One of Them is Wrong About That

Jeffrey Lewis 0:05

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 at Monterey and the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog.

Aaron Stein 0:22

And I'm Aaron Stein, Chief Content Officer at War on the Rocks. Jeffrey, it's good to see you again. It is good to see you. Greetings from Vermont, where it is snowing. I was about to say, you are in the Middlebury part of the Middlebury Institute. You're at the mothership.

Jeffrey 0:37

Can you not see my fantastic flannel shirt worn non-ironically?

Aaron 0:44

I do see the flannel shirt and I see like a A-frame style roof. So like that's cut for snow where I come from.

Jeffrey 0:51

Yep, I am hanging in Hadley House, which is where they are lodging myself and a few other visiting instructors for the winter term. It's the house on the golf course, which currently is snow-covered and used for cross-country skiing, where they put up trustees and other visitors. So it's really quite lovely. It's a fancy place.

Aaron 1:13

Do you know what I think of when I hear golf course? No. Golf courses are big, wide-open spaces sometimes to play stuff, right?

Jeffrey 1:25

True.

Aaron 1:26

Where have they used golf courses to play stuff that triggers our interest for this podcast?

Jeffrey 1:34

South Korea has allowed the United States to deploy THAAD, missile defense interceptors in South Korea, on a golf course, which is apparently not f***ing good enough for them, given that President Yoon is allegedly talking about developing his own nuclear weapons.

Aaron 1:48

How's that for a transition? Today's topic, South Korea and President Yoon's comments about whether or not they're going to get the bomb, not just golf courses anymore.

Jeffrey 1:59

I mean, if they get the bomb, do you think they should deploy them on unused golf courses?

Aaron 2:05

Didn't during the Cold War you build golf courses over the top of your hangars to hide it from overhead and passing satellites or make it look like a golf course? So, like, sure.

Jeffrey 2:15

I don't know about this, but if you did, then could you scream four before you launch the preemptive attack on the North Koreans?

Aaron 2:25

Yeah, because I guess you got to duck and cover, right? Oh, my God.

Jeffrey 2:28

There's a bunker on Donald Trump's golf course. It features centrally in the 2020 commission.

Aaron 2:35

So I think for listeners, President Yoon has been given, I guess, like we're talking about two separate instances here. Do I have that right? Where he gave a press conference, but the more important thing is a transcript to reporters, I think, talking about the North Korea problem set and what South Korea may do about it. And a lot of it comes back to the 2020 commission, the novel you wrote, I think, in 2019.

Yeah.

Jeffrey 3:00

Yeah, well, I think of it as one instance, which is that I think he gave these remarks and they got reported. And then because he has that kind of rambling, discursive style, the South Koreans maybe didn't really like how what he said got interpreted. So they released his remarks, which I would argue are... Lazy and rambling and undisciplined, but I do think maybe are not the full-throated embrace of nuclear weapons that they were initially reported as being.

And in a weird way, not to spoil the ending, but I think the focus on nuclear weapons significantly undersells the important thing that he said. But that's a whole pod, so let's get to it.

Aaron 3:52

Yeah. So let's just jump right into it. I think that the wave of news reporting, at least because for background listeners, we were digging up the transcript ourselves. That took us about 20 minutes of some Internet sleuthing and Google Translate. But the ones that were pulled out, at least the New York Times, I believe in the Washington Post as well, was the one where he was talking about the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons and that they may either deploy U.S. nuclear weapons in Korea or develop them themselves, and I think quickly.

Jeffrey 4:25

Yeah, so like in one of the early Yonhap stories, and this was buried several paragraphs in, so they didn't think of this as the headline, but the way the reporter framed it, I think, is especially inflammatory. What Yoon said was, the Republic of Korea could deploy tactical nuclear weapons or possess its own nukes. If that happens, we will be able to get hold of them sooner with our science and technology.

And then without quoting Yoon, sort of added that Yoon added with a caveat, however, that it's important to choose a realistically possible method. And so in a strange way, the way that's framed implies, I think, that Yoon was saying that this was a serious option for South Korea. But then Yoon's office releases a transcript where, you know, again, you get this rambling kind of answer in which—and I think Michelle Lee at the Washington Post, who is able to speak Korean, unlike you or I, notes that he's not— He really is treating it as a kind of extremely unlikely hypothetical and contrasting that with the thing that South Korea is really going to do.

Aaron 5:35

Right. OK, I agree with that. But I do think it's important, at least at the outset here, is to say that. I mean, I remember the last Carnegie Nukefest I went to, there is a constituency within Korea that wants this, right, that has been pushing for the independent option themselves. We can talk about the wisdom of the deployment options in a second.

So it's not like his comments are coming out of completely sort of left field here. There is a constituency within the country that has pushed for this. And I think it's perhaps growing as the vulnerability sets in from increased capabilities from the North Koreans.

Jeffrey 6:13

Oh, yeah. I mean, I am someone who thinks it's extremely unlikely that Japan would build nuclear weapons, and I don't think anything like that allergy exists in South Korea. South Korea had a nuclear weapons program in the 70s. That program kind of limped along into the 80s. I still don't know when it ended, if it ever fully did.

I don't think there's anything like the public allergy in South Korea. You see South Korean officials raise the prospect occasionally. And so while I don't think that at the moment there's any risk that South Korea is going to build a nuclear weapon... This is definitely a viewpoint that I think gets a hearing. And as a consequence of that, when Yoon rambles and makes these kinds of statements, he should be aware that people might overreact because they're not overreacting in a vacuum, right?

They're reacting not just to what he's saying, but they're reacting to kind of the ambient content. Concern. And as you say, I think that there is a constituency in South Korea for building a nuclear weapon.

Aaron 7:17

I mean, he's also said a lot. And I think in some cases, he's gotten over his skis about what the US is going to do. So I think that like the best way to approach this is to talk about the wisdom of the different options, you know, whether or not they go with like, An independent deterrent themselves as they revive that nuclear weapons program, or whether or not they formally request access to U.S. nuclear weapons, much the way that we forward deploy them with sharing options in NATO countries, or at the lower end, like joint exercises and planning.

I think that there are a bunch of options, and some of them are captured in sort of, I guess, his rambling comments in a roundabout way. I think he's discussing that they do have options to respond here.

Jeffrey 7:59

Yeah, I think it is important to put the context of these to put these remarks in the context of something that happened like a week and a half ago where Yoon came out and said that the United States and South Korea were discussing joint planning and exercises with U.S. nuclear forces. And then Joe Biden came out with like, no, he basically just said, like, no, you're wrong.

Aaron 8:22

Like, which was interesting. It was kind of jarring.

Jeffrey 8:25

Yeah, and Yoon had compared it to nuclear sharing. And so I think that when we look at the remarks he made today, there are different ways to interpret them. I mean, the simple way is, well, he mentioned building nuclear weapons, so maybe that's kicking around in his head. But I think that then there is the possibility that he is just careless.

You know, he has a domestic political problem of North Korea's growing nuclear capabilities, and he wants to be seen as doing something about it. And so he's doing what politicians do best, which is talking. And he's probably talking in hopes that he will solve his problem in the moment without really thinking in the long term. And, you know, he may also be trying to move the Overton window to make joint exercises involving nuclear forces possible by raising all this much more crazy stuff, which once it's out there, you know, if you compromise on some of the other, you know, slightly less crazy stuff, you still get to do some crazy stuff.

Aaron 9:27

Yeah, but it looks cool for like the military photographers when you do that crazy stuff, which is going back to your domestic political calculations.

Jeffrey 9:35

Yeah, I do think, before we jump into what might make sense for South Korea from a strategic perspective, I think we should recognize the way in which most human beings and most politicians, who I guess are a species of human being, although I sometimes wonder... How they think about problems. And that's to say, not like experts, but in really simplistic terms that you might apply to every other thing in your everyday life.

And so the fact that North Korea has nuclear weapons and South Korea doesn't feels inherently like a problem. The fact that North Korea is a threat that South Korea has to deal with seems like a problem. It's better probably to be strong than to be weak. The fact that the U.S. has nuclear weapons and is South Korea's ally naturally makes you think, well, how do I affiliate myself with those weapons?

And so I think this talking that he does Is designed to try to convey that he has answers and he is working to put into practice things that will make South Korea safer against this problem. And that's probably about as deep as it goes.

Aaron 10:53

I mean, I would say it like this, is that I think the country, and this is captured in his remarks, feels an acute sense of vulnerability, right? And so he's processing in real time how to address that vulnerability. And he's laying out these potential options, even if it's in elegance. There are more or less what experts would talk about if we sat around in a room and tried to be real smart and put on our think tankers hat, right?

It's like, what would we do, right? Yeah. And again, there is press in here. They did have a nuclear weapons program. And I believe, again, the Koreas are not my area of focus. They never were. But they did host U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, I believe, up until 1990 or 1991.

Jeffrey 11:33

Oh, yeah. I teach the withdrawal. I teach both the Carter administration's failed effort to withdraw the weapons and the Bush administration's successful effort to withdraw the weapons in my class on U.S. decision-making about nuclear weapons in Northeast Asia.

Aaron 11:51

So they were there, right? And so, like, again, he's an older dude. He probably remembers when they were gone. Older dude, I should say. And so, like, again, these are sort of built-in processes to respond to this vulnerability. And the North Koreans haven't been shy about shooting shit off all year. You know, that's been our podcast theme.

Jeffrey 12:13

Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely, absolutely the case that I think that this is just a pure expression of acute vulnerability. And governments have to do something. And all the things he mentioned are something. So the example I always reach for when I talk about this is the Japanese public also feels acute vulnerability when North Korea conducts missile and space launches.

And every time it's clear North Korea is going to conduct a space launch, which is not going to go over Japan, is not going to carry a weapon, the freaking Japan Ministry of Defense puts a PAC-3 interceptor out in front of their headquarters in the middle of Tokyo, as though this system... Has any relationship to the thing the North Koreans are testing, you know, or are firing.

Like, one, it couldn't reach the space launcher. Two, given the, you know, range and speed of a space launcher, it wouldn't have any capacity to intercept it coming in if they used it as a missile. But the MOD, I think, feels this compulsion to show that they are doing something. And so even if that something is purely symbolic— They still feel the need to do it.

It reminds me when colleagues started talking about different ways that we show extended deterrence using nuclear weapons to allies. The comparison was to a wedding ring, you know, and it's like, just because you're wearing a wedding ring doesn't mean, you know, but at the same time, it's an important symbol. And it's like, yeah, but like, I think that's fundamentally, fundamentally all it is, is it's a symbol.

Aaron 14:03

So I think about it like this. It's when you move into a house and you get yourself a new fancy security system and you get yourself cameras and you arm the cameras and all the burglar has to do is put on the mask and he's in and out less than five minutes. And so you can watch your house being robbed.

You've addressed the vulnerability because you say, well, I can at least see what's going on in my house, but that doesn't fundamentally change what's actually going to happen. But you have a camera. You can see it all in HD.

Jeffrey 14:26

Which, by the way, is not unlike the actual statement that South Koreans always release after every North Korean missile test, which is that they are monitoring and analyzing the situation carefully.

Aaron 14:37

It's the simply safe or open to advertisements of international relations. I don't know. I just find that funny. But like if so, if we talk about I mean, let's go through it. Like what do you think about them actually developing nuclear weapons? They tried and they chose not to.

Jeffrey 14:56

Yeah, I have a standard response to this, which never seems to persuade anyone. But to me, it seems pretty straightforward, which is I think about Israel and how it reacts to the prospect that Iran may acquire nuclear weapons. Israel has nuclear weapons. So if you believed in this simple nuclear weapons deterrence solves your problem stuff, Then Israel should not be alarmed by Iran getting nuclear weapons because they already have nuclear weapons.

And so their problem is preemptively solved. This is not how the Israelis feel, right? The Israelis feel like a nuclear-armed Iran would be significantly more aggressive and difficult to deal with because it would feel more secure. And so they understand that their nuclear weapons don't solve the problem that will be created by Iranian proliferation. And I think the Israelis are right about that.

I mean, Saddam Hussein in Iraq famously when asked, what would you do if you had nuclear weapons? And he wasn't like, oh, I would enjoy the benefits of deterrence. He literally said, I will drown the Israelis in their own blood. You know?

Aaron 16:03

Sometimes you just tell it how it is.

Jeffrey 16:05

Yeah. So the problem that North Korean nuclear weapons create is that Kim Jong-un is... Secure to engage in the kind of conventional provocations we saw in 2010, if that's what he feels like doing.

Aaron 16:22

I mean, I'd say even more recently, which is flying drones across the border and stuff like that.

Jeffrey 16:27

Right. And South Korea having nuclear weapons doesn't fix any of those problems. Right. And so at a fundamental level, To me, we have this idea like, well, they have nukes, we have nukes, therefore they offset one another. But that's not right because that's not the nature of the problem. India has a variant of the same problem. India has nuclear weapons.

It does not stop a nuclear-armed Pakistan from doing all kinds of evil shit. And so even if South Korea were to acquire nuclear weapons, which I do not think would be a great idea for them, it would have the fundamentally unchanged problem of a potentially more aggressive North Korea, and it would have to then do other things that actually address that problem.

Aaron 17:18

And I do think he addresses that a little bit in that the costs of proliferation would also be Felt in South Korea itself. And so he does actually just discuss nonproliferation in the same sort of, I guess, treatise on how he's feeling.

Jeffrey 17:37

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think he is doing that rhetorical thing that human beings do, which politicians shouldn't, which is he's putting a bunch of stuff on the table in order to drill down to the thing he really wants to do. But by putting it on the table, he's making news. And so it doesn't come across as a rhetorical gambit in order to get us to focus on the thing that we ultimately will focus on in this conversation, which is like the least of all the options.

But he feels compelled to run through the first set of options, thus causing people to focus on that rather than his real point. I mean, it's just clumsy political rhetoric from somebody who I just, I'm just not sure he's all that clever.

Aaron 18:27

Well, so he puts two other options on the table, right, which is sharing and forward deploy. I mean, let's carry them all three in a basket. It's sharing, forward deploy, and joint exercises, right? Those are all very, I mean, like, they're gradations, but it's tightening cooperation with the U.S. in terms of nuclear weapons. And that's what he referenced, I guess, two weeks or three weeks ago, where Biden simply gave him the sort of, no, that's not happening.

But he brought it back up.

Jeffrey 18:50

I mean, my sense is he wants the third. I think he sincerely wants joint exercises. And so we should probably talk about that in some detail at the end. But I think just to dismiss the other two, nuclear sharing does not seem very likely to me. I mean, I suppose you could put B61s at air bases and train Korean pilots to drop them.

But it isn't clear to me that we would Use that particular weapon in a Korean contingency. I mean, not that that stops us from engaging in the same behavior in NATO, but it's... You know, that's a that's a I think a fundamentally symbolic act. Those aren't the systems that we would really want in order to deal with North Korea.

And so it feels like that's all the almost all the pain and very little gain. Forward deploying U.S. nuclear weapons is also sort of weird because I'm not sure what we would forward. Again, you know, it would have to be B61s, right?

Aaron 19:54

They'd be the same system, I think, in both cases.

Jeffrey 19:58

Yeah, I mean, we don't have a lot of systems that need to be in theater to be used.

Aaron 20:07

Yeah, and he references this, too. He has this reference about de Gaulle and trading Paris for New York and stuff like that. So he does reference this sort of, like, sort of tension, of course, between, like, reassurance from third parties.

Jeffrey 20:19

Yeah, and I think he's—you know, one thing that I think he is wrong about, and I think de Gaulle maybe was a little bit wrong about this— Was that the North Korean plan is to use nuclear weapons preemptively in large numbers against US forces in South Korea and Japan. And while it is probably true that there's a challenge in imagining that you would trade New York or LA for Seoul or Tokyo, If North Korea were to use large numbers of nuclear weapons against U.S. troops and dependents, people are going to be hopping mad.

I understand the cold logic that is being expressed here, but I also lived through 9-11 where we lost our shit everywhere.

Aaron 21:17

I mean, yeah. So that actually brings up the final point, right? So the final point he's actually talking about is to circle back to the vulnerability discussion. He's saying if North Korea launches a missile, it will hit its target in South Korea within a minute, right? He's sort of hand-waving at hypersonics because he says Mach 5, but like whatever, right?

And so that they can't shoot them down. And so that their only option to sort of hold this, to prevent this preemptive attack is preemption themselves, which is the entirety of the 2020 Commission Report book. But it's also a theme in this podcast is that North Korean plans. I think now it's like it's incontrovertible, right? When we watch the exercises over the past two years, what they plan to do.

Jeffrey 22:08

I mean, they've spelled it out really clearly, and it seems that reluctantly all the people who thought I was a freaking idiot a year and a half ago are like, whoa, maybe they are going to do this.

Aaron 22:17

I mean, their plan, like, you don't even have to be like that in-depth of a scholar of this. It's to use shorter range systems to hit U.S. forces to Japan, to Korea, and to have some help back in reserve to hold off U.S. retaliatory capabilities. Like, I don't want to say escalate to de-escalate, but like that's, you know, it's like that's what it is.

Jeffrey 22:37

Yeah, well, you do not want to fight a home game against the United States. That's right. You don't want to let the United States build up a giant invasion force, and then your forces try to hold off the U.S. while you run from spider hole to spider hole. Right. That's a crappy plan. And so every time people are like, well, it would be suicide for him to use nuclear weapons preemptively, it's like, well— And Gaddafi and Saddam did not.

Right. They did not have that option. And so they decided that they could win a home game and both of them ended up dead in really grisly ways. And I think Kim knows that. And so it would be a desperate act on his part. And I don't I think it would be a last resort even if he would use them first.

Aaron 23:28

Oh, yeah. But that's what Yoon is saying. In his comments, if you really read them closely, what he's saying is we can't shoot them down, and so we have to shoot them on the ground. We have to get what? Left a boom. And that's what he's saying. And that's exactly what he's saying. And that's the fundamental problem.

Everything else comes after this, right? So like whatever option they choose, right? So like let's say they choose their own independent deterrent, whatever likelihood you attach that 10%, 30%, 40, 50, doesn't really matter. Nuclear sharing, same thing. Joint exercises with the United States, same thing. It's that both countries will have a doctrine of preemption.

Jeffrey 24:05

I mean, I say the same thing every time and like someday people are going to find it funny, but I'll keep repeating it till somebody chuckles. They both plan on going first and one of them is wrong about that.

Aaron 24:17

And the South Koreans aren't necessarily saying going first with nukes. In fact, they're explicitly saying they won't. They're saying that they'll target nuclear launchers on the ground.

Jeffrey 24:24

That's right. But in a crisis... The military in South Korea is going to be saying you need to use conventional weapons before Kim gives the order. And the North Korean military is going to say you need to give the order before South Korea uses its conventional missiles to kill you. And so in a crisis, both sides are going to feel enormous pressure to escalate, not because they want to escalate, but because they can't afford to wait.

Aaron 24:59

Yeah. And they're afraid. I think it's entirely normal to be like, hey, this could go really south. And the consequences of this escalating further are terrifying. So we need to take preemptive steps to try to warn everybody not to mess with us.

Jeffrey 25:12

Yes. Well, and I think that there is all kinds of wishful thinking that can come into a decision like that. So I have seen North Korean defectors say that Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il believed, and maybe Kim Jong-un doesn't believe this, but they genuinely believe the U.S.'s casualty averse stuff.

Aaron 25:34

I mean, most people believe that.

Jeffrey 25:36

Right. So you could literally talk yourself into thinking that killing several thousand U.S. troops and their dependents would cause the United States to back off rather than to continue. I happen to think that's nuts and wrong. It is nuts and wrong. But... But like Kim Jong-un is entitled to believe stuff that's nuts and wrong, which is how Vladimir Putin ended up, you know, stuck in Ukraine.

And honestly, it's how Lyndon Johnson ended up stuck in Vietnam, right? Decision makers make bad decisions sometimes. Oh, by the way, it's how the Japanese ended up doing Pearl Harbor, which, you know, did not work out so well for them.

Aaron 26:17

No, as I always like to say, leaders are entitled to make dumb decisions. It happens a lot.

Jeffrey 26:22

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron 26:24

So I think if we were to like sort of tie this up, the comments that stick out to us, like the nuclear stuff is interesting and it's worth watching. But the preemption stuff on both sides is just becoming, I guess, incontrovertible to repeat myself.

Jeffrey 26:41

I am so worried about the preemption stuff that if you sat me down and you said, Jeffrey, you can actually have your pick. South Korea will give up massive punishment and retaliation and will box up all the Hyunmoo missiles and we will ship them to Ukraine, right? And South Korea will be bereft of this capability to conventionally preempt.

But in exchange, you have to forward deploy nuclear weapons in South Korea just to make them feel good about themselves. I... That like literally might be better. And I like I'm not saying like I'm excited about this idea. It's not like I'm like, oh, yeah, there's a grand bargain to be had here because it like it never works out that way.

Right. You end up with you have U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea. And oh, by the way, they also have conventional preemption capability, which is like the worst of all possible worlds. But I I I think. Conventional preemption with an emphasis on decapitation is a much worse evil than the other stuff you talked about. And that's not to say the other stuff is good.

It's literally to say that conventional preemption is that bad.

Aaron 28:06

If we were to suggest a course, I don't know what I would suggest. Kim Jong-un is wacky. Again, it's something I see on Twitter, and I really will. This will be my last point. Something I see on Twitter is that people kind of joke about him, like he's kind of big and cuddly. He's this big sort of fat teddy bear that wanders around because he's so weird.

He's a bad person. You're genuinely looking at the big cuddly bear who smiles with a cigarette and takes his daughter around, but this guy's How do you tell his neighbor who he wants to destroy, or at least he is scared enough to plan to destroy, to be like, oh yeah, just trust the dude, or enter into negotiations with him to enshrine the status quo?

That's the hard part.

Jeffrey 28:52

Yeah, I think it's funny because I think you can imagine both things being true. I think he is a big, cuddly teddy bear who loves his kids and is a warm, affectionate person who gives his missile scientists big bear hugs. He's also ruthless.

Aaron 29:12

Yeah. He's a bad person. I'm sorry. I don't care if he's nice to some people.

Jeffrey 29:17

Well, I mean, I don't know. I think that most world leaders are bad people.

Aaron 29:21

Yeah, I mean, I think there's gradations of bad.

Jeffrey 29:24

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. So I suspect that, oh, this gets to a really deep and profound question. I think deep down, they're all pretty much the same. It's just their circumstances are different. I think there are a lot of world leaders who would happily assassinate their opponents if they were put in a position where it was a feasible thing that they were likely to get away with.

So I don't have any real moral judgments about any of these people. Like, I just don't think any of them are good people. Okay. You know, I mean, Donald Trump certainly would have assassinated political opponents if he could have gotten away with it. You know, I mean, like, I don't know. Like, where was Lyndon Johnson's limit? I don't know.

But I don't say that to say everybody is bad and therefore, like, we should be more morally relativistic. I think we should just look at the problem as a in a kind of dispassionate way. And the reality is that I don't think that the North Korean system can be a normal neighbor.

Aaron 30:37

That's fair.

Jeffrey 30:38

I think that's right, yeah. And so we are, I think, largely now locked in a pattern of trying to placate them So that we can manage the relationship that we have with this irritating neighbor and incentivize them to behave in a better way. And the reason I guess I object to the moralistic language is because as soon as this becomes moralistic, instead of becoming a problem we have to manage, it becomes about like this bad person who needs to be taught a lesson.

And then we end up doing all this self-defeating stuff, which is like—it's literally like when George W. Bush compared Kim Jong-il to a baby who throws his food on the floor. You know? And he said it was like when his daughters threw temper tantrums. Like, you gotta, like, you know— You know, give him a spanking or something.

And it's, I don't think he said a spanking. But I mean, I think as soon as you go down that route of he is a bad person who has to be morally corrected, you get locked into this, like, well, we can't bribe him, we can't pay him off. Because all that is immoral behavior that's going to feed immoral behavior.

And then we end up in the cycle where, you know, his, you know, North Korea has become one of the like, Best armed authoritarian states in the world. And like, that sucks. So I don't, I wish we could have headed this off. And like, I don't know. I basically am not bothered by bribing the North Koreans to be less annoying.

Aaron 32:19

Nor am I, despite what I think about him as a personal human being. I'm a big fan of paying people just to go away. If I had more money, I'd do it a lot more in my life.

Jeffrey 32:29

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Which is another, simply safe if you're listening. I mean, I don't know. You know, the funny thing about this is like, so I'm one of these people who is unbothered. I mean, I joke about it, but like, You know, Werner Von Braun, you know, like, war's over, man, build us a rocket. Like, but he was a bad guy who used slave, you know, who used like, not just slave labor, but, you know, concentration camp labor.

And like, you're right, in a morally just universe, he would have been punished for that. I am well aware I do not live in a morally just universe. To take this back to where we started, I think the through line here Is that if we drop the moral language, we just have a really serious problem. And that serious problem is partly like the actual security situation, and it's partly the politics of the situation.

And it just has locked us into these Patterns, which I think ultimately are really dangerous. And so fundamentally, I don't think Yoon was saying South Korea needs to build nuclear weapons. What I think he was saying was that he wants these joint exercises and this information sharing, and that will solve his problem. And I think it might help his political problem, but I don't think fundamentally it gets at the security challenge we're facing.

And so I kind of don't mind if the South Koreans practice some snowcat or something where they escort US aircraft that might conceivably carry a nuclear weapon. All of that symbolic stuff, I think he is doing fundamentally for his own domestic political purposes. And that's... Fine, and I kind of am not going to get angry if we're doing that kind of stuff, even though I think it's pointless. We should understand that that is only intended to fix his political problems, and that it does not fundamentally address the security issue we have, which is that the war plans of those two countries are set up to be escalatory in a crisis. I think that's a good place to leave it. Jeffrey.

Aaron 34:46

I enjoyed this conversation. This is good. South Korea just doesn't seem to get covered a lot. There's a lot of interesting stuff that happens there. And so I find this, maybe we should do more podcasts on it. But I'm rambling now. So if you want to get involved in this conversation, perhaps privately on our Slack channel, the place to go is patreon.com slash ACW podcast, where you can join the conversation.

About this and where if you are an open source internet sleuth, you can see your work eventually featured in places like the Washington Post or The Economist. It is the Star Wars bar of OSINT practice. All are welcome.

Jeffrey 35:29

I'm just imagining, you know, the lead out music could be the Star Wars cantina. Perfect.

Aaron 35:37

It's just cats all hanging out together. Jeffrey, thank you for joining me.

Jeffrey 35:41

Always a pleasure, Aaron.