Where is Kim Jong-Un?

Aaron Stein 0:09

Hello and welcome to the Arms Control Wonk podcast. My name is Aaron Stein. I'm an associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute in London. I'm also a contributor to the Arms Control Wonk blog.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:19

And I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

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Hey, Aaron, we've got a special guest. We do. Yeah, we've got Andrea Berger, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a North Korea watcher, or as I like to call them, a Kumsusanologist. Hi, Andrea.

Andrea Berger 0:47

Hi, thanks for having me.

Jeffrey 0:49

Welcome. Yeah. So apart from being outnumbered by roosty people, I'm going to start with you, Andrea. Where is Kim Jong-un?

Aaron 1:00

Where is the great successor?

Andrea 1:03

The great question of the week. I think it's probably anyone's guess as the obvious answer. But yeah, my feeling on this, and again, it's just a hunch because for most of us, it's always just a hunch with the DPRK. But is... That this is a genuine medical issue for Kim Jong-un. There's been only a few instances from my recollection where the North Koreans have publicly acknowledged some kind of negative development.

I recall the April 2012 rocket launch acknowledgement that that was a failure, the acknowledgement that there was a devastating apartment building collapse, for example. And when those things get made public, and in this case, the acknowledgement that Kim Jong-un has Physical discomfort. One, they're generally true, but two, the DPRK acknowledges that it happens and either downplays it or tries to suggest that it's going to be rectified in some way.

And so to suggest that he has physical discomfort again, that's probably true. And perhaps they're downplaying the severity of it. So it could be a pretty severe medical issue. That Patterns in DPRK propaganda. But again, who knows?

Aaron 2:23

I like Jeffrey's one that he floated on Twitter a few days or weeks ago about methamphetamine abuse.

Jeffrey 2:30

I was mostly kidding. I was mostly kidding. No, I liked it. Just observing that I think, and I definitely want to talk about some of the theories about Why he might be absent that aren't related to medical issues. But I do think that we sometimes forget that world leaders are human beings and that they do get sick.

And in particular, we kind of assume that if somebody is a world leader, that they must take really good care of themselves or someone must take really good care of themselves for them. But, you know, whatever. There are a lot of accounts of binge drinking in North Korean leadership and a lot of accounts of methamphetamine use. And so it's not totally shocking to me that he might not be in the best of health.

Now, whether that's the cause of this crisis or not, I have no idea. You know what my favorite hypothesis is?

Aaron 3:22

What is it?

Jeffrey 3:23

Well, so, you know, the Washington Post reported that it was ankle surgery, that he'd severely sprained the ankles and then kept, you know, kept on with the grueling inspection tours. And eventually they fractured and he had to have surgery. Well, Dave Schmerler, one of our graduate students, has this wonderful hypothesis, which is probably false, but it's so, so wonderful.

Shortly, well, the Post reported the injury occurred in June. And in June, one of the things he did was he visited the revolutionary school and there was like a brand new basketball court. And there were these like basketball games he witnessed. And so Schmerler thinks that, you know, he was wearing the Cuban heels and like couldn't resist and went out and hooped it up.

I like that.

Andrea 4:10

I found the, the gout suggestion to be kind of interesting. And just because I think actually, you know, despite the fact that that's the most, Common hypothesis from what I've read, it seems pretty implausible. The idea that gout would prevent someone from a public appearance. I mean, if they wanted to engineer an appearance with a Kim Jong-un who has a gout ailment, you can put him behind a desk, you know, a podium, et cetera, and, and show that he's around an active.

So I'm not so convinced that that's actually what's happening. So maybe the basketball is a better explanation.

Aaron 4:48

Well, it would explain perhaps why he was limping a couple of weeks ago, was it, when he walked out there, if he had gout? Yeah, he was. Or are we reading too much of the tea leaves here?

Jeffrey 4:59

Well, it's all you can do. There's a great example that Michael Madden caught. Where Kim Jong-il, right, Kim Jong-un's late father, is getting off a train, and it's a, it's a short video, and, and Michael sent it to me and said, "Do you see the guy with the bag dancing in the background?" And sure enough, in the background, there's this guy with a bag who's like trying to dance out of every frame or behind a bodyguard, like he's desperate not to be seen.

And it was the doctor with the medical bag in case Kim Jong-il stroked out. And it was really clear that he didn't want to be seen in the propaganda shot because it would reveal something about Kim Jong-il's health. But he was like, so he was desperate to stay out of this scene, but they just didn't do a very good job of editing him out.

Well, I want to ask Andrea something, because obviously the alternative hypothesis, which is promoted by this group, New Focus International, which was founded by someone called him a poet defector. And his argument is that this is the sidelining of Kim Jong-un. And the argument is based on, I think, pretty small evidence, but I'd still love your opinion.

Little things like, well, when the North Korean delegation shows up in Seoul, there's visible protection. You know, things like you could in fact have you know, put out propaganda showing Kim, maybe if, you know, as you said, seated behind a desk. And finally that The final thing, which I thought was a really interesting point, that when the South Koreans asked the North Koreans about Kim Jong-un's health, they answered.

And the New Focus International people came from the propaganda department, and they sort of made the argument that this was all different. And so my question is, What do you make of the argument that it's different because there has basically been, in effect, a coup, or is it just different because it's 2014 and Kim Jong-un is not Kim Jong-il?

Andrea 7:18

Again, like you, I haven't seen much convincing evidence to suggest that there's been a coup. As a matter of fact, you could probably argue that the three showing up in Seoul was, in fact, an effort to show that things are going on as normal, but... Actually the DPRK's broader campaign of diplomatic outreach at the moment is just chugging along and that part of it actually, and the North Koreans I think have also made an effort to continue to say that things that are occurring in real time are at the behest of Kim Jong-un or were done with his permission or at his request.

So I'm not sure that I see the convincing argument that There's been a coup or there's been some kind of, in any way, permanent leadership change or rising to power of individuals that are not Kim Jong-un. It might be temporary. Again, let's say there's a serious medical issue, then perhaps depending on the treatment he's receiving, what recovery is like, for example.

There might be some kind of temporary arrangement where someone is making decisions. There's been a suggestion that that's his sister. I don't know that that's the case. So that might be possible. But I think the coup narrative might be just a bit too convenient after the Jang Song-taek saga of earlier this year, late last.

Aaron 8:48

Okay. For the non-North Korea informed, which is myself, who showed up in Seoul and what is the Jang Song-taek saga?

Andrea 8:56

Who's starting with that? Well, the Jangseong Tech Saga, Jeff maybe wants to explain the current visit as a segue into our next subject. But the Jangseong Tech Saga, essentially, Kim Jong-un decided that it was time for his uncle, who was widely regarded as being the number two in the country, to go. And he was publicly shamed and executed late last year.

So there was some suggestion that this would actually be Cause some kind of rift, serious rift, either a purging of his loyals, which there's some reason to believe actually happened on a reasonably wide scale, or actually a more fundamental shake-up and destabilizing of the DPRK regime, which doesn't seem like it's happened, but maybe that's why people are reading that into the current situation with Kim Jong-un.

Jeffrey 9:50

Right, and so in the midst of all this question of whether or not the purging of Jang Song-taek and his cronies, I probably shouldn't call them cronies, whether that signals internal turmoil or not, that process is playing out, and then suddenly Kim Jong-un disappears from the scene, and then in the midst of all this, Hwang Pyong-so, who is a Very senior figure in the North Korean leadership.

He's the vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, and he's the head of something called the Organization and Guidance Department. He and several other North Korean officials show up in Seoul ostensibly for the closing ceremonies of the Asian Games. But it's the highest level visit of North Korean officials to South Korea in many years. And the visit has all kinds of trappings and sort of North Korean bodyguards, the private plane, the whole deal.

And so there's been an enormous amount of attention lavished on the idea of like, well, what does this mean? And the New Focus International people are... Really hung up on the fact that Hwang is playing such a central role, right? So they see that as coming at the expense of Kim Jong-un. Other people think like, well, no, it would be very unusual for Hwang to leave China.

North Korea if there was a lot of turmoil or instability. And I just kind of take a sit back and see attitude toward this. I don't know what you think, Andrea, but I'm always puzzled because on the one hand, I think it would be crazy for Hwang to leave North Korea if there was turmoil. But it was absolutely crazy for Zhao Ziyang to leave Beijing during the Tiananmen protests in 1989 because the minute he did that, there in fact was a coup against Zhao Ziyang, right?

The leadership pushed him aside and replaced him. And so on the one hand, it would be nuts for Huang to be in Seoul if there was a lot of turmoil. But I can't discount people doing like totally nutty stuff.

Andrea 12:09

Yeah, I mean, I think the three showing up again is not that entirely surprising because I read it as part of this broader diplomatic campaign that they have going at the moment. I mean, the North Koreans have said and have started at least discussing their human rights record by putting out a counter narrative. They're raising it at the UN, which is quite out of the ordinary.

You know, and now we have a high level visit to Seoul where there's agreement on a new round of talks. It seems like this is part of a broader, higher level and slightly more unusual diplomatic campaign than the one we've seen in the past, but neither, nevertheless, it, it is a diplomatic campaign and charm offensive in the way that the DPRK has gone in those, those cycles before.

And I actually think that the bodyguard thing Sorry, it's just really interesting because it comes, I think, too closely on the backs of some security lapses at the White House. And actually, the DPRK has made public commentary about who's responsible for security lapses at the White House. So it's quite interesting that they made sure that they had Secret Service-like accompaniment for their high-level delegation to Seoul.

Aaron 13:26

Well, the real question I – that's a fantastic – So try to embarrass the United States by having more Secret Service on their charm offensive. That's awesome.

Jeffrey 13:36

I also like the idea. Maybe they'll run somebody else into the White House.

Aaron 13:39

Just hope they don't jump the fence.

Jeffrey 13:43

I mean one of the questions that I have was so do you see this as a typical charm offensive that is – Within the confines of past charm offensives and maybe only a little different just because things are never exactly the same? Or do you see the charm offensive in terms of discussing things like the human rights record, at least having a counter narrative on this argument?

Do you see that as representing a... I don't want to call it a new thinking because that implies something very specific in an old Soviet context. But is it a new generation of leadership or is it just a different way of tackling problems? Is it a purely tactical adjustment or do you see an evolution in at least the kind of modernity in the way that they think about interacting with the world?

Andrea 14:36

So I had a really interesting conversation with Adam Cathcart about this subject, and he has a view on this that I agree with entirely. So Adam, if you're listening at some stage, apologies for shamelessly stealing your point. But he suggests that actually a lot of what's going on right now is an effort by the DPRK to justify and in fact strengthen its basic position, so its stance on human rights and Its stance on the nuclear program, etc.

That hasn't changed, but the diplomatic charm offensive, if you will, and perhaps the changing in tactic in that charm offensive is actually just meant to strengthen their existing position and their case. And I would argue, sort of elaborating on that, that being willing to talk about their human rights record at the UN or sending a high-level delegation to A peaceful sporting event and trying then over lunch to strike up a new round of talks with the South is a way of bringing perceived legitimacy to the DPRK's existing position.

So we're not seeing a change in policy, but perhaps an effort to legitimize that existing policy by saying, hey, we entertained your views at the UN, et cetera, and we want to have a conversation about this. But ultimately, we're not going to change what we're doing.

Jeffrey 16:04

That makes the wonk in me very, very happy because it means I'm still going to get my missile tests.

Aaron 16:10

More open source and more videos of missile tests to look at.

Jeffrey 16:14

I'd be so sad if they became responsible.

Andrea 16:18

But they're trying to show that they're responsible. They're responsible first, but others force them to do these things. You see nuclear tests and missile tests.

Jeffrey 16:28

Yeah, that's fine. I just like the data. It's been a banner year for those kinds of things. I mean, they're really up to some stuff.

Aaron 16:39

Yeah, well, let's talk about that now. Enough with where Kim Jong-un is. Let's go back into the real wonky stuff. What kind of missiles are they testing?

Jeffrey 16:45

Well, we don't know where he is, right?

Aaron 16:47

But they're still testing, correct?

Jeffrey 16:50

Yeah, yeah. This has been a banner year for long-range missile tests. The pace at which they are testing is totally unprecedented. It's a little bit hard to count them all up because there have been so many tests done. But I think there have been more long range, you know, if you count SCUDs, NODONGs, kind of all the interesting stuff, things that aren't artillery rockets.

If you add them all up, I think there have been more of those tests this year than certainly any year I know. And, you know, maybe maybe than ever. I mean, it's like is a lot of missile tests.

Andrea 17:35

I think the last count I saw said that there were 111 projectiles. So that includes other stuff on the conventional side as well, not just scuds.

Jeffrey 17:44

Yeah, I was trying... I went through and started to count them up. And it just, you know, it was not worth keeping up with it. But, you know, it's like... It's easily several, you know, maybe 24, maybe 36 SCUDs and no-dongs and maybe these extended range SS21s, which is a whole new ball of wax.

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Aaron 19:26

There's talk about these extended range SS-21s as well as this MLRS system. I think you, Jeffrey, and perhaps you, Andrea, as well, were following an open source.

Andrea 19:38

Jeff, do you want to start? You've got theories, I think, on SS-21s.

Jeffrey 19:42

I always have theories. If you follow the blog, what happened is as the North Koreans tested Scuds and Nodongs, they started testing things in this kind of funny range of kind of, you know, 100, 180, 190, 200 kilometers. And the... The South Korean military said all of these events were tests of increasingly longer range artillery rockets. And artillery rockets are usually unguided.

And so although they look a lot like missiles, with an artillery rocket, you really care about a barrage of fire rather than pinpoint accuracy. The North Koreans, however, had been saying this totally different thing, which is for some subset of these tests, They kept talking about how these were ultra-precision guided missiles. And, you know, it's kind of hard to get an artillery rocket up to about 200 kilometers.

You can do it. It's certainly not impossible. But that really starts to blur the line, especially if you add guidance with a missile. And looking at some of the Pictures they put out of one event, the plume, to me, just really looked like an SS-21, which is this old Soviet short-range solid-fueled missile that they sold to the Syrians that the Syrians sold to the North Koreans.

And there had been like a long kind of interest in the fact that the North Koreans might be taking this missile and reverse engineering it and upgrading it.

Aaron 21:16

And then they did another... You mean they sold it to the Iranians? It was DPRK, Syria, Iran.

Jeffrey 21:23

Sorry, sorry. It was Soviet Union sold to Syria. Syria sold to the North Korean. Got it. And now the North Koreans are reverse engineering. Yeah, no, there are lots of these like arrangements. There's also, right, the Scuds came, Soviets to the Egyptians, to the North Koreans. But anyway, that's... All of this is like shrouded in mystery. But the point is, a couple of years ago, they parade an SS-21 down the street and...

This is a serious system. It's solid-fueled, so it's pretty mobile, and you don't have to fuel it up, and it's pretty accurate. What we've often thought is that maybe the North Koreans will do with the SS-21 what they did with the Scud, which is that they'll reverse-engineer it, and they'll make progressively larger, better versions. And so now they have released a picture of this 220 kilometer test, which is a really long range for an SS 21, but it looks a lot like an SS 21 to me.

And so it raises the question of, in addition to all the scuds and the no dongs that they've been testing, you know, are they testing a long range artillery system? Are they testing a long range precision guided missile with solid fuel or are they testing both? Right. And so It's kind of an interesting time because it's a pretty threatening system in a lot of ways.

Andrea 22:37

I have a similar question actually about the scuds as to what the justification or motivation for testing so many scuds in the last few months was. And in my mind, there's two plausible explanations. One is that they've changed something on the scud. They've done a modification that they need to To test further, whether that's a range extension or perhaps guidance improvement or something along those lines.

Or perhaps, and I'd be interested in what you guys think, but perhaps it's possible that actually they're getting rid of old stock and shooting them off. I mean, I don't know what the shelf life of a Scud missile is. Jeff, I'm not sure if you know, but I would guess somewhere probably, what, in the 10 to 15 year range.

So it's not- Longer if you take care of them. Yeah, but it's not inconceivable that actually they could have produced a whole lot of scuds maybe for export during that phase where they were so active in their ballistic missile sales, kind of from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, and maybe didn't sell them or perhaps they had them as excess stock and now need to get rid of them.

So in the midst of testing a whole bunch of other stuff, they threw in a whole lot of scuds. But it seems curious that they would need to test a system that they're so familiar with.

Jeffrey 24:00

Well, so I have this, I think that's really plausible. And in some sense, it doesn't seem crazy to me. There are two things that I think about. One is early in this year, When the U.S. announced a series of exercises, the North Koreans made this announcement that if we were going to be conducting regular exercises on the peninsula, then we should be prepared for them to do exactly the same thing.

And so they announced they were going to really increase the tempo of live fire exercises. And then sure enough, they have. And there have been some exercises that are even perfect analogs to something we do. So we'll release a picture of an amphibious landing, and then they'll release a picture of an amphibious landing. So I think that there is at least partly political judgment about responding to what the U.S. is doing.

But I think this old stock idea, there is something to that in that I suspect that in the last couple of years, we've seen much better North Korean machine tools. And we've seen evidence of much better materials production. And so I wonder if as the North Koreans face fewer resource constraints and just get better at doing this, if they're not just delighted to produce and test things.

I think maybe back in the old days... It was a lot harder for them to churn out missiles. They couldn't churn them out like sausages, as Khrushchev famously threatened to do. And so testing was a high-risk event, carried a lot of risk of failure, consumed a lot of resources, and so maybe it wasn't worth doing. But maybe now, maybe now they just don't care.

You know, maybe now they can build lots and lots and lots of missiles and they're pretty sure they're going to work. And so then they're happy to fire them off.

Aaron 25:59

Maybe it's part of the charm offensive. No, I think it's a good point.

Jeffrey 26:05

It's only for me, Aaron. It's only intended to be charming for me.

Aaron 26:08

Yeah, for the arms control Wong community.

Jeffrey 26:11

Like, Jeffrey, we knew you really wanted to see the extended range SS-21.

Aaron 26:15

No, they're titillating us for future blog posts and more. I think they're just fans of the podcast and want to hear more.

Jeffrey 26:21

Aaron, there was a three-year period where Kim Jong-il did nothing but pose with metal tubes. And I am convinced to this day that he was trolling us. You know? He would go into the machine shop, he'd be like, ah, it's the metal tubes, let's go get the picture over there, you know, and kind of like gesture toward them and be like, ah, good luck measuring these guys.

Aaron 26:50

Yeah. But I think what people are ultimately concerned about, or in addition to the missiles, about what you put on top of longer-range missiles if you want to be a nuclear power. And perhaps... Some of their declaratory statements and some of their, let's say, their uneasy nuclear doctrine. I mean, I don't know much about it, to be honest with you.

Again, I don't follow the DPRK. A, what's the status of their nuclear program? How does it relate to that missile program? And do they have a nuclear doctrine?

Andrea 27:18

Oh, good question. I'll pick up on the nuclear doctrine point because it's been one that I've been looking at with quite a bit of interest in the last few months. And here I start sort of my frame for analysis, I think, in April 2013, when the DPRK passed a set of new nuclear laws. So it set up as part of that a space development agency that now we've seen has come out with a NASA-like logo.

They also made a statement as part of that, as part of these nuclear laws, Basically asserting that the DPRK was going to be responsible, a responsible nuclear user in certain ways. It said it's not going to allow materials to fall into the hands of non-state actors. It's going to ensure the safety and security of its nuclear facilities.

And now, more recently, there's been some interesting developments in the DPRK's concept of being part of this nuclear responsibility picture that seems to exist at the international level. And And recently, when I was in Pyongyang for the second time in June, and I've heard this twice, the DPRK seems to be insisting that it has a no first use policy, which is very strange and gets framed in various ways.

But I've heard both. The DPRK has a no first use policy, quote unquote, like China. And the DPRK would never or vows never to use nuclear weapons first. So that's quite an interesting, I would say, departure in DPRK declaratory policy that I don't think has any operational and practical relevance for the DPRK nuclear force, but fits in my mind into this picture of nuclear responsibility that they seem to have been promoting since about April 2013.

Aaron 29:17

Is there a model there? I mean, Jeffrey, what do you think about that? Like other, like, let's say, Nuclear states that fall outside the NPT or something like that try to model themselves as being responsible nuclear powers as they move along, as their program settles into de facto and then the international community just basically has to deal with it.

Do you think the North Koreans could be doing that?

Jeffrey 29:40

Well, I don't know. I mean, I certainly – I mean, I find Andrea's argument convincing, right? I mean, that's – It's a really interesting thing that they're going out and doing that. But I do wonder about how, maybe I would say how successful that's likely to be. Because I just, you know, maybe I'm, maybe I'm alone in this.

Am I the only one who thinks that they're not going to stop testing and that they're not going to stop at simple fission devices? Like, I think they're going to keep going. And, you know, if you're going to test a bunch of nuclear weapons, like eventually you miniaturize a fission device and, and, You know, there's not really that much more to do unless you're interested in thermonuclear weapons.

And so I have this... You know, I look at their program, and, you know, you asked about a model, Aaron, and every nuclear weapons program I've ever seen gets dragged down the technical momentum path, right, where they go to sort of bigger and better. And so I wonder, you know, they've kind of got this, oh, well, you know, no first use policy, it's going to be very small, but...

You know, it was like, you know, on the second test, the Indians were like, the second test series, they're like, oh, we're going to test a thermonuclear bomb, you know? So I wonder how sustainable it is given what they're likely to do. I don't know. Is that a strange way to look at that?

Aaron 31:05

No, we're looking for the North Korean Edward Teller. Oh, goodness.

Jeffrey 31:10

Well, they've already said that they're doing fusion research, right? So like, well, what's that for? Anyway. Okay.

Andrea 31:16

No, it seems completely reasonable to suggest that they're going to keep doing missile and nuclear tests. I mean, in the spring, we had continued activity at a nuclear test site, which, though it didn't materialize in a short-term nuclear test, suggests that that site is still being maintained and you don't maintain a nuclear test site unless you want to at least keep the possibility of nuclear testing open.

And equally, we've seen a recent completion of upgrading work at one of the The satellite launch facilities. And you don't do that unless you intend on continuing to test long range space launch vehicles. So I agree fully that they're probably likely to continue down that road. And actually the nuclear responsibility and doctrine supports that conclusion. I think because implicitly what they're saying is that we have a nuclear arsenal.

It is usable. But we will use it responsibly because we, like other nuclear powers, are responsible nuclear actors. So the implicit suggestion there is that the DPRK nuclear program is not going away. That's just my take on it.

Jeffrey 32:26

I want to ask you about that. Do you think that this actually paves the way for further development in the sense that it creates a kind of narrative that will justify future tests?

Andrea 32:42

Yeah, I think it partly does. And that complemented with the narrative that they are being pushed into their nuclear development. So, you know, the external security situation is so terrible that they have no choice but to continue development on this road so that they have a fully functioning nuclear deterrent. And however, unlike those external aggressors, the evil American imperialist pigs, They are going to be more responsible with their nuclear weapons and not brandish them as a stick to use against others.

And they will only use them if they're used against the DPRK first. So I think it supports the idea that actually they're going to continue to move down the path of nuclear and missile development. And this is merely sort of the cosmetic dressing for why that is happening.

Aaron 33:38

Why wouldn't they do the age-old trick of Arab dictators in my neck of the woods where they take U.S. precedent, slightly warp it around, then use it to justify their actions? So we tested to get a safe and secure arsenal. We justify our life extension programs on making sure that our programs are safe while still remaining usable.

Why wouldn't the DPRK say exactly the same thing while also saying, well, we won't use them unless provoked?

Andrea 34:07

I think they do. It was funny because I was reading a British Ministry of Defense publication the other day on doctrine. And one of the first points in the paper is that the United Kingdom needs to have a secure external environment. So it needs to improve its security in order to facilitate prosperity. And It was worded in a way that was actually quite like the DPRK policy, which is that you need to be secure in order that you can focus on your internal development.

And the DPRK's line is actually relatively in line with Western policy in this respect. And you see actually some echoes of, of DPRK nuclear policy in Western nuclear policy or, or the other way around actually where The way that we have framed things gets echoed by the DPRK.

Jeffrey 35:03

Yeah. Aaron, in 2010, after the U S released its nuclear posture review, the DPRK released their own nuclear posture review. No, they really did. It was called, it was called the Korean peninsula on the nuclear issue. And one of the things that had happened is we had a bunch of declaratory policy debates and We had this big debate about the Warsaw Pact exclusion, which was we had this policy of not using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states, as long as they weren't attacking us in alliance with a state with nuclear weapons.

And we changed that. And so the DPRK releases their own with that language in it. So they said the mission of the nuclear armed forces of the DPRK is to deter and repulse aggression and attack on the country and the nation. Until nuclear weapons are eliminated from the peninsula and the rest of the world, the DPRK has invariably maintained the policy not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states or threaten them with nukes as long as they do not join nuclear weapon states in invading or attacking it, right?

So it was exactly the same. So they plagiarized? Yeah, yeah. But what we loved about this was, you know, the big debate on the US side Was whether or not the US would adopt a policy of saying that the sole purpose of our nuclear forces was to deter nuclear attacks, right? The sole purpose debate. We started calling the DPRK policy sole purpose, as in, you know, Seoul, the capital of Korea.

That's good.

Andrea 36:32

On that note, I think it's important to say, actually, that When I was discussing with DPRK officials about this no first use policy, and they insisted that it was like China. It, in fact, when you dug down into it, wasn't. That the way they had framed it was not only would they be able to consider nuclear use if a nuclear weapon had been used on the DPRK first, but also if a nuclear threat had been put against the DPRK first.

Which, of course, as we know, the DPRK insists happens immediately. Basically every day. So that's, I think, a point to note that it's not like no first use policies as other countries have described them. It's the DPRK's own version.

Aaron 37:19

Well, I think the DPRK is rather unique in many respects, and perhaps its nuclear doctrine will be as well. That's not really a positive note, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey 37:30

No, I know, but you know, it's not a positive note, but it's such a great place to end. So I think we should call it.

Aaron 37:37

Right, something to think about. So thank you, Andrea, for coming on and thanks everybody for listening. Thanks a lot for having me. Our pleasure.

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Thanks a lot, everybody.