Rules for Testing a Nuke

Jeffrey Lewis 0:06

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

Aaron Stein 0:21

I'm Aaron Stein, and a new title this week, the Chief Content Officer at One of the Rocks slash Metamorphic Media, and still in Philadelphia for all those who are still wondering.

Jeffrey 0:33

Congratulations, Aaron. You're moving up in the world.

Aaron 0:36

I am certainly moving, although not from my current domicile, which is really nice. So I will still be good to live in Philadelphia and only have to commute to D.C. As I like to say, America's original capital is much, much more fun than our new one.

Jeffrey 0:52

Fair enough, fair enough. You know, I really like War on the Rocks. I have recently, you know, I recently published something with them, and I think it's a really good, it's a fine, fine brand.

Aaron 1:06

I think it's, I mean, obviously, we are a fine brand, and we published that one together.

Jeffrey 1:11

Well, actually, that's right. I was thinking of a different piece I published. I published two pieces in War on the Rocks.

Aaron 1:17

I think you wrote that on your cross-country train tour.

Jeffrey 1:21

I did. It was all a wild haze. I got a little beat up by Gareth Evans for it at the meeting in Japan, but it's all good. Oh, really? Well, not really beat up. I'm just being a little bit flip and funny. Well, because we said deterrence was working. And I think Gareth quite rightly objected on the grounds that we know deterrence is working, or at least that there is some kind of tacit bargaining and restraint.

But we do not fully know the degree to which this is nuclear weapons. That are operating, or whether it is just a fear of things getting out of control. And I think those two things are, you know, at some level, inseparable. You know, when Khrushchev wrote Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he didn't refer to the horror of nuclear war, he referred to the horror of World War Two, but surely the nuclear piece was also On his mind, and so I think it is very difficult to disaggregate those two things.

So it was a good conversation.

Aaron 2:22

That is a good conversation, although I think I agree with you, but I was not in that conversation. Maybe we'll return to the theme of Chatham House Rules later for a segment. We're still looking for a sponsor, by the way, but for Jeffrey's rants about something that pissed him off.

Jeffrey 2:41

It's only one rule, Aaron.

Aaron 2:43

You know, it is the middle of summer. For all of our European colleagues, they're about ready to head on holiday. At least that's what I can infer from emails I send across the pond.

Jeffrey 2:55

Except for those that are getting ready for the NPT review conference.

Aaron 2:59

Except for those who are going to the RevCon, which I think we'll have to do a show on eventually. But we're going to talk about something that hasn't happened yet, but which people were concerned it may happen, and we're going to speculate as to why that is. So I like to say North Korea is good for business, but North Korea has been boisterous in terms of its publications, but it's not shooting off the big firework.

Jeffrey 3:21

Yeah, and I think that that's worth discussing because I am getting a lot of media inquiries where people, reporters in particular, are trying to understand why there is this, on the one hand, really vociferous set of public statements from the North Koreans, which is definitely something that we should talk about. But then... Why we aren't seeing the kinds of tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that we saw in the past.

I think for some people, it's a really strange juxtaposition. Although, if you ask me, it makes perfect sense.

Aaron 3:55

Yeah. You know, I do know, and it's been in the press, and I think we've talked about it on the podcast. They all sort of blend together. But yeah. Is that there was serious concern around Memorial Day, or Biden's trip to Asia, is that they were going to conduct another nuclear test. And obviously they have not, otherwise we would have done an emergency podcast.

I think it's worth teasing out why the Biden administration was worried about that and perhaps why they didn't do it.

Jeffrey 4:30

Yeah, and let me start by saying one source of noise in our conversation is the natural tendency of U.S. and South Korean officials to cover their asses. And so when Biden went to Asia, you saw an uptick in reporting that North Korea would do a test while Biden was there. And I think that was a deliberate decision by U.S. officials to raise that risk So that if it happened, they didn't appear to be unprepared.

I don't actually think that there was a lot of underlying reporting that would have suggested that a test was likely. But if you think about the incentives, if you're Jake Sullivan, if you downplay the risk and it happens, you look like a fool. If you cry wolf and nothing happens, there's no consequence to that. Manipulate the sense of risk, not for really any nefarious purpose, but just to avoid looking foolish if this thing happens.

And I think from their perspective, it's almost sort of random when it's going to happen. We have seen in the past tests on holidays. So that's a thing that we're always alert for. But it's important to note that we see lots of tests on not holidays. And so this kind of Pat idea, like, oh well, it's Memorial Day, or oh well, it's Labor Day, there's going to be a test. Like, that's a thing that has happened in the past, but that's not the norm, and it's certainly not anything like a requirement.

Aaron 6:12

Yeah, I mean, the thing that it makes me think of is like how state and local governments react to hurricanes in the post-Katrina era. You have to have the governor and the windbreaker in the command bunker or whatever the state calls it with a bunch of flat screens on the TV. And then significant warnings. It all comes from a good place, but it is also a COA because if it really spirals out of control, they want to seem like they're doing something.

Jeffrey 6:42

I love that you called it COA instead of CYA because I think that makes it more fancy. It's like covering of the ass. It's a covering of the ass. It's a generalized phenomenon. It goes from one individual furiously covering his or her ass to an abstract property of all governments. Covering of ass.

Aaron 7:07

I certainly meant to do that. I didn't just fumble my words because I'm tired.

Jeffrey 7:13

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, by the way, the windbreaker thing is something the South Koreans literally do when they're missile tests. There are all these pictures of Moon Jae-in. You know, they have a ritual and I think his predecessors did it as well. You know, they put on the windbreaker and they go to the bunker and they have their meeting in the bunker.

Oh, yeah. You don't have to have the meeting at the bunker. It's a missile test. You know, it's not going to hit Seoul. You could... You don't have to put on your windbreaker. You could have just had a meeting at a conference room, but the theater of it is so important. You know, the example I always bring out when I talk about this stuff is every time the North Koreans would do a space launch, the Japanese Ministry of Defense would put a missile defense system out in front of the defense ministry.

Aaron 8:08

Oh, yeah.

Jeffrey 8:12

This, like, one, this system cannot shoot down something that's being launched into space. It doesn't have anything like the range. And two, if you use that system like an ICBM, it would reenter with such speed that this system wouldn't be able to shoot it down. But that's not what matters. It's the theater. Right. You know? It's the windbreaker.

You're obligated. Yes, it's the windbreaker. You're obligated to show that. That this is something that you are taking seriously and that you are protecting people. And if you can't actually protect them, which they can't, then, you know, it's windbreaker time. So I do think that, yes, there is a lot of background information that we have that suggests that North Korea is going to, at some point, conduct a nuclear explosion.

And we can talk about that. But I do think the media-driven stuff is very faddish. There is a lot of background evidence that North Korea will conduct a nuclear explosion at some point in the future. But what we're seeing is reporters responding to either statements by officials engaged in the covering of asses or reporters misinterpreting statements out of the North Koreans.

Aaron 9:28

Do you know my favorite windbreaker story? And it's a Bay Area story. It's local to you. You know, when tourists come in the summer to San Francisco, they always end up with the windbreaker or the fleece bought from like the Chinatown vendors, right? Which has the, I love San Francisco over like the breast pocket because everybody from the East Coast thinks California is warm.

And it generally is, except for the thumb that sticks out into the Pacific Ocean and And it's so cold, they show up in shorts, t-shirts, and sandals, end up at Fisherman's Wharf, and then end up in the Windbreaker.

Jeffrey 10:02

Yeah, I think – I estimate between 7% and 9% of California's GDP is generated by gullible tourists who show up in shorts and flip-flops only to learn that the coldest winter Mark Twain ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

Aaron 10:18

That's right. It is the windbreaker. But to bring this back, do you know what else – Layers.

Jeffrey 10:23

If you're visiting, you need layers.

Aaron 10:25

Yeah, and jeans. Jeans, closed-toed shoes, and layer because sometimes it does get hot. But the – But I think the real reason, and I think we've talked about this on the podcast, but perhaps we'll tease this out even more. It's rainy, right? And so the passes to get to the test site are probably flooded. And so the logistics needed to actually detonate this thing are a little more difficult than, say, shooting it off in the Nevada desert.

Jeffrey 10:53

Yeah. You know, I think we get so wrapped up in our media driven strategic world where, you know, everything is a reaction to something else. And, you know, I don't know, Yoon looks at Kim the wrong way. And so then Kim's going to respond. And like, that's definitely a way people talk about these kinds of issues. Yeah.

But that exists in ignorance of just the practical realities of what does it mean to schlep your ass out to a nuclear test site. And if you ever look at the videos that were taken when North Korea, quote unquote, closed the test site in April 2018, there are a bunch of images of these people, the reporters, in front of a waterfall.

You know, like, because it was like a pretty place for them to set up with their camera and talk. Well, that little itty bitty waterfall during freaking monsoon season, you know, is a much bigger thing. And so while North Korea probably could, if they really wanted to conduct a test in the summer, they just never have in the past.

And I think that's a function of North Korea's really terrible summer weather. I mean, it is. It is incredible the level of destruction one sees during, during what, I mean, what I call the monsoon season, although I have no idea what it's called in Korean.

Aaron 12:24

Yeah, no, but it also perhaps foreshadows the test when the weather improves. And maybe that's why do they, I mean, I know you guys track it. Is there a pattern like sort of, we're calling it the monsoon season, like post monsoon season, Labor Day, Labor Day. That's why you see the Labor Day.

Jeffrey 12:40

I mean, you know, look, you can do things in the summer. It's not like you can't. So missile tests we've definitely seen in the summer on like the 4th of July because it doesn't rain every day, right? And if a place is pretty accessible, you can just like go there, hang out, wait for good weather. It's harder to do with a nuclear test because you got to get everything up there.

The mountain roads are pretty impassable. I'm not sure it's like the greatest place on earth to live. And so... Usually we see tests between Labor Day in the fall through Memorial Day in the spring. And again, they're not under a contract to do that. They could decide it's a priority and that they want to mix it up.

It's possible. But I think we exaggerate how much of their actions are near-term responses to things we're doing. Like, yes, North Korea is rebuilding its nuclear test site, which they announced they were going to do last fall, and which we've seen since February them doing a lot, like new buildings at the site, you know, new entrances to tunnels.

But once they make that decision of like, okay, yes, they are going to resume nuclear testing, like, Whether Yoon pisses Kim Jong-un off that day, I think no longer matters, right? This is now like a multi-month project that's going to have like some chosen end date, which is going to be like partly based on the weather, partly based on whatever the internal politics of the country are, and partly based on where they are technically.

Aaron 14:17

Right. Yeah. No, it's – I mean I like your ignorance because it brings it back to the windbreaker. Like you can show up in San Francisco in July and you need to go buy that windbreaker because you just didn't know what you were getting into. Yeah. So I think we covered that.

Jeffrey 14:37

I do want to say one thing about the current tension back and forth because the South Korean media is now all worked up because Kim Jong-un – Called out President Yun by name, right? So this was like a seen as like a fairly provocative thing, and it's very interesting to me because South Korean media is completely unaware of how often they threaten Kim Jong-un's life. yeah, I mean the decapitation talk.

Yes. And so Yoon has very deliberately said this in the campaign. It was reiterated after he became president. The chairman of the JCS just said it. So the South Koreans have been talking about killing Kim Jong-un all the time. And like he has now lost his patience and he's responding. And so Josh Pollack on Twitter, I think.

Summed up perfectly it's like if you don't want people to threaten you stop talking about killing them right or maybe he said if you don't want people to threaten you back don't threaten them in the first place and i i just find it really interesting that there's this kind of discussion in the south korean media like oh what's crazy kim jong-un up to now and it's like he's pissed you keep talking about killing him or you could do it anonymously on next door Doesn't even violate the terms of service.

Aaron 16:03

You're cool, man.

Jeffrey 16:06

My God. Just the idea of a Korean peninsula next door where like Yoon and Kim Jong-un are constantly complaining about each other and like maybe Moon Jae-in occasionally drops in to try to seem superior to the two of them.

Aaron 16:20

I saw this guy in a black trench coat on my ring camera come through the DMZ. Anybody know who he is? About 5'4", 220. Yeah. I'm being polite.

Jeffrey 16:33

I guess he's Svelter these days.

Aaron 16:35

Yeah, and if you need a lamp, I also got a deal on two used ones. Well, if we want to pivot here a little bit, because I know that at the top of the show, you mentioned you were in Japan for the Hiroshima meeting, or was it virtual this year?

Jeffrey 16:53

It was virtual this year with the profound hope of all participants that next year it will be in person. Because I got to tell you, I need my okonomiyaki.

Aaron 17:03

And that's always one of our best podcasts is Jeffrey after the Japanese steam room.

Jeffrey 17:08

Oh.

Aaron 17:10

A little sake in the steam room. Things get a little loose. But – You wanted to go off on the Chatham House rule. This is like inside baseball. For listeners, we're doing a little bit of a potpourri podcast with three different topics. So the Chatham House rule, for those of us in the DC conference circuit and the Euro – I guess Euro and Asia conference circuit, this is the standard rule, which is – You can talk – you encourage dialogue by not attributing names to things said in conferences unless you get permission, but you can generally summarize what was discussed in meetings without attribution.

Did I summarize that correctly?

Jeffrey 17:51

Yeah. That's right. Well, so I will read it, but – My reason for complaining is I have now several times in my life encountered situations where meetings are held under the Chatham House rule. There's only one. No rules. When someone tells you that you violated the Chatham House rules, plural, hint, they don't know what they're talking about.

But there's only one, and I will read it to you. It says, when a meeting or part thereof is held under the Chatham House rule, participants are free to use the information received But neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speakers nor that of any other participant may be revealed. It's simple. It's very simple. It's very simple.

It does not prohibit saying that you were at a meeting.

Aaron 18:45

And you're bringing this up because you mentioned a couple meetings.

Jeffrey 18:48

I'm not talking about what I did wrong or right. I just want to emote for a moment on the podcast that you can't do something like circulate a list of participants in a meeting. No. But Chatham House has a little frequently asked questions. Can you say that you yourself, what you yourself said in a meeting under Chatham House rule?

Yes, if you wish to do so. So yes, you can waive your own confidentiality. And can you publicize these events? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can. So I think what happens is some people think Chatham House rule is like a fancy way of saying off the record. It is not. You know who has a really nice definition of it?

Who? Of all people, the DNI. They have a website. Where they define a bunch of things, and they define the Chatham House rule, an understanding, spoken or unspoken, that during academic discussions, the topics discussed and opinions relayed will not be attributed to individuals or organizations. That's all it says.

Aaron 20:07

Leave it to an American to summarize and make more concise British English.

Jeffrey 20:12

It's a very nice summary. So just, you know, if you're out there and you want to have a meeting off the record, have the meeting off the record. If you want to have a meeting under the Chatham House rule, that's great. I like it. But understand that you can identify the fact that the meeting was held, where the meeting was held, and you can even say what was talked about.

But what you can't do, unless he gives you permission, is you can't say Aaron said this.

Aaron 20:43

That's my understanding of the rule.

Jeffrey 20:45

That's right. It's a very limited protection. So just FYI, people out there, if you want to have a meeting off the record, have a meeting off the record. If you have a meeting under Chatham House rule, I'm going to talk about it.

Aaron 21:00

Because I'm allowed. Yeah, I mean, the DNI should have one because the DNI does get people together. They frequently do this to bring outsiders in to talk. But I guess the final thing we want to wrap up here on the Potpourri Pod is we lost another Titan in the field. We talked about Dennis, our friend Dennis. We told stories.

We lost Michael Krepon of the Stimson Center and frequent contributor via written text to the Arms Control Wonk blog. He and I never met, although he would get very upset with me in a very good way when I would make fun of how people were – He would get very upset with me when he thought I was twisting words about open skies when I was trying to make jokes.

And I always thought he cared so much about that treaty, he felt it worthy enough to email me, like basically a nobody, to say, don't give that other side any ideas by saying censor gap. Because I was joking because of how silly all this stuff gets. But he clearly was a titan in the field. I used to read his posts when I was a grad student on your blog, Jeffrey, from his shoebox of note cards.

That was my only interaction. I know you wrote an obituary. I know you don't want to step on your obituary, but if you have a few words before we close that.

Jeffrey 22:27

I just wanted to say how important Michael was in my life. You know, I... I guess this is a spot I can be a little bit more selfish. You know, in the obituary, it really needs to be about the person we've lost. And you really need to sort of share with people what that person was like. So in the obituary, I talked about how what was really special about Michael was his incredible passion for writing.

Work as part of a meaningful life. And I think people who saw him might not, unless you really knew him, I guess, you wouldn't know what just a deeply kind and wonderful person he was and how he How he achieved that through understanding that meaningful work was a gift that you could integrate into a life that was full and rich and purposeful.

And the one thing that I left out of the obituary, because it needed to be about Michael and not about me, but which I think about and I think is kind of a funny story, is I still remember the day when I realized that Michael didn't hate me.

Aaron 23:43

So I didn't think he liked me, even though he just emailed me. I felt really guilty about that. Then I emailed you and you're like, don't worry so much about it. That's just kind of how he is.

Jeffrey 23:51

Yeah, because, you know, Michael, what he's it was very. It was a very imposing, seems like a weird thing to say, because he wasn't wasn't. Imposing, but he was well-known, and he was very dignified, and he was very precise. And often, you know, particularly when I was younger, I do think I occasionally exasperated him. But what I didn't know at the time is what a loving and generous person he was.

And so, you know, That moment when I finally realized, like, no, he doesn't hate me. He's actually, like, trying to make me a less egregious version of myself, right? We were in Geneva at the Hotel Epsom at this annual space conference we both went to. And I was following some international event. I think I was deeply concerned about the German elections.

I think Schroeder lost. And he just, he just kind of, he got this like wry smile on his face and said something like, you cast a wide net, you know, and it was, it was like a little bit teasing, but it was also, it was just, it was a little bit affectionate. And I, it was like, oh, Oh, I see.

Yeah.

Aaron 25:14

Yeah.

Jeffrey 25:14

No, he doesn't hate me. He actually is, you know, like slightly amused by me and, and, and, and wants me you know, to be, to be not just a better, not just a better analyst, but but a better human. And, and that just was the beginning of just really what I, I, to me is one of the most wonderful friendships I had, you know, Michael would vacation in Carmel and, And and he would always he would stay in the Carmel Highlands.

And I would always go down there and and meet him for a cocktail. And as I say in the obituary, and I just think what was so special about Michael is, yes, we did talk a little bit about work. But over time, we mostly talked about what it meant to live a meaningful life. And he just was such a such a wise and warm person.

And I'm really going to miss him.

Aaron 26:07

How did he come to write for the blog?

Jeffrey 26:10

Well, I mentioned this in the, in the well, I guess I don't really tell the other part of it. The first part of it I mentioned in the obituary, which is initially he thinks the blog is a terrible idea.

Aaron 26:20

Okay.

Jeffrey 26:21

And to be fair, that's because he sees my behavior on the blog, which in retrospect does occasionally seem terrible. You know, as Linton Brooks once said to me, he was like, do you ever regret some of the things you write? And it was like all the time, you know So I think Michael quite rightly was like, I don't know if unfiltered you is the best look.

But thanks in part to Michael's help, I grew a little bit. And I think I toned it down and made amends where necessary. And at one point, Michael had this idea. Archive of quotations on index cards. So back in the pre... Back in the pre-technology era, if he found a very apt quote, he would write it down.

Yeah. And so he had shoeboxes full of these incredible quotations. And so his initial idea, which he did for a long time, but eventually I think moved beyond into... Just writing essays, but his initial idea was that he was going to empty the contents of these shoeboxes into this form on the blog where they would be available to people.

And it was a wonderful conceit at the beginning because he did have all these really interesting bon mots, I guess you'd call them, that he could then talk about, right? He could use them as an opportunity to write an essay. Although, you know, I think over time, while he continued to do that, you know, he just also was a beautiful writer.

And so I think his essays were were were wonderful. So that's that's how he got into it. You know, I have these shoeboxes and I kind of want to put these quotes online and talk about them. And I was like, sure, that sounds great. And it was.

Aaron 28:24

I'm trying to make sure this sounds appropriate. I hope those shoeboxes are like taken care of. And they can go on an arms control wall and call a fame or something like that. I don't know what his family thinks about them. Because I can imagine dealing with shoeboxes is a lot at this particular moment. But they have value to us in the community, is what I'm trying to say.

I hope that came off as well-intentioned as I meant it to be.

Jeffrey 28:50

Yeah, I think so. I think... You know, Michael was a great archivist. One conversation we had was he had acquired at one point some briefing boards related to Hiroshima, the bombings, which he I guess they were Stimson's. And so someone had given them to the Stimson Center. And they didn't really, I, I may be getting this story wrong, but they, they didn't really have the wherewithal to preserve and display them appropriately.

And so he gave them to the, the, the museum in Hiroshima. And one, one conversation that we had was he was asking after them, you know, he was saying, you know, when you, when you get back to Hiroshima, like one, you should see them, but two, you know, I'd, I'd like to know what they're doing with them.

So, you know, he had a, he, he really did have that That archivist's urge to preserve and pass down the knowledge that he had so carefully curated over the years, which again is, you know, what made him such a wonderful person to spend time with, because he was passionate about the field, he was passionate about preserving knowledge, and he was passionate about sharing that knowledge, which is, you know, just, it was so generous in that sense, you.

Aaron 30:17

Well, I think to his family, if they listen, condolences. I'm sure your obituary was well received by them because of what it said and what it captured. And, you know, I'm happy we got to share this with the listeners. And I do think, you know, speaking of archivists, his posts, I think, will forever be enshrined on the blog.

So you can click on his animated face and you can get a whole list. And... I don't run the blog, but let's make sure that those stick around.

Jeffrey 30:51

Hey, as long as I'm here, those posts are going to stay up.

Aaron 30:55

Perfect. I can't think of a more poignant way to end it other than thanks for sharing those stories. Thanks to listeners for putting up with our podcast today. With that, Jeffrey, thanks for joining.

Jeffrey 31:10

It was a pleasure.