 Give Susanna a chance to get up here. All right, I believe that you are fortunate enough to have another quiz. We can't really see it too well, but this is the North Korea panel, so no surprises. This is the North Korea quiz. I think by now you all know how to join the polling, but I will read the questions. I cannot see it, so I'm just going to read the questions and hopefully they match what you're seeing. Over the next two years, how are the United States and North Korea most likely to interact? A, more of the same, talk talk, lots of talk, but no significant change. B, direct negotiations. C, US military strike in North Korea. Or D, North Korean military strike on US territory or ally. I can't see it well, but it looks like the answers are coming in pretty strongly for more of the same. 80-20. You're all so cynical. Did you come in cynical? Of course, I've just been the effect of the day. That's the optimistic answer. Oh, right, well, which is a perfect segue to this wonderful panel that I'm delighted to chair. I'm Sharon Burke. I'm a senior advisor at New America and a former defense official. So that's where I'm coming from. I'm going to give you a quick introduction to our panel, and then we're just going to jump right in. First, we have Dr. Sumi Terry, who is, let's get your official title now, senior fellow Korea chair at CSIS. But what you need to know, too, for the purposes of this panel is that Sumi spent a great deal of time as the ultimate insider. She was an intelligence analyst and then was a White House advisor in the National Security Council for Korea for both President Obama and for President George W. Bush. So she's been the consummate insider and is a recognized expert in our government on US government policy and on Korea. So we're very fortunate to have her here today. Next to her, we have Suki Kim, who is, let's see. Well, let's see what your official, OK, well, that's what I was going to say. She's a New York Times bestselling writer who wrote a book called Without You There Is No Us, which was from her time as an undercover reporter in North Korea, which no one has ever done before. She was there for a year, right? Six months. Six months. Felt like a year, at least, I'm sure. For six months, totally undercover as a teacher. So she has a point of view that really is unusual. And we're lucky to have her here today. She's an award-winning writer, a contributing editor, editor to New Republic. Also has a fiction book that's award-winning. So this is a very versatile reporter, a very different point of view. And then we have our own Suzanne de Maggio, who is a senior fellow at New America and directs several different projects. And we talk a lot about warfighters. And we have a whole system in the Department of Defense for recognizing excellence. But we don't talk a whole lot about peace builders. And the people who are out there waging peace, and what kind of medals do they get? But if we did, this would be someone who would be up on a pedestal. Suzanne is setting the pace on a quiet world of track 2 diplomacy with Iran, with North Korea, with China, with Myanmar. And if you don't know what track 2 is, it means where we can't have government to government official negotiations, Suzanne is leading the way on how we talk to these governments in these people, this polity, in a time when we don't have official dialogue. So she's an important person nationally and for New America. So glad to have her here. Let's dive right in. So I'm going to ask each of you a question. And I'd like us to get into a conversation. And then if the audience looks interested enough, we'll let them ask questions, too. So first, Sumi. Yes. North Korea, tell me how it looks to the United States. War in North Korea, what we should expect? How does it look to us, to our government? Well, to our government, obviously, North Korea is seen as a major threat. You've seen with all the plastic missile tests last year. I mean, since Kim Jong-un came into power, really, 90 missile tests, four nuclear tests, Hydro-Jabam nuclear tests, three ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile tests last year. So it was looking like increasingly that North Korea was on its way to completing its nuclear program, perfecting its nuclear arsenal, which means, of course, having the capability to attack mainland United States with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. Mike Pompeo, then CIA director now, New Secretary of State, said just a couple of weeks ago that North Korea, from an intelligence perspective, was within months away from having this capability. Now, that timeline is disputed. We know other folks who might say, no, no, they need a longer timeline before they can put it all together. Regardless, North Korea is really a few technical hoarders away. Really, one more step away, which is really showing a successful reentry capability, and then they will be able to have this capability. Now, so what? One can argue, OK, we live in nuclear China, if we said, oh, it's crazy, we live with nuclear China, we live with nuclear Russia, nuclear Pakistan. Is this something that is such an overwhelming threat that we cannot live with nuclear North Korea? And I think that was a debate that was continuing just before the summaries, like, can we live with nuclear North Korea? And from this administration's perspective, you can argue this. One of the reasons why some folks have argued that we cannot is because they believe that once North Korea has this capability, their actions in the future will not become passive, or they're said and they're going to just calm down. In fact, their actions can get more aggressive, which means more convinced, because it'll be more arrogant, more confident, so maybe more conventional attack, or cyber. There's going to be more problems. And that North Korea's intention is not only just passive, or it's not necessarily just deterrence against the United States, but North Korea has more aggressive design, such as trying to decouple US-South Korea alliance over the long term, to get the US forces off the Korean peninsula, to achieve unification on its own terms, and so on. So for these reasons, I think the argument was, and again, it's debated among Korea Watchers community and the policymaking community, but this is where the administration was headed. This was just not going to be acceptable. And just one more thing is proliferation risk, that one of the biggest unacceptable risk of North Korea is that as they mass produce, the risk goes off for proliferation. And that is a real risk, because North Korea is a serial proliferator. It has proliferated absolutely everything under the sun. That is a fact. Even just recently, you've seen reports about Syria-North Korea connection. We know North Korea helped build Syria a nuclear reactor, which the Israeli spawned, and they had a big time spread on that. But just even the chemical weapons assistance and so on. So for all of these reasons, we're seeing it as something that was unacceptable, and we're headed in this direction. Do we take them seriously as a threat? Are we concerned about their capabilities? Yes. But not necessarily, because we think North Korea is going to attack us. Even the biggest hawks in our administration, I don't necessarily think we, those people think that North Korea is here to attack us, or first attack us. Because I think almost everybody knows that Kim Jong-un is rational. He might be ruthless. We know that. I mean, we look at how he killed his half-brother and uncle, and so clearly he's a ruthless guy. But there's no sign that he's suicidal or he's ideological. He cares about region preservation. He cares about continuing his regime. He cares about living all his life and die of an old age, like a normal dictator. So in that sense, North Korea is not attacking us. But still, the risk is proliferation risk and the more aggressive actions in the future, like decoupling US South Korea alliance. OK. We'll come back to this, too, more about some of their other capabilities, because the focus has been on the nuclear side. We're not even talking cyber, chemical, biological. Right. Where they're good, they're good. Is that fair to say? We'll be here for an hour. Yeah. But where they're good, they're good. Is that fair to say? They're just not good at all that much. What do you mean they're good at some things? Certain capabilities that they have focused development and money on, they're pretty good at. Oh, yes. We just know they have a robust biological and chemical weapons program. We know that their cyber capabilities, obviously, even increasing. They're spending a lot of money and effort on expanding cyber capability. We know there are conventional military capabilities very high. Now we're adding to that. We have a nuclear missile program. So the US takes them seriously. They're not a top tier threat in the new national defense strategy. They're sort of the second tier. But still, we take them seriously. That's how we, as a polity, look at them. I wouldn't say that more popularly in the United States, population people think about North Korea a ton. Probably not. But certainly in our national security. It was a 2017 film to me like a ton last year. OK. But I'm just meaning the popular imagination. It's a different story in North Korea, though. How does North Korea look at the United States? And especially at the prospect of going to war? Well, the way North Korea works is that it's that idea of, because I think from our perspective, we think that societies are built on the concept of peace. Or that's the ultimate goal. I think that from my understanding of North Korea, the more and more and more I dug deeper into it, which by the time I lived there undercover, it had been a decade of multiple visits and also just trying to understand it from every perspective. From the factors to just all the other side. But it's actually not built on the concept of peace at all. It's founded on the Korean War, which America had cut up Korea, peninsula. So going from that, if actually America is the enemy that created this North Korea, really was one of the reasons that North Korea dies, the reason the great leader has been able to have this power, which just is a monopoly for three generations, is because actually of the American threat and the imminent war that is just always there. So and that myth is just in everything. You know, I think that we think somehow there's like a concept of war and there is life, but there are, the life is actually all about war. So even when I was living there as a, you know, my copper being an evangelical teacher with this young man, it was, so when I was living there, my students were 20 year old future leadership because every other school in North Korea in 2011 was shut and all the university students were sent to the construction field for an entire year except for 270 young men. So these were the young men I lived with. So they were the creme de la creme and we celebrated the Victory Day in July. Big celebration among us. So what is this Victory Day that made absolutely no sense obviously because what war are we talking about that North Korea won? But you know, because in their foundation myth, the original great leader Kim Il-sung won the war. Also the Korean war is won by Kim Il-sung which of course doesn't make sense since if they won, that there shouldn't be this 38th parallel in DMZ clearly. So it logically makes no sense, but because they celebrate that, Kim Il-sung was able to win this war but Americans are right on the other side and they're gonna attack us any second. So I think this concept of war, I mean, was, you know, I mean my students called the classroom platoon. There's a phrase for every, like the authors of the green room here, like where we are speakers are sitting, for example, that would be in North Korea called Jeonjujeon, which means actually a battlefield. And that phrase is because it's a workplace. So office, if you go to office, office would be called a battlefield, right? So I mean, it's in just their psychology. So I think that if this is how their regime has actually been built around the concept of war, you can always separate the two. And that war will be started by the United States. So it's directly linked to the foundation of that regime. And also in North Korea, regime is not just a government, regime is everything. Regime is the reason you exist. So, I mean, I think that we don't really think that way. I think you told me it really caught my attention that it's like a giant prison camp, the entire country. The entire country is also, I mean, it's, you know, because we think that there's, like, we might think about the president, but we also have other things to do in life that's not just politics. But there it's everything, which is why most young men other than the elites serve the mandatory service, army service of generally about 10 years. And that basically means every young man between the ages of 17 and 27 are in the army. So that's basically the nation who are not developing in any way just because they are all in an army. So when I was, you know, I wasn't ever really interviewing my students because their answers always come propaganda answers. But some things they'll say that'll slip. It was very clear. It depends, those 10 years are for non-elite, it's 10 years, but for elite, some of them still their brothers were in the army and those brothers never came home. Like maybe once every three years or something. So it's not just an army, it's also the brutality of army is everything. Like you don't go home and you don't develop other things like family relationships or friendship or romance. I mean, so what I'm trying to say is psychology is just entirely built around this concept of serving the great leader. And you also education is missing because you can't really have full education if you only teach about the great leader. So that's a cult system that is built around war. Okay, so Suzanne, you've been directly meeting with North Korean officials. How is it possible? I mean, I really wanted you to clean up because this doesn't sound bridgeable, but you've been having those conversations. Do you think it's possible to bridge this divide? It doesn't sound like it to me, but. I'm an optimist, so I have to think it's possible. And given the work I do, I have to think it's possible every day, but I am concerned. And in terms of the North Korea's mindset, it doesn't surprise me at all that they're ready to come to the table now. Yes, the Trump administration can tout maximum pressure, sanctions is what brought the North Koreans to the table, but that's only one piece of this puzzle. The reality is it's the advancements that Sue me outlined. The fact now that North Korea has a very sophisticated nuclear program and delivery system. And let's keep in mind, even though they may not have the reentry capability to hit us here in Washington today, they can hit Seoul at any moment. They can hit my relatives in Tokyo at any moment. So they have already achieved a deterrent capability. So that is really, in my estimation, the main reason why they're coming to the table now. They have this program. They see it as a deterrent. They see it as a way to keep the US from attacking it from regime change. And they also see it as, this is their peak negotiating position at this moment. And they know that. So they're very smart about that. And I would say the other reason they're coming to the table is due to the deaf diplomacy of President Moon and South Korea. They've brought us to this point where they are embarking on inter-Korean dialogue going forward. Now, when I think about the future, it does, I have a number of concerns, especially around the summit. And one of them is the expectations, I think, are quite different on both sides. And my hope is that there is a robust inter-agency process happening here in this town, preparing for the summit, which it looks like now is going to slip to June, which is probably a good thing. And my hope is that even before Kim Jong-un and Trump get to the table, that they have already worked out the points of agreement, the principles that they're going to follow. That's my hope. But at the other side of this is a real concern that I think President Trump is going to want to get two things out of this summit, two main things. The first one doesn't concern me too much. And that is he's gonna want to emerge from this summit saying, I achieved peak chemistry with Kim Jong-un. He wants to be able to say, yes, I think he wants to be able to say, I've achieved something that no other US president has been able to do. And that is to form a relationship with a North Korean dictator. The second thing is where we're gonna run into problems. And that's the expectations around denuclearization. I think he's gonna wanna come out of this meeting and be able to say, I got Kim Jong-un to agree to denuclearize. But as you've all read in the papers today, there are different conceptions of what denuclearization means. So how do we bridge that gap? That's what concerns me. The other thing is I'm worried that President Trump will come to the table with a deal and offer saying, this is it, you denuclearize and in return you get this and that's it. Not much of a diplomatic process in other words. So I give the administration and the president credit for stepping back from the brink of war because let's not mince words. The talk of military action was quite serious, especially a preemptive strike. And now to take a step back and choose a diplomatic path is noteworthy. But at the end of the day, unless there is a successful outcome and we can talk about how to measure success, my biggest concern is that the expectations aren't reached, diplomacy is deemed a failure. And then where are we left? I'm afraid we'll be left at a spot where the prospect for future diplomacy is badly damaged, perhaps even in an irreversible way. And then suddenly all those military options that have been deemed unviable suddenly look unavoidable. So there's a lot to manage here and given the musical chairs in our national security team, some of those chairs are switching today as a matter of fact. We also have to question whether the US has the capability to embark on what could be the diplomatic negotiations of this presidency. In your talks with North Koreans, you talked about expectations. Have you gotten a clear sense of what they want or what they think they want? There's mainly several things that they want. One, of course, is reduction in sanctions. Sanctions relief, I think, is the main thing that they want and what they need economically. So that's probably the driving force. The second thing is threat reduction from the US either in the sense of reaching a peace treaty with the US because technically, we are still at war with North Korea. We only have an armistice. Some adjustment in the military exercises which we're already seeing and maybe even some adjustment in troop levels on the peninsula. Beyond that, I think at a recent meeting, they threw a new one in which I hadn't heard before and that was they want President Trump to lower his rhetoric and stop his insulting tweets. So that's part of the hostile policy now according to North Koreans and that may be the toughest one too. Well, I was gonna say, especially you alluded to the ascendance of John Bolton who started his job today as a national security advisor. Now, he's made no secret that he favors military options for North Korea. So my next question for all three of you is so what does war look like on the peninsula? If diplomacy fails and we do go, I'd like to hear what you think war looks like. Should I go first? Sure. And feel free to jump in. Sure, it'll be catastrophic because I think the assumption under this bloody nose and even limited military strike was somehow this irrational Kim Jong-un that was not rational enough to live with in terms of nuclear North Korea gonna act rationally and not retaliate when there is this limited strike. I worked as CIA for a number of years working on this. I will tell you one thing that we do not know that we have no handle on is what Kim Jong-un will do or not do. So my response to that line of thinking is you might be right because the point is that there was a lot of provocations from North Korea in the past. They have never been met with proper response and we have to show that we're serious this time. I get that frustration except that we have no way of knowing to say that Kim Jong-un is not gonna retaliate. And once he retaliates, that will lead to escalation. I mean, congressional research service came out with a report that talks about the potential casualties, right? And even when Lindsey Graham said if thousands are going to die, they're going to die over there, I mean, which is very unfortunate statement to make. We're talking about allies after all, but we do let's, I wanna remind everybody, we do have 250,000, 230,000 Americans living in South Korea at any given time, another 100,000 in Japan, right? And how do we even evacuate these guys? Last time we had this kind of evacuation, this level, I mean, 60,000 in 1975 during the Vietnam War. And when you look at the Korean Prince of the East and South are under a missile threat, so you have to go through the West and through China. There's a million Chinese living in South Korea. So logistically, it just doesn't make sense. And obviously there will be catastrophic consequences. Just to reinforce your comment about it being sort of a black box, the slide that just popped up on the screen is the Korean Peninsula from the International Space Station. And that bright node you see in the lower part, like that looks like a synapse firing is Seoul. And then up north, all the bright lights, China, that's actually North Korea black in between. And it's again, I'm sure people have seen this kind of thing before, but it's never, it's good to remember what we're talking about. It is literally a black box. And by the way, just since you've been looking at a map, I mean, look at the proximity. There's 14,000 conventional artillery to zero-dead in Seoul within 60 seconds away from Seoul. Look at the distance there. So I think this is an assessment that almost everyone will give you, that it's to just contemplate military confrontation with North Korea is just catastrophic. It's not a viable option when we're not facing an imminent threat. And I know some people would argue with that, but I don't see that. So I agree with Sumi. I think in terms of the massive casualties, incredible destruction, enormous disruption to our global economy. I think Secretary Mattis put it best. He said it would be a level in terms of human suffering, a level that we haven't seen since 1953. So at this stage of the game, since we are not facing an imminent threat, my point of view is we have to pursue and exhaust every avenue of diplomacy to try to reach some sort of agreement or set of agreements where we can either learn to live with a nuclear North Korea that is under inspection and bound by other agreements or find a way to entice them to denuclearize. But I have to admit at this stage of the game, I think the latter option is not in the cards in the immediate future. And this is another area of disagreement that I see the Trump administration having, not only with North Koreans, but with Seoul. I think Seoul sees denuclearization as a process that will unfold over time. That time frame to be determined and I think the Bush administration probably sees it as something that has to happen tomorrow. The Trump administration, what did I say? Oh my goodness, projecting. Well, this does come in cycles. Suki, I wanna change the question a little bit. So. But I do actually, you know, that whole idea of human suffering. Yes. Of course, war on the peninsula, the Korean War from 53, and if you were to repeat now, of course it would be even more unfathomable. I do think that Kim Jong-un, what would he do? You know, regime is everything there, right? It's not, there's literally nothing but the regime in that nation in many sense. And the citizens are just tools to maintain that regime. So I think that any real efforts for regime change would only cause war. I don't really see, because the regime is just simply not going to withstand. I think that war as a possibility is a very real possibility if there is a real effort for overthrow that regime. I think that human suffering since 53, it's just, there's nothing to this degree. I don't think anything is comparable to what's been going on in North Korea. Let me ask you a pointed question along those lines, because you're talking about right now, status quo without any kind of military action, is peace possible with North Korea, with this regime? I think that what has been continuing there for its citizens, 25 million people in there, where literally none of them can really move, there's no movement. It's like people stuck in a rotten mortar just serving the great eater. So I'm not just talking about famine and gulag, I'm talking about the creme de la creme, I mean how little freedom they had. They weren't allowed to know anything, go anywhere, do anything. And I think that level was unfathomable to me. Even a decade of research in North Korea when I actually lived there, I hadn't expected. We always assumed the elites have it better. That is not what I found at all. So peace, how is that possible? I don't really understand how this kind of society is allowed to exist all this time. That's really, it's 70 some years. So it's almost like trying to separate, if I'm talking about Nazi Germany, concentration camps, you can't really separate that issue from human rights issue. It's just a politics and human rights is together in that issue. And it's kind of like that with North Korea. So what's been allowed to exist all this time is unthinkable. So what's there right now is not peace, although there is no war yet. So I do think it's kind of that in between place. Peace, I mean I don't really see any other way except somehow trying to have that country fall apart on its own from information. The way I look at it when I visit North Korea, I think of it as it is on perpetual war footing. Everyone there is thinking about the threat. And so one of the things that interests me most is if these negotiations proceed, if the summit happens and lets hope for the best, how will this regime that's been so focused on fighting the enemy, which is us, suddenly if we're less of an enemy, how does it justify the policies or the way it treats its people that Suki just outlined? I mean that seems like it's going to be a massive challenge and how will they address that? And I'd like you, also if we have questions, now is your moment, so raise your hand and the microphone is here and you're here, so you can go first, but I would like you to think about this too, about what does war look like. Please, energize yourself. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Tenor Colonel Scott Smitson from the Joint Staff and I thank you all for the panel today and the conference. Didn't get a chance to ask the last panel as to where they think the direction for the JCPOA will go and its impact in the region in the Middle East, but obviously this issue is going to be revisited before the summit with KGU and President Trump. And so I just would welcome the panel's thoughts as to how much the regime would be monitoring those discussions if they see those as linked or separate in their decision making. I think you just threw a softball right at Suzanne, so. I have to say every discussion I've had with the senior North Korean official, the JCPOA has come up. And just two weeks ago, my last meeting with an official, it was brought up and one of the things he said was if we reach an agreement with this administration, how can we be assured that they will follow through on it? Number one. And number two, that the next administration won't just turn it over. So this is something that they're watching very carefully and very closely. They also see how isolated the United States has become with this administration failing to certify the JCPOA and maybe by May 12th, pulling out of it altogether. They're very, I think it's been instructed to see how the Europeans and of course China and Russia have really come to the defense of the Iranians on this point and make no doubt about it. They're learning from that and they're watching it very carefully. My last point on this is this is such a missed opportunity by the Trump administration because when you look at the JCPOA, its major innovation is it's the most intrusive inspections regime ever negotiated. The verification system is beyond anything we've ever seen. So the administration should be going to the North Koreans and saying, look at this agreement. It's 160 pages long. This verification system is our gold standard now. This is the precedent has been set and this is what we're going to do from now on with every non-proliferation agreement we've reached. That's what this administration should be doing. But to be honest, even before this, I mean, North Koreans also bring up the change of the administration and scrapping the deal. They talk about the reframing work and the Bush administration came in. So they say, well, we get it. You're a democracy. You have changed the system. So we can change the administration and we cannot really trust you. But they cheated the Iranians didn't. Right, right. But my point is, but I think what the Trump administration actually is thinking, if I can speak, I should have missed. Feel free. But they might think that what they're trying to say, look North Korea, they think somehow it's the opposite. That they can somehow strengthen its hands. And even Iran deal is not clear enough. So we need a much, I mean, I'm just trying to explain the administration's perspective that this is like, they are not trying to go for, like they see some sort of as a sign of strength or a way to sort of really force North Korea. I was, can I just give you a, can you tell the North Koreans that if you have a deal with this team, there's no other administration that's gonna come in and scrap a deal that's gonna be made with. This is gonna be the most hawkish team that's gonna sign any deal. Just tell the North Koreans that nobody else is gonna come in and scrap the deal. Okay, done, right. Yes, in the back. Hi, T.S. Allen. I'm an Army officer, previously served in South Korea. In the aftermath of World War II, there was a great Japanese writer named Surumi Kizuko who argued that the sort of fundamental reason that Japan fought so differently from the other combatants in the Second World War and sort of it fought in a shock-centric way, rather than a fire-centric way, was that the Japanese people had experienced such intense socialization for death in the 1920s and 30s. A fascinating series of essays on sort of how culture can totally change the way that a nation fights and equips for war. One of the things that I'm very interested in when I think about North Korea is how, on the one hand, they seem to be very socialized for death. It seems that the way that North Koreans down in the K-Song Heights think about what a war with America would be like, there's a lot of sacrifice involved, but on the other hand, they're very technically focused military, they have a lot of artillery, they now have nuclear weapons. They certainly don't prepare for war like a nation that would fight that way. So I was wondering if you'd comment on sort of how the North Korean idea of sacrifice affects the way that they would fight? And also particularly, Ms. Kim, if you could comment a little bit on how maybe that's different in Pyongyang from down in the South Fork Horses, sort of how people see their relationship with the regime and their willingness to sacrifice it differently. Thank you. Suki, do you want to take that? Demon, their idea of sacrifice. Sacrifice, because you did talk about the culture of war. Does that include war at all costs? There was just nothing, but war as the reason they exist, war is the reason that the great leader is great. Other than that, there really was, and sacrifice, because there are ultimately tools for the great leader. So there's actually like a very popular song that my students sang all the time, how all of them are bullets in this giant machine for the great leader. But that's literally how they're, I mean, but the thing is, I think that when we think about that idea very sophisticated way, we could make all different analysis about it intellectually, but from their perspective, there's nothing else. I mean, this is what makes it a cult, right? Like if you actually think about philosophy or literature or mathematics or history, then you can start thinking about how logical such a sacrifice is or is this doable, but they actually don't have any other information about this, which is they sacrifice them for the great leader. And also another thing is the concept of thinking critically is a thing that's discouraged for not just this generation, for three generations in a row. So you need to be able to think about it proactively and also think about it in a more levels. And I think that capacity has also been wiped out very actively, aggressively in people. So from the regime, so and how other people that are in that I was able to glimpse in that time that I was living in was very different from actually so many defectors that are interviewed in all different regions. You know, I went to Mongolia, Thailand prisons or the Chinese border in hiding places in Seoul after they've escaped, a year after they escaped in all different stages to try to get an analysis of what the life in North Korea is like. But when I actually lived amongst them where they didn't have to turn around and tell me the story afterward, but actually when I was in the system with them and they didn't think that I was writing this stuff down as a reporter, then the reality of their psychology that I was glimpsing was devastating because there literally was nothing else. Then things that I was very mystified when I would do interviews with defectors for so many years kind of started making sense. You know, and that's all very, in a way, like a larger thoughts. The idea, the inability to tell the truth is another thing. Inability to make sense like logically. Timeline was also, and now I understood why because they're never told how specifically some things happened in what year, for example. Their newspaper, if you look at it, The No Dong Shin Moon, it'll never quite clearly say what date's event happened when. So I mean, it's just in every aspect of their culture, it makes you unable to think on your own. So are people in Pyongyang specifically different from the rest of North Korea? From my estimation, from researching this, I just think this is the way most of their society works except those by the Chinese border and some defectors that flee and those who have access to the outside world. What their stories are, I think, actually different from the way, because when you also think about it logically from our point of view, if it wasn't like that, this country could not be the way it is 75 years now. Like, it is right now the most isolated world, place in the world. We've got time for one more question. This gentleman right here. Would you, and just quickly, Sui, comment on that because you probably did a lot of looking at political military dynamics and, you know, was there any indications of unrest, of, you know, or was it politically coherent in the way that Suu Kyi is describing? Well, I mean, she's absolutely right. It's the most frighteningly ideologically indoctrinated, cultish place on the planet. So I think really hard for us to just have a perspective on what it's really like. I mean, North Koreans are the ones who get punished if their portraits of their dear leaders at home are not dusted off properly, right? If there's a fire, you need to go run and save the thing. So if North Korea is under attack in terms of the sacrifice mentality, I think that's what's been instilled in them since the moment you were born. And I'm sorry I faked you out. We don't actually have time for your question, but I would encourage you to talk to our panel later. Suzanne, just the last word, do you remain optimistic? You said it before. I'm cautiously optimistic. I mean, I think we have to be at this stage of the game because if diplomacy fails, and this is my cynicism raising its head, I'm just worried that those, and maybe I put Mr. Bolton in this group who have advocated for first strike so vehemently will then get the upper hand. So the stakes are actually higher than ever. Once you commit to entering into negotiation, the stakes are as high as they're going to get. So in that, I'll hand on a high note, if you'd like. I mean, I think politics aside, we all have to find a way, if we can, to contribute to trying to make this a success. I would say our Congress, everyone, and try to find a way to reach the solution that we need to get to, to avoid what we all described as a military catastrophe. Well, I think that's a high note. It is, but it was an empowering note. In other words, we're out there. We're out of time, but I want to thank this panel. It was a really interesting discussion. It was all women, in case you didn't notice that. Right? And thank you.