The Washington Declaration

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

It's just nuclear consultative group is just way more metal than extended deterrence working group, even if they do the same thing. 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 0:29

And I am Aaron Stein, Chief Content Officer over at War on the Rocks and a sometimes contributor to the Arms Control Wonk blog way back in the day. Jeffrey, it's good to see you.

Jeffrey 0:38

It is good to see you, Aaron. I am so happy to be back in California after so many travels.

Aaron 0:46

You've been all over the place. I know you've been in Washington. Where else have you been? So in the last two months, I've been in Tokyo.

Jeffrey 0:56

Which is nice. Oslo. Which is nice. Two words, floating sauna.

Aaron 1:07

Long-time listeners will know the sauna is very important to you. If it's floats, it's even better. Sauna is life.

Jeffrey 1:16

I also went up above the Arctic Circle to the Space Launch Center at Andoya and got to see the northern lights above me. That was pretty cool.

Aaron 1:24

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Jeffrey 1:26

And a bunch of trips to D.C. I've been in and out. And I was just there for a IISS Missile Dialogue Initiative and to give a talk on the 40th anniversary of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative speech.

Aaron 1:42

There's been a lot of Reagan recently. Reagan seems to be having a moment. Did he ever not have a moment?

Jeffrey 1:49

Yeah, I think in the wake of Iran-Contra, Reagan was not having a moment.

Aaron 1:54

He was not having a moment. Okay, we're going to leave it there. But you know, so if it's 40th anniversary of Reagan and SDI, it's the 70th anniversary of the U.S. and the ROK. No?

Jeffrey 2:04

Yeah, that's right, which is what we've come here today to talk about. That's a fantastic segue, Aaron. You and the segues keeping us on topic.

Aaron 2:17

Yeah, so we had the state visit and updated, I call them protocols, on U.S.-ROK nuclear deterrence dialogue.

Jeffrey 2:28

Yeah, we have something called the Washington Declaration.

Aaron 2:33

I appreciate how boring that is, by the way. It's a great name.

Jeffrey 2:36

I mean, yeah, you know, like, find better resorts. It should have been the freaking Pebble Beach Declaration. Like, give yourself a personal day for some golf, take in our beautiful weather, gaze at the ocean, have a salad with lettuce that hasn't been on a truck for three weeks.

Aaron 2:56

You know, really live life. I mean, you know, the sauna is good, but Pebble Beach, man. The Monterey Valley, the Monterey Peninsula, I should say, Highlands Pinot Noir. It's a longtime thing to bring onto the show. You know, our Pinot Noir is quite good, I think. The weather is pretty good for it, but now we're really off the rails.

It's way too early. Santa Lucia Highlands. Santa Lucia Highlands, that's right.

Jeffrey 3:21

I don't know. I don't know. It's certainly going to be more exciting than the Washington Declaration, which is important, I think, to discuss, both because it's an opportunity to talk about the South Korea side of the equation. Like, we spend a lot of time talking about North Korea's missiles, but... Fundamentally, I think our public policy problem here with North Korea is as much about perceptions in South Korea as it is this task of deterring the North.

And so it gets us a chance to talk about that half of the equation. But then I think it also gives us the opportunity to talk about that most important of topics, extended deterrence.

Aaron 4:08

Yep. It's why we can't have nice things like minimum deterrence, Aaron. The adjective modifiers, integrated deterrence, extended deterrence, minimum deterrence, you know, everybody wants more deterrence. No, it's a good time to have a conversation. I'm just joking around here. I think it's important. Oh, you can totally joke about integrated deterrence all you want.

Jeffrey 4:32

But I say you're not allowed to joke about something you don't understand. And ain't nobody understands what the fuck integrated deterrence is supposed to be.

Aaron 4:43

Yeah. Well, I think it's important for those who've never heard of this or passively read it. It's a declaration. It's a non-binding thing. So it's a political agreement basically to increase consultations about something that already exists, which is U.S. deterrence for South Korea in the face of growing capabilities, let's say maturing capabilities from North Korea.

Jeffrey 5:12

Yeah, we should talk about what's in it, but I do think it is really important to have a conversation about why this exists at all and what political problem this is intended to solve. Because I do not believe that the purpose of the Washington Declaration, this announcement that has been offered on the occasion of South Korean President Yoon's visit to the White House to meet with President Biden, I do not believe that this is designed to enhance deterrence against North Korea.

I don't believe it has any hope of restraining North Korea's development of new nuclear capabilities. This is a... Political deliverable for President Yoon to solve his political problems at home, which is he wants to be seen as taking decisive action to deal with this threat, and he's not taking decisive action to deal with this threat. There is no decisive action to be taken.

But that does not matter, because just like the Japanese trot out missile defense interceptors every time North Korea does a space launch, a purely symbolic act with no military implication whatsoever, I think similarly here, what Yoon is trying to do is to solve a political problem he has with symbolism. And it's worth asking, Whether he came home with what he was looking for or whether he didn't and whether he paid too much or whether we paid too much.

But I think it is important to first, I think, emphasize that Presidential visits like this are first and foremost about house gifts. What does Yoon bring Biden? And what does Biden let Yoon take home? And what any politician cares about is political power. And that's either, you know, reelection, if you can have that, or just the perception among voters that you are capable of delivering if, like Yoon, you can't be reelected.

Aaron 7:19

Yeah, I would even put it in the inverse too. One of the main political problems for the Biden administration is the political problem that Yoon is in himself. And so you're faced with concerns, I think, about proliferation in East Asia. Now, whether or not those concerns are truly valid in terms of whether South Korea was really going to go down the path of an independent nuclear weapons capability, I think is besides the point.

I think there was some mutual need by the two sides to show to be doing something, to deal with the North Korea issue more broadly, but also to manage the South Korean domestic political constituency, which has sniffed out that a lot of this is symbolism.

Jeffrey 8:08

Yeah, I think so. And so I think the place I would start is We should eventually list or get around to listing all of the things that Yoon gets. But for me, in assessing whether Yoon came home with a big win or a pretty, you know, or a bag of beans, a bag of magic beans... It's important, I think, to go back to the conversation we had a few months ago when Yoon started talking about South Korea building nuclear weapons, which I think was generally misinterpreted.

I think his remarks were much more ambiguous than they were reported at the time. And I think also he was kind of riffing. So I'm not sure how carefully thought out they were. But the important thing is that Yoon's comments about building nuclear weapons a few months ago came in the context of Yoon claiming that South Korea had been negotiating with the United States for joint exercises in which South Korean military forces would participate alongside nuclear-capable US assets.

Something that Yoon said he was going, that the U.S. was very favorable towards, which then prompted Joe Biden, when he was asked about it, to answer with a flat no.

Aaron 9:32

Who may also have been riffing a little bit to himself. I don't think he was riffing Joe Biden himself. I just think he was blunt.

Jeffrey 9:41

That's right. Maybe riffing. Yeah, right. I think that the answer really was no. It was no. He's telling the truth. But, you know, we've all been in romantic relationships. And sometimes, you know, you got to deliver a no like a little softer than that.

Aaron 9:57

Exactly. That's my point. It's like they hadn't worked out the no language quite yet. Maybe not now.

Jeffrey 10:05

You know. Revisit in a year. Yeah, absolutely. But then the... U.S. National Security Council spokesperson came out with a statement that made it clear that such exercises were not being contemplated. And I think, to me, that's kind of the measure, is did Yoon come home with that or something more than that? Or did he come home with less than that?

And I would say he came home less because the commitment he got was for a tabletop exercise, which is a war game.

Aaron 10:42

Yep.

Jeffrey 10:44

Which, I mean, I'm sure will be fun.

Aaron 10:47

I mean, in fairness, in deployment of, I think, B-52s, I think is what they're going to do. And so they'll be parked on the ramp maybe next to South Korean assets.

Jeffrey 10:57

Well, I want to talk about the visibility piece. So I guess for me, the three big things that come out of this, and there are lots of little things, is there is, does Yoon get the exercises? No, he gets a tabletop exercise. And I want to talk about what those exercises could have looked like, whether they would have mattered, why we're fighting about that.

But then you're right. They get a commitment that's A commitment to increase the visibility of U.S. presence in the region, which will also include an SSBN visit. Oh, yeah. That one too, yeah. And they, in some way, shape, or form, modified the extended deterrence working group to become a nuclear consultative group. And it's not clear to me how different that will be, but it certainly sounds like the NATO nuclear planning group.

And I think that, in that case, was the appeal of it. Not what it will do, but what it sounds like. It's just nuclear consultative group is just way more metal than extended deterrence working group, even if they do the same thing.

Aaron 11:58

It reminded me, I forget which season of The Wire. I think it's season three where they transition over the Department of Homeland Security and they just switch the sign, but nothing really changes.

Jeffrey 12:06

Oh, it reminds me of a time I was in a meeting in the Pentagon with Jim Miller when he was, I think, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. And I asked him if they were going to revive the proposal for a joint data exchange center with Russia where we would share early warning data. I mean, that's the white whale.

And I was like, are you going to do it? And he was like, well, we're certainly really interested and gave me some very noncommittal answer. And I pressed on like, okay, what is your plan? Because it's moribund for a reason. And he was like, well, we're anticipating something much more robust and interesting to the Russians. And it's going to be a data fusion center.

Aaron 12:55

And I was like, are you kidding? You just renamed the damn thing?

Jeffrey 12:58

Hey, guess what? It didn't work, right? But apparently, I was supposed to be all starry-eyed and like, oh, what a genius. The Data Fusion Center.

Aaron 13:12

Truly, we are led by giants, Aaron. That thing went through so many iterations. But anyway, sorry. That's one of my favorites.

Jeffrey 13:20

We're off. But we can come back to this. I want to talk about the exercises because I think a tabletop exercise clearly falls short of what Yoon was imagining. And I want to be clear. I think what Yoon is trying to do is to get the relationship between South Korea and the United States to look as much like NATO nuclear sharing as possible.

Aaron 13:43

That seems to be, yes, that seems to be the main thrust of what he's pushing for.

Jeffrey 13:48

And so they're not going to build their own nuclear weapons. And we're not going to give them B61s to drop off South Korean airplanes or build new warheads for them to put on Hyunmoo missiles. Although, you know, that would be sort of rad in its own way. A bad idea would be rad. And so I think with the exercises that Yun was asking for, I think he was imagining something like Snowcat.

Aaron 14:16

Snowcat, definitely.

Jeffrey 14:18

Which is the NATO, which is what? Support for nuclear operations with conventional air tactics, basically using conventional NATO aircraft to escort nuclear assets as they go off to nuke the Russians. Right.

Aaron 14:33

Yeah, and all the planning that goes into that and how they would all sync up. But yes, just flying in the black light.

Jeffrey 14:40

Like, I don't... Like, we're not going to use a B61 off the wing of a... I don't really know. I guess maybe you could have South Korean fighters escort U.S. bombers. See, I think they may get that.

Aaron 14:56

I don't know if that really helps. I think you may get that. I think you may get like a Divid's photo op of that without all the exercise planning behind it. But maybe I'm just being too sort of optimistic about where the photo op may go.

Jeffrey 15:12

Well, you know, I do think, though, that that really gets to a really interesting difference between NATO and South Korea, which is my sense has always been that the reason that we want the whole infrastructure, whether it's the nuclear planning group or whether it's snowcat exercises, is infrastructure. On the U.S. side, we want the Europeans to share the burden of making the case for the nuclear character of the alliance.

We want the Europeans to be implicated in the nuclear aspect because we don't want to be the only people making the argument for sustaining some kind of NATO nuclear capability. And so it's at some level, on the one hand, you get deterrence. On the other hand, domestically, it's kind of a sandwich and everybody needs to take a bite.

And snow cats like a teeny tiny little bite, but we need you to. That's probably not true with countries like Poland. And it's definitely not true with countries like South Korea that instead of us pushing them, they're pulling us. They want that symbolism.

Aaron 16:25

No, totally. I mean, a lot of people were doing the parallels to like West Germany, you know, to this, you know, essentially trading nuclear guarantees for a pledge of nonproliferation. Again, I think it's different than NATO in the 1950s or even 1960s because the context, but it certainly seems like on the South Korean side, they really want physical Like I guess physical deployments of U.S. assets to really drive home that we won't abandon them in a fight.

It reminds me of Turkey a little bit in like the 1950s and 1960s where like they were just absolutely committed to physical demonstrations of U.S. extended deterrence or forward deployment of nukes. To the point where they, like, didn't want... Despite being told that Jupiter missiles would just make you a huge target and were not usable during a conflict, they just wanted them to sit out there on the lily pad so that they look cool for pictures that I still hang in my office.

Jeffrey 17:25

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that this goes to a point I make in my class on decision-making involving the bomb. And I see it sort of pop up every now and again. You know, we use... We do a lot of... We use a lot of words and phrases in our field that don't actually have any meaning.

And, like, nuclear umbrella, I think, is a prime offender. Because if you ask, like, where is the nuclear, like, what is the nuclear umbrella? I mean, apart from, like, first of all, noting that it's a metaphor and kind of a sh**ty one at that. Because, like, a promise to retaliate isn't really an umbrella. Like, an umbrella keeps the rain off you.

Right. So you're already wet. You're getting wet. It's just, yeah.

Aaron 18:10

Maybe like a wetsuit.

Jeffrey 18:12

But what we have with South Korea and with every other country in the world are security commitments that are general in nature. You know, there is no specific commitment that exists to respond... With nuclear weapons, right? We have security commitments that are very general in nature. We have some very general security assurances, both to aid countries that have been the victims of nuclear attack, and then also to obviously refrain from using nuclear weapons against most non-nuclear weapon states.

But those are like very general in nature. And then we have nuclear weapons. And so a lot of what we do Is try to take on the one hand the general commitment we have to meeting an armed attack together and the existence of our nuclear weapons and link them. You know, in the case of NATO nuclear sharing, it's very explicit.

I promise to give you this bomb, you know, in the event of a crisis. Although we don't actually promise. They train that way. So that's like an implicit promise. But like the Senate didn't ratify that. Right?

Aaron 19:25

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 19:28

And so I think we have this idea that there is a nuclear umbrella, but in fact the nuclear umbrella in most cases I think is best thought of as an inference. There are security commitments, there are nuclear weapons, and you put two and two together and that implies the existence of a nuclear commitment. And I think, you know, the South Koreans want it more explicit.

Aaron 19:52

Well, I think the Cold War, I don't think you're giving enough credit to the Cold War dynamic where these crews, and I think this has obviously changed since 1991, but I do think at the height of the Cold War, it was more than implicit. I think it was explicit with training and as time has gone by, And as different systems have come online, and I think people have grappled more and more with the horrors of nuclear conflict, is that that role has become more implicit.

And I think what the South Koreans want is a return to that sort of explicit dual training together that we think about maybe during the 70s or 80s.

Jeffrey 20:29

Yeah, so I don't disagree with that, but I think it makes sense to understand this as a continuum where we are trying to persuade our allies that We really will come to their defense. And nuclear sharing and forward basing of nuclear weapons are kind of the most extreme ways we could do it. Oh, totally. And it's, if you look at it, once you realize it's a continuum, right?

So if you stop thinking of the nuclear umbrella as a thing, but you instead see this continuum of how do we make real our... Commitment to use these, what I would say is implicit commitment to use these nuclear weapons in service of our explicit security commitments, then what the South Koreans are doing, trying to move up that value chain to be reassured, I think makes a lot of sense.

I mean, it's stupid, but I get it.

Aaron 21:17

No, and this is a question. To what extent was, because we used to station nuclear weapons in South Korea, does the withdrawal of those weapons, when was it, 91? Somewhere around there? When was it? Yes. It was 91. 91. How does that factor into their psyche? How much do you think are they influenced by that?

Jeffrey 21:38

So one thing is they threw us out. Okay.

Aaron 21:41

I don't study South Korea, so I don't know.

Jeffrey 21:43

Well... We now pretend like we took them out of our own accord and had to reassure them. And that suits them just fine to blame us for taking them out. But if you really look at the historical documentation, and to her great credit, my former colleague Catherine Dill actually FOIAed some of the documents around this, the dynamic in 1991 was actually that the...

Conservative but newly democratic government of South Korea was kicking around the idea of a kind of Japan-like three non-nuclear principles, and they really wanted those weapons to come out. And so it was the Bush administration that was reluctant, and then as part of the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives in September, the Bush administration agreed to withdraw all of the Land-based nuclear weapons, but had intended to leave the air-delivered ones but then ultimately decided to take those out as well. And that's a whole story for another podcast.

But I think it's interesting that both sides have rewritten the history of that to largely present it as the U.S. withdrew them, the South Koreans accommodated the U.S., and now here we are in a very classic reassurance model. And so that rewriting of history strikes me as being really revealing about how the parties see themselves today.

Aaron 23:23

So that is interesting. I always wonder how much, because Yoon is, he's a little loose, right? I mean, we had a whole conversation about this.

Jeffrey 23:34

Oh, he is so loosey-goosey when he talks.

Aaron 23:36

Yeah, and to the point where he's willing to sing in front of the American president, which I enjoyed. It was a nice moment, but like, that's not something you normally see. But my point is, is how much does he know the history and how much is he influenced by this narrative and rewritten history that you're talking about?

Oh, I bet he knows the history. Not at all. Yeah. And so getting back to your continuum, how much is he influenced by this perception that they're getting back to zero in terms of this continuum that you're talking about?

Jeffrey 24:05

Oh, I think that's exactly what he imagined. So that actually brings us to, I think, the second thing we should talk about, which is the nuclear consultative group.

Aaron 24:13

Yep.

Jeffrey 24:14

So to be clear, there is already an extended deterrence working group that was created in the Obama administration, largely at the urging, I understand, of Brad Roberts to do a lot of, for lack of a better word, reassurance to the South Koreans. Meetings to talk about meetings. It's important. Yes. And, you know, now there's apparently some kind of Consultation about planning I don't actually think that it is likely to be as intimate as the statement implies. And so one question that I have is like Is this old wine and new bottles?

Is the nuclear consultative group, which sounds like nuclear planning group, right? And I think that's what the South Koreans really wanted. Something that sounds like the NATO thing. Is it really going to be different than the extended deterrence working group? Or is it going to be quite similar? And I don't know. ... But at the same time, I suspect, you know, I suspect it's being oversold.

I think there was a point at which, by the way, Yoon tried to describe this as being tantamount to nuclear sharing, and then they had to walk that back.

Aaron 25:56

No, I mean, look, I obviously can't read Korean, but for people who translate Korean in my Twitter feed, there is an entirely different narrative for the domestic press versus the Washington, D.C. press. So the Washington D.C. press, all of us, people who have talked about this, pointing out its limitations, pointing out a lot of what you're talking about, which is how it's duplicative of things that already exist, even if there's perhaps some updates to how the two sides communicate, where Yoon, on his way back, seemed to be getting a little bit out over his skis again.

I think it goes back to his domestic constituency, which, as I understand it, wasn't too thrilled and are still pushing for independent nuclear capabilities.

Jeffrey 26:47

Yeah, I want to talk about what the three big South Korean papers said at the end. But I definitely think the reaction he got from the three conservative South Korean papers that are kind of the three biggest newspapers in South Korea is not – Not what one would hope for i mean i think for him it was good but it was not a home run and one one thing i would say is you know the nuclear consultative group comes with some strings because there's some language which is potentially quite valuable for the u.s That's right, because it talks about integrating, and integrating is almost certainly much too strong of a word.

I would say maybe connecting some of the planning that the South Koreans are doing for their own conventional missile forces with our planning. When I read that... Go ahead.

Aaron 27:49

Well, I think that... That...

Jeffrey 27:54

Is a thing that has always worried me because in the 2020 Commission, the thing that really accelerates the crisis, doesn't start it, but it accelerates it, is the South Koreans trying to signal on their own with their very capable conventional missile force. And so I actually would be in favor of a lot of joint planning because I would want to limit the South Koreans' freedom to use these forces independently.

Oh, well, I think the place to observe is I was very worried about this problem in the 2020 commission. And while I suspect the South Koreans are holding back a lot and it's not going to be as intimate or as constraining as I would hope, I think just having that conversation is something that is probably on balance a net positive for stability.

Because the South Koreans have a really big capable missile force that they could use all by their grownup selves.

Aaron 28:56

Right. And so what's really interesting about the document as you talk through it is the concessions that the U.S. was clearly pushing for in return for this. And it's quite clear that at least in regards to this, there was concern enough within the Biden administration and perhaps even carrying over previously in the Trump administration that About this problem that we talk about all the time on the podcast, which is that the South Koreans could go first without the US being in the loop.

And that could still happen, by the way, but they got the language sort of right there in that tersely, in that short, in that, what am I trying to say? They got the language in the declaration.

Jeffrey 29:44

Yeah, I mean, and I again, I think the South Koreans, I think it says they're going to closely connect the new ROK command with STRATCOM and like closely connect, I think could mean anything. And so I don't want to oversell this. But at the same time, I I do think they're at least attempting to address this concern and like, you know, good on them.

That's a positive thing.

Aaron 30:08

Yeah, it's like revealed preference, right? It's like if you want to lose 10 pounds and you go to the steakhouse and you get the smallest steak possible and forego mashed potatoes. That doesn't mean you can't go eat mashed potatoes. You're just revealing your preferences about way forward in life. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffrey 30:25

And so, again, you know, like, Yoon gets the extended deterrence working group renamed. Maybe they do more meetings. Maybe they talk more explicitly. It sounds like the nuclear planning group. I don't really think it's a nuclear planning group. And honestly, if it were, it wouldn't be the worst thing to get a handle on South Korea's missile forces.

Aaron 30:49

Yeah. I mean, I think we've also left out is that they pledged not to proliferate.

Jeffrey 30:55

Well, I and I think that's the other big the other big I mean, obviously, they're already a member of the NPT. But yes, getting you to say they are not going to build nuclear weapons was good. So, you know, again, if you look at his deliverables like I want to if you imagine again along this continuum and he wants to get as close to a NATO like structure as possible, I don't think he gets very far.

He has to embrace the NPT, which, of course, NATO allies do too, other than the French and the British. Well, they get to embrace the NPT in a very positive way for them. But, you know, they have to be a non-nuclear weapons state. But he doesn't get joint exercises other than a tabletop. He doesn't get integrated nuclear planning, although he gets a consultative group that seems to have some talk.

But that also then he has to sort of deliver at least some insight into what they're thinking about conventional missile forces. And then the last thing they get, which is the showiest thing, which is they get an SSBN visit. Which also happened in Turkey, by the way. You know, and we used to do it in South Korea in the 80s.

And, you know, it's dumb, but it's fine. It's fine. It's dumb. It's too... The SSBN can't shoot the North Koreans from that close.

Aaron 32:18

No, but that's not the point.

Jeffrey 32:20

It's got a D5 on it.

Aaron 32:22

Look, that's the official Missile of the Arms Control Wong podcast. We're open for sponsors. We love the D5.

Jeffrey 32:28

But the joy of the D5 is you need to be way the freaking far away. That thing is so powerful. If you're like even reasonably close, you got to fly it backwards a little bit, you know, like. Moonwalk it. That's a good missile.

Aaron 32:41

Michael Jackson stuff. You know, put it backwards. Are we allowed to talk about Michael Jackson? That's a good missile. Well, yeah, we can talk about the moonwalk. We can talk about the music. The music. No, but. It's all about the music.

Jeffrey 32:54

I mean, like any SSBN sitting at a South Korean port is unable to nuke the North Koreans. I mean, the sailors get shore leave. That is a temporary disarmament measure. If you're the North Koreans, like, actually, could you tie them all up in Busan? That would be great. But, you know, whatever. We're in this stupid symbolism thing that, you know, I just hate.

Aaron 33:18

Yeah. Yeah, but... On the other hand, yeah, it's a boomer in port. That's cool. You get some pictures. Get some pictures? I mean, maybe you'll time your next visit there. Maybe they'll give you an arms control walk tour.

Jeffrey 33:31

Official media access. I mean, I wouldn't complain. Yeah, so, so I think, by the way, the way that you know, we're, we're right Or at least this much more modest view. And we had a big, big argument at CNS about whether this was the end of the nonproliferation regime or, yeah, I know. We just, whatever. We argue about everything.

It was a good internal discussion. But I think in the end, it's not really that much. And I think you see this. I think you see this because the three big South Korean papers had pretty muted reactions. So Jungang Ilbo and Dongha Ilbo were basically like, well, it's not great, but it's fine. And it really depends on how it's implemented.

And, you know, just given what we know about life, you know things are always less exciting when they're implemented than when they're announced. And so, like, they're pretty tepid. Like, nice words. Let's see if there's actually anything to them. And Chosun Ilbo is like, the deal is great, but the price was too high in terms of South Korea's sovereignty.

And so, right, they're complaining about having to sort of again admit that they're not going to build nuclear weapons and that they're going to consult with the allies about how to respond. And I think the Chosun Ilbo, it's like too excitable. I wish that were true. I wish this agreement represented a massive compromise of South Korea's sovereignty.

But that seems unlikely to me. I think, you know, I think like a lot of things the Chosun Ilbo does, it's just a little bit heated. So, you know, like those are his voters. And they're like either lukewarm or they're... Happy, but feel like they paid a lot to get what they got. And so I think that's probably a win for the Biden people, keeping things pretty much status quo.

Aaron 35:56

To use the over-tortured DC sports metaphor, sometimes you just need to hit a couple singles. I do think both sides did hit some singles here. It's not a home run, but Kicking the can down the road on the U.S. side on political decisions in South Korea is fundamentally a good thing. And he can convince himself that he's moved forward.

I like the continuum on the continuum argument as well, even if he didn't get all the way there. I think he probably did.

Jeffrey 36:25

If he stops talking about building nuclear weapons and stops demanding nuclear sharing. And, you know, if this if this gets him to, you know, focus on whatever other weird crap he wants to do as president, that's fine.

Aaron 36:39

Yeah.

Jeffrey 36:40

By the way, only the Hankoria, the Hanky hated it because, you know, that's the left wing paper in South Korea. And they, you know, they basically predict that it's the it's the end of the world.

Aaron 36:51

So, oh, maybe we could have him sing R.E.M. Next time it comes. I shuddered. That was the transition. I couldn't watch the video.

Jeffrey 37:08

This is what ChatGPT is for. I clicked the link. Not ChatGPT. This is like, yeah, I'm sorry. This is what all AI is for. Could we get AI to generate a video of President Yoon karaoke-ing different songs? On the D5 moonwalking.

Aaron 37:30

Smooth criminal i was i clicked on i think beat it i like beat it i think i think you're doing beat it that's what i want yeah so i want i clicked that video and like just i was so uncomfortable i just said nope not gonna do it don't need to see it not really for me it happened i'm moving i mean billy jean would be good but beat it i think beat it well billy jean's what he does the moonwalk

Jeffrey 37:56

Yeah.

Aaron 37:57

I mean, that is the video.

Jeffrey 37:58

Maybe it's got to be Billie Jean.

Aaron 37:59

It's got to be Billie Jean on a D5.

Jeffrey 38:01

Because you could get the AI to have Yoon Moonwalk.

Aaron 38:05

On a D5. It's incredible. It's incredible. And we have gone off the rails. So it's that time.

Jeffrey 38:14

Let me say, good job, Biden administration. Yeah. It's more than a single. It's a double. You gave him enough money. So it was a successful summit. He walks home with a political deliverable, but she didn't really give him anything that, you know, is going to make the world a worse place. And so, you know, sometimes the correct course of action is just competent.

Aaron 38:42

Keep that bar where it is and just clear it. Yep. Yep. And we're going to leave it there. Yep. Ain't no shame in that. No shame. Ain't no shame. Okay. As we head on out, become a member. Wrong ad read. As we head on out. We want you to join our exclusive Slack channel, patreon.com slash acwpodcast, where the coolest things in the world happen from OSINT to general chatters about Billie Jean and whether or not the moonwalk is appropriate.

That is at patreon.com slash acwpodcast. Aaron is giving video moonwalk lessons. I can do the moonwalk. Patreon.com slash acwpodcast to watch me do the moonwalk in our Slack channel. With that, Jeffrey, it's good to see you again. It was a pleasure.