impossible. That makes me crazy.

Andrea 31:38

So I actually think as a nonproliferation community, we need to do better to talk about a lot of the past experiences on issues like this.

Jeffrey 31:47

I love how you take the, like, outraged, mean things I say, and you turn them into this, like, teachable, kind, empathetic. Like, if I could just... Could we... Could I...

Andrea 32:02

Just like send you like everything that I think and you could like translate it from jerk to to Canadian, the Dilbert mission statement generator, like I can basically do the same thing but just for like Jeffrey Rand. Oh, but it's just so nice the way you're saying it. Yes, we as a community, yes, please continue.. But I think part of the issue here comes back to the core of the divide in the nonproliferation community about what the DPRK might be open to.

If they're open to actually denuclearizing, then there is a bit more sense in banging the drum about a comprehensive declaration. But if you're of the view that North Korea is, that's not a feasible solution, And palatable outcome of this for North Korea. And that while it might be open to something short of full disarmament, it ain't going to go the whole way.

Then a comprehensive declaration for a country with a small arsenal that, again, as we've talked about before, verbalized so much on selective opacity in order to generate deterrence effects. Is going to be really problematic because it either pushes them to lie or pushes an external impression that they're not serious about whatever arms control or transparency process there is movement on.

And that's where the challenge for me lies. I think declarations do have importance, but we've got to put them sort of in the context of Of where we are in any particular set or step or set of steps.

Jeffrey 33:47

Yeah, and I think it is important to emphasize that disclosure is forever. You know, we've watched this debate play out in the Iran context where people demanded Declarations from the Iranians. And, you know, like, I understand why you need a declaration, right? That's the baseline for the verification approach that one takes. So it's not like I don't value declarations.

I do. But we've seen in a very concrete way that when you do a declaration for a sanctions relief, right, the president has now reapplied the sanctions, or at least is in the process of largely reapplying them. Sanctions are weird and it's more complicated, but you can reapply sanctions. You cannot undisclose the location of a facility. So if you're North Korea and you are sitting on, if you read the published reports carefully, two additional enrichment sites, one of which is Kangsan, which we found, the other which we have not found, Disclosing those is permanent.

And Kangsan may be relatively easy for North Korea to disclose because everybody kind of knows where it is now and the North Koreans know we know where it is. But if they truly have a site that either we don't know about or they are not sure we know about, that is a really big thing to ask them to give up.

Andrea 35:06

Yep. Agreed. And then like, let's not even get into the declaration about chem and bio sites if the U S is expecting that, because that's a whole different kettle of fish entirely.

Jeffrey 35:17

Yeah. Dave and I have thought about defecting to the steel works. We have never thought about defecting to any of the chemical works because the, the, the health and wellness centers are just not as nice.

Andrea 35:29

I don't think you should defect to any of the above, but We, in the interest of time, probably should also talk about what's happening in the U.S.-South Korea conversation because that has been quite the file to follow, particularly in terms of what is cryptically called the Special Measures Agreement.

Jeffrey 35:50

Yes.

Andrea 35:51

Which I don't know if you've, okay, so have you ever seen the film In the Loop? Yes, which is based on The Thick of It. I I've, I've actually, everyone needs to stop listening to us right now and go and watch that film because it is one of the funniest takes on British American relations. One also needs to binge watch the film The Thick of It.

Yes, absolutely. But you know, the Future Planning Committee, where basically, they're trying to find the war committee in Congress, and everyone's like, find the one that has the blandest name. And so they're like, ah, the Future Planning Committee, and they show up and sure enough, they're talking about what looks like an Iraq war. The Special Measures Agreement.

Every time I read the phrase Special Measures Agreement, I think of the Future Planning Committee. Because it has like, I know the 90s were an interesting time, but surely you could have come up with a better name. Anyways, I digress. So the US and South Korea have been talking about how to divide up costs for the presence of close to 30,000 US troops on the Korean Peninsula.

And they have what is called a special measures agreement, which outlines the South Korean contributions to offsetting the costs associated with stationing US forces in the country. It's existed since 1991 and it was up for, so the end of the last five-year agreement that they had outlined was up at the end of December. So right now, from my understanding, we're in kind of this agreement vacuum where there hasn't been an agreement on the new set of cost sharing.

Jeffrey 37:35

Right, we got with the interim agreement, but that's only going to last a year.

Andrea 37:41

Has that been officially announced now? There was some news reports saying it had been agreed in principle, but I haven't seen anything official.

Jeffrey 37:49

Maybe I've missed it. No, it may not have been done. I mean, they don't actually tell us all that much. True. Which is really pretty aggravating. The State Department has announced it. But I don't know whether it has gone through formal approval. Did you want to back up a little bit?

Andrea 38:13

No, let's assume what's now out in the press is agreed to, which is that South Korea is going to up its contributions. So it used to be that they paid about 840 or so million US dollars annually. That sounds about right. Yeah, the US had... Come back to them as part of the discussion over a new agreement and said, you've got to double it.

And that created a whole lot of friction in the alliance discussion, which is not great at a time where you kind of need to be working together to solve some of the security challenges on the Green Peninsula. Fighting over the cost of your alliance is not a great message to be sending.

Jeffrey 38:55

And also, I mean, Replicates the near catastrophe at the beginning of the Trump administration with THAAD, where they don't seem to understand the politics of a center-left government in South Korea.

Andrea 39:07

Well, they kind of snuck THAAD in almost as well. While Park and Hay was...

Jeffrey 39:12

Right, so they presented Moon with a fait accompli, right? They did. And so Moon basically being pretty pragmatic and I actually think very centrist for a progressive president, decided he was going to live with it. But then I don't know if you... It's been so much insanity. I think people have forgotten. Trump then announced that they were going to have to reimburse the United States for the cost of that.

Andrea 39:36

Yeah. It's like the wall.

Jeffrey 39:37

And Moon was like, I'm like... I am swallowing my pride to let this thing sit here. If you make me pay for this, like, I'm going to box it up and send it back to you. Like, no. And I guess McMaster called them and said, I know the president said that, but he's not really sending you a bill.

And then so that got reported in South Korea, which then got picked up. And I think maybe Fox News or somebody covered it. And so then Trump said, Trump got angry again. So I don't care what McMaster said. You are going to pay for it. And I guess it ultimately was finalized by McMaster calling up and saying, like, how about you don't say anything more about this issue until you get a bill in the mail?

And of course, like no bill arrives. Right. There's no like.

Andrea 40:21

Right.

Jeffrey 40:21

I mean, I guess this is the bill. Right. This is this this negotiation. But I mean, it was a great example where, you know, I think Moon's preference would have been to get that out.

Andrea 40:34

Yeah, I don't doubt that. And they sort of did what governments classically do when they come in and they don't like something, they put it under review. Right.

Jeffrey 40:42

Yeah. So, you know, and I don't I don't think Moon himself wants to destroy the U.S. alliance.

Andrea 40:50

But I think a lot of people who voted for President Moon would be really happy to see the United States pack up and go home.

Jeffrey 40:56

And I think that puts him in a real bind. So I'm actually shocked that they got that they got another couple hundred million dollars out of him.

Andrea 41:04

So I think they got now a million. So that's not an insignificant amount from the 840 or whatever it is for the exchange. But the most interesting thing is that they only agreed to what I think is technically a one-year extension of the previous special measures agreement. And it's the one year that is actually probably the most interesting data point because the That suggests that there are significant unresolved issues between the two sides.

Jeffrey 41:40

Yeah, because they're typically five-year agreements.

Andrea 41:43

Yeah, and they started negotiating for this extension back in March 2018. So we kind of like already need to start negotiating the next one, or at least not stop the conversation now. So, yeah.

Jeffrey 42:01

I mean, my read of this is that If there were no progress on North Korea at the moment, the South Koreans would not have budged at all on the money and would have let the whole thing collapse. And I think Moon would have been, you know, happy to be the president who sent the Americans home. But I think they really want that Trump-Kim summit.

And so I think that just like they are probably, I mean, South Korean governments in the past have paid the North Koreans to show up for summits. This is a payment, I think, to the United States to get Trump to show up to the summit.

Andrea 42:35

Yeah, that could very well be, or at least to get this out of the press for a little while, because that's one of the other challenges here is that there have been in all of these, I think, 10 rounds of talks over the special measures agreement, it's always been in the South Korean press. So you're inviting the South Korean public to ask questions about the state of the alliance, which is a real problem.

And actually, I think a one-year extension probably preserves that problem. Yeah. Yeah, I think it might have been like a get it out for a while.

Jeffrey 43:07

Yeah, I think it's renewable for another year on top of that, which I think is my guess is what will happen is Moon will just try to play out the clock on Trump.

Andrea 43:19

Yeah, could be because a new a new agreement, if it were totally new, has to go through Congress, right?

Jeffrey 43:26

You know, I don't know what...

Andrea 43:32

I think the one in 2014 had to go through Congress. That sounds right. So they did it as a congressional executive agreement.

Jeffrey 43:38

No, I remember the testimony about it because the testimony... Because I actually, you know, South Korean cross-sharing... Do not interpret this as an endorsement of anything Donald Trump has done. South Korea pays less in cost sharing than the Japanese do. And one of the things that the Obama administration successfully did was get South Korea to pay more.

And so I remember that testimony. And I presume that testimony was part of doing it as a congressional executive agreement. So that's probably right. You know, you'd think that I would be grown up enough to look this up before I talked about it.

Andrea 44:20

Don't worry, I don't know the answer either. I think it is, but... We'll find out and put it in the show notes.

Jeffrey 44:27

Yes, we will. We're not perfect listeners. Well, Andrea's perfect, but the rest of us are human.

Andrea 44:34

That's not true. I didn't know that either. Yeah, this is one that we can keep watching and you guys can circle back to without me in a year's time.

Jeffrey 44:44

It'll be so sad.

Andrea 44:46

Jeffrey, I'm really excited that you're visiting me in like my first month back in Ottawa, because if I recall correctly, our listener who made the Juche bird cocktail might be based in Ottawa.

Jeffrey 44:57

Oh, really? I don't know. I didn't know that. Oh, we could. I think so. Juche birds all around then.

Andrea 45:03

We should maybe be planning a Juche bird. Not the real kind of Juche bird.

Jeffrey 45:08

Well, you know, I could go for both. I could watch a Juche bird with a Juche bird.

Andrea 45:14

No, that would be terrible.

Jeffrey 45:17

The sunset would be incredible.

Andrea 45:19

I'll sacrifice the cocktail in the name of non-proliferation.

Jeffrey 45:21

Oh, the sunset would be great. What do you think? Do you have Aurora Borealis that far north? Or are you not far north enough for that?

Andrea 45:29

I don't think in Ottawa.

Jeffrey 45:31

Well, maybe the Jujube could make that happen for the first time.

Andrea 45:35

Hmm. So, back on subject, which we can discuss more in a few months' time with a cocktail. But, What did you make of my maybe favorite story of the month, which is Russia having offered the DPRK a reactor if it disarmed all of its nuclear weapons and missiles?

Jeffrey 45:59

All time greatest trolling ever. You know, I mean, for listeners who don't remember the Clinton administration, the agreement that it negotiated with North Korea in 1994, back When it actually was plausible that the North Koreans might not build nuclear weapons, because they didn't have them yet, included an agreement for a multinational consortium called KEDO to build some proliferation resistant, I guess is the phrase we use, light water reactors, So when the Clinton administration negotiated the agreed framework with North Korea in the 1990s, it included a provision for a multinational consortium to build a small number of proliferation resistant light water reactors in Korea, in North Korea.

And that was a thing that the Bush administration hated. It was a huge deal when the agreed framework collapsed, and then the Bush administration tried to resurrect it in the form of the six-party agreement. And that actually did, again, include the nuclear reactor, which Bush administration officials had singled out. As like a thing they would never, ever do.

And Bush doesn't even mention in his memoir that he backed down and did eventually agree to it. So it's this like historically neurologic thing where the North Koreans really want a damn reactor as compensation for giving up their reactor. And the U.S. is like always like refusing to give it. And I just love that the Russians rolled in and be like, we'll give you a reactor.

I got a reactor for you.

Andrea 47:39

Yep. Couldn't agree more. Absolutely top trolling from the Russians. And I thought it was kind of like, in terms of the proposal to offer the North Koreans a nuclear reactor in exchange for complete nuclear and missile disarmament as a proposal, it's like putting out food for the unicorns. And that was my tweet take on it late at night, and I stand by it.

It's a proposal that probably did not deserve to have as much airtime as it did, but I think Was likely put out into the public space for precisely the reasons you talked about. And on that note, Jeffrey, I think we've got to draw this to a close. Thank you so much for letting me do this series of podcasts over the past few years.

I've really, really enjoyed it and learned a lot about podcasting as a format and learned from some of the guests we've had on. So it's been a total pleasure.

Jeffrey 48:34

Thanks for being such a great teammate over the past couple of years. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in to listen to the last KCNA.