Trump-Kim II: The Scapegoat Rodeo

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

Sorry, Aaron, I f***ed up. I, like, slightly zoned out. What did you suggest we do to keep things alive? You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:29

And I'm Aaron Stein, Director of the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

Anne Pellegrino 0:35

And I am Anne Pellegrino, Jeffrey's colleague at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Jeffrey 0:41

And our brand new podcast co-host. Welcome, Anne. Thank you.

Aaron 0:47

It's a pleasure to have you here and to hear you in person rather than just communicating over the super secret arms control wonk WhatsApp group.

Jeffrey 0:54

Now, this means we are using our newly provided for room microphone that Scott has given us. So there may be a little audio hiccup with this episode. We don't know yet. If there is, we'll work to get it resolved. But we are in the middle of an emergency podcast.

Aaron 1:13

I was about to say the sound hiccup may be the sort of most minor thing that happens today because the doors are being blown off out there in Vietnam.

Anne 1:21

Hey, have either of you been to Hanoi? No. Have you? I've never been to Vietnam. No, but guess who has for the first time?

Jeffrey 1:30

Are you making a joke about our president's lack of military service?

Anne 1:33

I am. He finally set his bone-spurred feet in Vietnam.

Jeffrey 1:38

Somebody on Twitter said that now Trump can call himself a war hero because he was finally shot down over Hanoi.

Aaron 1:44

Oh, that's a good one. Did he stay in the Hilton? That would have been just perfect.

Jeffrey 1:51

Megan McCain made a little jive about that. No, they were at the Metropole, right?

Aaron 1:57

I don't know. But, you know, wherever they were at didn't really go very well. And, you know, we're recording this just after the North Koreans gave a press conference about how it all went wrong. And so emergency podcast time.

Anne 2:10

The North Koreans gave their equivalent of a mic drop.

Jeffrey 2:14

It was incredible. I could not believe it. You know, one of the things that was really interesting about this whole process to me is leading up to it, how fly by the seat of their pants it was.

Aaron 2:29

Yeah, I mean, it's something that I think we've diagnosed on previous Arms Control Walk podcasts leading up to the summit or before the last summit, which is how the North Koreans don't really seem all that interested in negotiating fine technical details, but instead just want to get straight to the meeting so that they can try and wrestle concessions straight from the president himself.

Jeffrey 2:50

Yeah, you know, the thing that really struck me about the kind of lead up is people were complaining that – The North Koreans weren't actively engaging. And it's like that is the predictable result of a diplomacy that is focused entirely on getting the president and Kim in a room is that the North Koreans aren't going to like make any deals until that moment.

Aaron 3:12

Yeah. And, you know, I think one thing that was maybe set the tone or was indicative is reports. Is that what we want to call them about the menu and the opening dinner? You know, sort of fly by the seat of the pants esque in terms of the symbolism of the first initial sit down between these two men.

Jeffrey 3:30

Yeah, wasn't that Will Ripley? Yes. So I think Will Ripley said that they had a big challenge over even working out the menu for the dinner the first night. Which, you know, it's just like, I mean, I think at some level, all of these things, there's a certain level of improvisation and you don't want to make too much of it.

But like, if you were writing this as a novel, because that's a thing I do now, you know, that's called foreshadowing.

Anne 3:58

The following kerfuffle was with the menu. They decided on foie gras, snowfish.

Jeffrey 4:05

That's lunch.

Anne 4:06

No.

Jeffrey 4:07

Yeah, this is dinner.

Anne 4:09

Dinner? I'm looking at dinner. What? No, dinner was lobster. What? What? I thought dinner was lobster. Oh, the lunch. Sorry, the lunch was never served.

Jeffrey 4:18

That's right. Dinner was lobster and steak, was it not? Dinner was surf and turf. Which means it was like medium and covered in ketchup, right?

Anne 4:27

On Trump's end, yes.

Jeffrey 4:28

Yeah. And he got two scoops of ice cream. Are these details that we have forgotten? Is life so f***ed up that we don't remember that the President of the United States eats steak well done with ketchup and gets two scoops of ice cream at dinner when everybody else gets one?

Aaron 4:43

But I think the more important thing is that the dinner, whether it was for optics, whether it was to break the ice again, whether it was for nice photos between the two men to set the stage, perhaps foreshadowed what happened the next day. So I guess that would be on Thursday, which was the start of the actual meat of the discussions at the technical level.

Jeffrey 5:04

Yeah, I... Aaron, you know, I've heard multiple versions now of what's happened, which has led Josh Pollack to say that the goat rodeo has been replaced by the scapegoat rodeo.

Aaron 5:18

Which is perfect.

Jeffrey 5:18

But it seems like the fundamental issue is that the North Koreans went in offering Yongbyon and only Yongbyon, which seems to be what Biegun had teed up. And that they wanted sanctions relief at the UN level, and ultimately the United States decided it was too much sanctions relief for too little Yongbyon.

Aaron 5:39

And I think it's worth unpacking here a little bit, like, why Yongbyon matters, and maybe, like, why the North Koreans were offering this place and what they wanted in return.

Jeffrey 5:50

Yeah, I don't really... I don't really know how to handle that question because it seems like the value of Yongbyon goes up and down depending on what people want at the moment. You know, from my perspective, we've talked about setting four different goals, slowing the program, capping the program, reducing the program, and ultimately eliminating it. And I always sort of put Yongbyon in the category of slowing.

It is an important facility that makes plutonium. It may or it may not be essential to North Korea's production of tritium for more advanced designs. If you get rid of it, you are still leaving in place all of the weapons that exist and And you are also leaving in place all of the other facilities. And so the question is, do you accept it as a gesture that mimics disarmament, even if it's not the full thing?

Aaron 6:45

Well, I mean, and the North Koreans gave us a preview of what they think it's worth, you know, and I think that's ultimately at the heart of. Maybe the Hanoi walkout, you know, the lunch left unserved, if you will, you know, is that this fundamental disagreement about how to structure what would be, what I assume would be on their position, trading Yom Kippur for some semblance of sanctions relief.

Jeffrey 7:12

Yeah. And what did you make of that? Did you, I mean, was your reaction to that Yeah, they should have walked, or no, they should have taken it because that's what they had queued up.

Anne 7:26

I think they should have taken it. You would have taken it? Yeah.

Jeffrey 7:29

How come?

Anne 7:30

Well, I think that it is important to try to slow and cap and reduce and eventually work towards eliminating North Korea's ability to increase its nuclear arsenal. We've already talked about living with the North Korean nuclear program, but there are things that can be done to make sure that program doesn't expand. I personally think that Yongbyon would have been part of that, so I would have taken the deal.

Jeffrey 8:03

So I always worry that I'm bullying all of our staff into my hippie views that we have to learn to live with North Korea's bomb.

Aaron 8:11

Well, I mean, this was at the heart in the leaks running up to it. I think it was Alex Ward at Vox who had a story about where Trump was prepared to go. I mean, ultimately, that didn't pan out in that story, but that doesn't mean that the reporting was inaccurate. It's just maybe they broke down over details.

Anne 8:29

Trump's not attuned to the details, so I don't think it's up to Trump necessarily. I think that... Again, at the working level discussions is where things either didn't come to fruition, but the thought that Hanoi would be Singapore part two with pretty press conferences, lots of photo ops, I think that was a doomed idea from the beginning.

Jeffrey 9:01

Yeah, I kind of wonder about why... I guess I wonder why they weren't able to pull that off. You know, I mean, I guess the answer is Trump just felt the price was too high.

Aaron 9:16

And politically or what they were asking, but that's, yeah, that's kind of the question that I have, right?

Jeffrey 9:22

Like, so, you know, the Chinese have been pushing some variant of this for a long time, which is that UN security council sanctions should come off, which would allow us sanctions to remain in place. But, Like, what the North Koreans, like, they don't actually, I think, care about U.S. sanctions. What they really care about is getting South Korean and Chinese money in.

And so, you know... At some level, given how dishonest Trump has been through this entire process, I'm a little surprised he didn't just go with it, right? Because he could have said, you know, oh, we're using some international sanctions, but, you know, American sanctions are going to remain in place until you get the, you know, whatever phrase they're using.

Are they using the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea as agreed by Kim Jong-un and Singapore, Hanoi, and Donald Trump's fevered imagination?

Anne 10:13

But who was behind, let's talk about who was behind Trump and is it, why did they walk away? Who was pulling the strings behind Trump? I don't think Trump made the decision to walk away. It's got to be Bolton, right? Right.

Aaron 10:30

Well, so let me challenge both of you here. So, like, this is where I'm not quite sold on sort of the Prince of Darkness lurking in the shadows. Like, we know he does that. We know John Bolton does that. We know he's bragged about it in his memoirs the last time the Bush administration, to a far less degree in terms of pomp and circumstances, approached the idea of negotiating with North Koreans.

But Donald Trump has been so out forward in his rhetoric and his approach to the North Koreans. Willing to sort of take it on the chin when reporters ask him about getting something more robust than the statement that he got in Singapore, that I'm always hesitant to ascribe anything. Bolton too much power, like swaying his boss. Because remember when he used the Libya model quip last time to try and kill a negotiation, Donald Trump smacked him down like he was an insect buzzing around in his ears.

So I'm curious, Anne, if you think the Prince of Darkness is able to really manipulate it internally, or if maybe the political pressure on Trump had reached the point where he actually has to get something now, he can't just live with the photos.

Anne 11:42

I think they could have lived with the photos if they had agreed on this deal. I think that was... North Korea teed that up nicely. The United States, granted, wouldn't have gotten as much as Steve Biegun would have liked. But I think it was just easy. They could have reached out and just taken it.

Aaron 12:08

I mean, what's the it here? The deal. I mean, I... So like that's part of the question.

Jeffrey 12:14

It's the gesture, right Aaron?

Aaron 12:16

Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean the gesture, but I think one of the things that, that, that stumbles me is that, that at least raises questions in my mind is that, you know, we know by all reports and, you know, as, as joked about on this podcast is that Trump isn't a details man. Where did, where, like, What deal was actually on offer beyond Yongbyon?

Do you know what I mean? And if Trump wasn't willing to accept Yongbyon, are we at a place where he just isn't in a place to accept a deal because there's actually nothing on offer, if that makes sense?

Jeffrey 12:54

Well, so this is why – this is what's been so baffling about this whole process to me, which is – From the get go, I've said no one has ever said that Kim Jong Un has never said he is going to disarm. The only people who have taken his statements, which in public have been, you know, aspirational about denuclearization of the peninsula, which is like Obama's world without nuclear weapons.

Right. A long term aspirational goal that gives you the kind of vision to do what you want to do, but doesn't actually require you to give up any bombs. The only people who have said that so far have been South Korean officials and U.S. officials and the occasional think tank person looking to jump – hitch a ride with all this nonsense.

Aaron 13:38

Schedule B. Schedule B think tanker.

Jeffrey 13:40

Yeah, that's right. Future schedule B think tanker, right?

Aaron 13:43

Future schedule B think tanker, yeah.

Jeffrey 13:44

So – You know, the question that had emerged for me, and I had this argument a lot with colleagues and reporters, it's like, are they that stupid? Like, do they actually not... Realize what Kim is saying, and because sometimes they say stuff that leads you to think like, yeah, they are that dumb, but then other times you know you think like, no, they just think we're that dumb, and they actually do know that this process doesn't end in disarmament, but that you know this is the tribute that vice has to play to virtue, a tribute that vice has to pay to virtue, which is you have to talk about disarmament even if it's not a thing that's happening.

So what shocked me was I kind of figured that going into this, they knew they were going to have to give the North Koreans a lot for Yongbyon. And they knew that it wasn't actually going to result in the disarmament of North Korea, but they were going to do it because Trump was going to come out and say it was a big victory.

And he was going to say that nobody had ever gotten Yongbyon shut down before, even though it was the third time it had been shut down. But like, nobody knows that and nobody cares. And, you know, the people who love him, we're going to talk about how awesome it was. And the UN sanctions were going to come off and the US sanctions were going to stay on.

And like, They knew what they were doing. And I guess what I still fundamentally don't understand is like, Does this mean that the president truly has believed this entire time that he is genuinely going to get North Korea to disarm and that this is the first time that he is beginning to doubt what he read in those love letters?

Because if that's true, this is a scary moment.

Anne 15:30

Well, based on Trump's... In the press conference, I'm not so sure he's at that moment of realization yet. He was still oddly optimistic and polite and way different from the North Korean press conference. So yeah, no, I don't think he's at that moment of realization where he understands how hard this will be.

Aaron 16:02

I agree with you, Anne, because he was deferential, I mean, almost, in the way that he framed the breakdown. And I would say that the most controversial thing he's going to face now is his excuse for the North Koreans for their, you know, essential murder of the American student, Otto Warmbier, which is a total, you know, 180 from...

Jeffrey 16:29

His description of North Korea, when this, when, when, when this thing first began, I have to say I feel terrible for his parents, because you know, as a parent, I cannot imagine the like grief that they feel and I just remember my the cynicism that I have from living in Washington when they kind of. Accepted the embrace of the foreign policy community.

I felt so bad for them at the time because like I knew how tactical that embrace was. And it's like, they genuinely like believed that these people who were saying these things about their son, like they actually, I think those, I think his parents really believed that those people who gave a shit about their son and it, it must be a horrible feeling to, Right.

To realize that, you know, that the horror of what happened to him where he was treated like just, you know, he was a plaything for the North Koreans to hold as a hostage. And then the idea that, you know, that the American foreign policy community treats him, you know, the same way. I just I feel awful for them.

I mean, it's an incredibly sad story. And, you know, I mean, obviously there's nothing that can be done to bring him back. But like, God, we could, you know, stop using him as a pawn for like we want otherwise.

Anne 17:56

Pretty horrible.

Aaron 17:56

Yeah. Yes, true. But, you know, the question and this is one of the challenges of the Trump administration is because we're trying to psychoanalyze the president rather than follow the process, if that makes sense. And like in trying to cycle.

Jeffrey 18:11

There's no process. What are you talking about? Well, no, that's the point because there is no process. You're right.

Aaron 18:17

Yes. Like there's no process here. And so we're trying to.

Jeffrey 18:20

We're just left with the ramblings of a sundowning golfer. I mean, it's.

Aaron 18:25

Correct. And that's ultimately sort of where, where, where I think it breaks down is, is once you get past pageantry, the North Koreans came with something and, This time, like they had a hard ask of the United States and they were willing to give something. Whereas I'm not sure what the U.S. hard ask of the North Koreans is because of the no process president.

Jeffrey 18:49

So it seems to be that they actually believe that North Korea is going to unilaterally disarm as as Iraq and Libya did, which is I mean, it's.

Aaron 19:00

It's insane. Right. And it goes back to something Anne said. It's like Anne said, I would have taken it. Like, I'm just not sure what we're asking, you know, because I would have taken it, too. You know, as the leaks were coming out, I was looking at this and saying, OK, I'm willing to sort of. Bite the bullet because you want to slow – I would call it slow ease tensions and then continue dialogue.

This would slow and further ease tensions. But then I'm just not sure. I'm curious what you think, Anne. It's just like what is it that the US was actually offering? I'm still baffled by this. If you get beyond the press conferences and some of the leaks, what are we offering?

Anne 19:45

I'm not sure anyone inside the administration really knew either. I think, again, my kind of assumption or thought is that this was purely a 2.0 of Singapore. We talked about how it was kind of hastily thrown together. I don't think there was enough time to really put together a coherent ask. And then when North Korea kind of offers Yongbyon for economic sanctions relief, I Think that people were like, oh, okay, we'll just keep that in the back of our heads.

We'll keep moving down that line. And then when it got to the moment where they actually talking about whether or not this is feasible, that's kind of when the realization hit them that it's probably not.

Jeffrey 20:43

So what aggravates me about this whole process is the North Koreans have been absolutely clear in all the things they've written and said is that they were expecting sanctions relief.

Anne 20:51

Right.

Jeffrey 20:51

But and so I talked about how we don't listen to them.

Anne 20:56

OK, I know. But can I be aggravated? Yes, absolutely. But you could just sum up everything, this entire U.S. DPRK relationship, which is we do not listen.

Jeffrey 21:08

Yeah. So, I mean, you know. It's crazy because you can't have read all of the things that the North Koreans have said and certainly cannot have talked to them, I imagine, given what they're saying publicly. Surely you would have asked privately if the public statements are true. You cannot, they cannot have been surprised that there was an ask for sanctions relief, right?

The Chinese had pushed for it publicly. There have been plenty of North Korean statements to that effect. And it's not U.S. sanctions relief they want, but they want South Korean and Chinese money to come into the country. So, like, how on earth could these geniuses have been surprised by this? You know, and I just I think it comes back to the fundamental that the challenge to a successful diplomatic engagement posed by the fundamental dishonesty of the Trump administration, which is because they continue to pretend that at some point North Korea is going to give them nuclear weapons in exchange for a bunch of American money.

I think the North Koreans have said they will never, ever, ever do. They're just not seeing the deal that's on the table, which is international isolation for North Korea goes down and they respond to that by shutting down some facilities, continuing with their test moratorium and just generally being a better neighbor to live with, which, you know, I know that's not denuclearization policy.

Aaron 22:39

Or that's not disarmament, but, like, disarmament's not going to happen.

Jeffrey 22:42

So, like, just how could they not have seen this freight train coming at them? You know, that's that. I just don't get it.

Aaron 22:52

Well, it's psychoanalysis over policy process. And then, I mean, look, going forward, you know, like, so this conversation has thought, like, how I will now better judge when there's the inevitable, throw out the last minute, you know, on the eve of election, late 2019, you know, maybe we'll do it in Manila this time. We'll call it the thriller in Manila.

You know, is whether or not there's the coming to grips on the U.S. side, you know, Whether there is preparation on the U.S. side for the U.S. public and more importantly for the president's base to accept reality. Because if there's not, then like the – if you're not prepping the bureaucracy, the people, or even like getting your own staff in line, that means that you don't – you're not actually seriously – Thinking about making that type of concession.

Do you know what I mean?

Jeffrey 23:47

No, I do. Because I mean, I keep I'm sorry, I'm just ranting over here. But I keep coming back. My background is in China's nuclear weapons program. And so everyone who is not an American, right, who is not like blinded by these fantasies of our power. Every other human being on Earth understands that when a country acquires a nuclear capability, particularly the ability to target the United States, that there's going to be an adjustment in international relations.

Right. Like this is why countries build the bomb. Like they don't build the bomb because they think that they're going to build the bomb and that like they're going to end up isolated. They think they're going to build the bomb and then they're going to be important and they're going to get what they want. And like that's what happened with China.

Like they built the bomb. And right. They test it in 64. And it's, you know, not too much longer before Richard Nixon shows up in China. And it's like, so we're pals. Right. And we didn't insist that the Chinese disarm. Right. We recognized that China's power had grown to the point where they needed to be accommodated. That is why countries build the bomb.

That is why North Korea built the bomb. And so this idea that they went through this whole process, invested all of this money, trained all of these people, built all of these facilities because they really wanted to do was box it all up, you know, to get a check from the U.S. Treasury Department. It's insane. And, you know, I keep hearing people saying, like, well, you know, you don't know until you try.

Like, there is a bunch of insane s*** that I know without trying.

Aaron 25:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. True. Rant over. Well, so, I mean, I think this is a good pivot point. I mean, where is this going? I mean, so... Kim, I think, is starting to slow, you know, chug back to the DPRK. Trump, I think, is wheels up, you know, somewhere, you know, coming home on Air Force One. I mean, now what?

Anne 26:03

Well, so I wanted to touch back on Trump's press conference and his demeanor. I think it could be an indicator of where we go now. Because, again, Jeffrey said, has he met that moment of realization where the North Koreans are pulling the wool over his eyes? Does North Korea actually mean all the lovely things they're writing in the letters?

I still maintain that Trump has not gotten to that moment of realization yet. But we were talking earlier about reports of both, I think, Pompeo and Bolton talking to Trump about how North Korea totally took him for a ride and you shouldn't let this happen in the future. So I think that we will see a very different Trump attitude towards this in the coming days, especially after North Korea's mic drop.

Jeffrey 27:02

Yeah, I've always... I don't know how you feel, Aaron, but I have always worried about the Justin Trudeau scenario. You know, Trump talked about how much he loved Justin Trudeau, how great Justin Trudeau was. I mean, there's that image where, like, Ivanka is gazing beatifically at Justin Trudeau, and people were joking that she'd, like, gotten his name as a back tattoo.

Like... He's a handsome dick. He f***ing loved Justin Trudeau until he didn't get the deal he wanted, and then he unleashed that, like... You know, just horrible Twitter stream about Trudeau, right? And I live in terror of that same event where, you know, something happens and it could be a North Korean missile test, right? I mean, North Korea has agreed to no ICBM test, but there's a bunch of other tests they haven't been doing, but that they haven't promised not to do.

Let's say the North Koreans fired a medium or intermediate range ballistic missile into the ocean. They say, hey, it's not an ICBM. You don't have any right to be angry. That's the novel. Do you know what I'm saying? That's the scenario in which this suddenly takes this ramp to get onto the highway to catastrophe. I'm kind of pleased that Trump Was calm in, in the press conference, although as I said, I think if Kim had taken a dump on the table in front of him, he would have found you know positive ways to spin it, because he doesn't, doesn't like to admit that things went badly but boy, I, I, I worry that when it's, when he's really confronted with the embarrassing fact that things went badly that we might get a lash out.

Aaron 28:46

So let me ask one last question before we wrap up here. I mean with – because it bears mentioning. It appears that the North Koreans have triangulated their position with the Chinese on this idea of UN Security Council sanctions relief in return for some movement towards maybe confidence-building measures on the slope – on the slowing down of a nuclear program, i.e.

Yongbyon. Would that act as a restraint to more aggressive North Korean action so that maybe we can weather this while we prepare for the thriller in Manila, 2019 edition, 2020 edition?

Jeffrey 29:30

Sorry, Aaron, I f***ed up. I like slightly zoned out. What did you suggest we do to keep things alive? Scott, please use that. The opening, no, I mean, I've got people tweeting at me constantly, and you know, I'm trying to like make sure nothing happens, and you know, like a really good question a colleague asked is, did Moon JN know how big the North Korean ask was going to be coming into the summit? You know, so I was totally focused on that, and then were you suggesting that we, we do a partial lift of sanctions just to keep this alive?

Aaron 30:02

No, no, I'm saying it appears that the NORCs and the Chinese have kind of quasi-triangulated a position, you know, in that if they move forward and that there's tangible progress is that you can push for UN Security Council sanctions relief. Could that act as a restraint on more aggressive North Korean behavior, which could give us time on our side to figure out our own position?

Jeffrey 30:28

Oh, I think that's possible that the Chinese, I mean, remember the North Koreans when this thing broke down last fall, we're talking about new measures they might take. And there's like a whole debate about what those new measures might be. My guess is some people think it's just new measures are like cutting a deal with the Chinese.

Other people think it might be a weapons test. But regardless of what the new measures are, if things start to go badly, I wouldn't doubt that the Chinese would jump in and try to like give the North Koreans something to tide them over. To keep this process alive a little bit longer.

Aaron 31:02

Yeah, I mean, because, Anne, I'm just having trouble constantly psychoanalyzing Trump. So maybe we switch over to the DPRK and what their incentive structures are as they powwow on the train back to Pyongyang.

Anne 31:18

Yeah, I don't think things are going totally to shit yet. I think that... Missile tests, maybe. Engine tests, maybe. Maybe they'll start rebuilding parts of Sohei.

Jeffrey 31:34

Oh, that's a good one. Maybe they start to reassemble some of the stuff we've seen.

Anne 31:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think some of the sites that people... Maybe they start digging out the tunnels of Pongiri.

Jeffrey 31:45

You know what that means? That means more stuff for us to look at in satellite images. And more podcasts.

Aaron 31:54

That's right. I mean, so maybe we just do a prediction here to wrap it up, each one. I think the North Koreans are going to be restrained. I don't know why. Just a hunch. I could look like an idiot in three days. But I think we have more time in us. What do you guys think?

Anne 32:08

I think we have more time. I think Trump will be – Become more unhinged in the following days. I think North Korea might stay silent until they do something to signal what their position is going forward. So whether that is, you know, I think I kind of like the idea of digging out the entrances to tunnels at Punggye-ri.

That would be, I wouldn't be shocked if I saw that.

Jeffrey 32:38

I hate predictions because so much is going to happen in the next couple of days. You know, I mean, vegans probably going to reach out to them again. The Chinese are going to reach out to them. I will just say I am worried because the North Koreans have already said that they have new measures in mind if they don't get what they want.

And now they haven't got what they want. And the statement from the North Koreans in Hanoi was pretty uncompromising, right? You know, it was pretty direct. And so if there are politics in North Korea and those politics matter, what we don't know is if they have a pre-agreed set of steps that they intend to take Or that they intended to take in the event of a failure.

And if they have that, then, you know, we're into that. And then it's a question of what those steps are and whether outside interventions can make a difference. So I'm, you know, I always like to be optimistic. I think, you know, I wouldn't discourage the Chinese from trying to buy them off, but I'm a little nervous that, you know, that they've had a chance to think this through and that they're probably not surprised by this outcome.

Anne 34:00

Well, Jeffrey, you are the Oracle and the prophecy has been written.

Jeffrey 34:04

I get **** wrong all the time.

Aaron 34:05

I was about to say, don't prop up his ego anymore.

Anne 34:09

Hashtag 2020 commission.

Jeffrey 34:11

Yeah, God, let's hope that doesn't happen. Let's hope that, I mean, let's hope that this is, you know, this could be like the hiccup before the last summit. You know, where Kim writes Trump a beautiful letter that's even more beautiful than the other beautiful letters. And then we're right back on track. I mean, that can happen. You know, they may, maybe they, there's actually a great piece by Andre Abrahamian.

I may be messing up his name on, you know, the North Koreans have in the past miscalculated and he thinks that we shouldn't lose sight of that fact. I think that's true. They might come back and just decide they miscalculated. And that they asked for too much. And maybe Kimmy writes the lovey, lovey, lovey letter and gets us all out of that.

But boy, boy, I'm worried this could go to hell quick.

Aaron 35:01

Well, I think on that happy note, emergency pod over with another welcome to Anne, the new co-host of the Arms Control Long podcast. Don't let us fool you, Anne! I survived.

Anne 35:16

I need t-shirts. You need t-shirts for all your co-hosts.

Jeffrey 35:21

This is like when Nirvana added Pat Smear as a second guitarist.

Aaron 35:25

You know, I'm re-listening to the Nirvana collection as we speak. It's amazing you said that, because I actually, 25 years, I think, since Nevermind. Yeah, we're f***ing old, dude. It happens. Yeah, I know. I know. God, it's crazy.

Jeffrey 35:37

I saw Nirvana's infamous, terrible second show on At the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, which was terrible and ended with them not playing Teen Spirit and Kurt Cobain at the end storming off. And in my memory, which may be better than reality, he replicated that old Johnny Rotten line from the Sex Pistols, ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

I've been thinking about that show a lot in light of what's happened in Hanover.

Aaron 36:11

I'm jealous you got to go see them live, man. Because you are older than I am. I wasn't old enough. My mother wouldn't let me go to those shows.

Jeffrey 36:21

Yeah, well, you know. The downside is I'm f***ing old. But you got to see them.

Aaron 36:28

Oh, man. Okay. We're off the rails. So, you know, thanks everybody for listening. Anne, thank you for joining us. And obviously a lot more to come on that front. It was a pleasure. If you would like to get more involved in the podcast, head on over to patreon.org slash acwpodcast. And if you have a .edu address and a student, it's for as little as $3 a month.

And for all regular people at $5 a month, you can join our Slack channel. Where you will also get access to a second shorter podcast we call Brilliant Pebbles, where we are posting shorter podcasts on cool things that we do, usually around the 10-minute mark, on stories about arms control, nonproliferation, disarmament that we are talking about privately but don't necessarily warrant a 30- to 40-minute podcast or discussion but are still cool.

So with that said, Jeffrey and Ann, thank you for joining me.

Jeffrey 37:19

It was a pleasure. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Aaron 37:23

And thanks, everybody, for listening.