 We're back for the 4 o'clock block. I'm Jay Fidel here, and given Friday we have a special show today with Pat Border, who is a citizen diplomat, who has experted himself, may I use that term? Sure. With North Korea. And it's very important we check in with him, given all the things that have happened in North Korea and with North Korea, it is a big news item, almost as big as the president these days. And we are threatened by it. We wonder what will happen over the Western horizon. Japan wonders. South Korea certainly wonders. And now we have Daenu-mang, possibly Daenu-mang. But now when we last spoke, if you remember, Pat, we did speak about this a couple times before, you said that you didn't think that Kim Jong-un really had a button. Does he or does he not have a button now? There's a lot more evidence that he does. And the reason I say that is because within the past several months, they have been launching bombs, they've been launching missiles, rockets into outer space, which can go 6, 7, 800 miles above the atmosphere, and that is a first. So that's one of the components of the bomb. The other is, that's a delivery system. The other is, do they have either an atomic or a hydrogen bomb? And that would be judged from the tremors that reach South Korea when they do underground testing. So for the first time, it appears that they may have a hydrogen bomb, which is something that was blown at Nagasaki and is more powerful than the atomic bomb. Now whether they can put those two elements together is a different question, but they're a lot closer than they were eight months ago. We don't know exactly. I must say that with all the comments by federal agencies, they'll never be able to do it. Every time they say they'll never be able to do it, North Korea advanced, and now here we are, it's like, is there a failure of intelligence here? How come we didn't know, how come we denied this until now? We have had about four presidential administrations back to the senior Bush that put it on the back burner and all the way through to a junior Bush and Obama. Clinton tried to deal with them financially and that didn't work out. So the answer to your question is, we haven't put enough attention into it up to now, so we've essentially dumped it in Trump's lap. Yeah, well, let's talk about Trump for a minute because that's really part and parcel. I mean, people rapidly losing confidence in him because of his style and substance, I might add. But so he gets into these ridiculous fights with Kim Jong-un, which if you understand anything about the culture in Asia, not only North Korea, you know, talk about face, talk about challenging somebody and then you wind up with an irrational reaction. He's playing with fire. He's playing with nuclear fire when he does that. Do you think that, you know, this is a silly question, I think, do you think that there's a method about his madness, about Trump's madness? Do you think that potentially, I mean, does he have a plan? Is there a valid strategy in what he's doing? Could it be that he has a method? I am not a fan of Trump's, so I'm not here to defend him. He may very well have a method. And the ongoing question from moment to moment is, is it working? 25 to 30 years ago, the North Koreans were announcing that they would make a lake of fire out of Seoul. So it's not as if they're responding initially for the first time to tough talk. And it's not the first time that the United States has engaged in tough talk on the nuclear front. Although the Trump method is more guttural than we have before. Let's remember back, just for a moment, to 1962, to the Cuban Missile Crisis. And John Kennedy's statement in his televised address, I'm going to paraphrase because I don't have the quote, but he said it shall be the policy of this country to regard any attack launched from Cuba upon any country in our hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union upon the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. That's fighting words. That's bold. And at the time, after we got over the preliminary shock, it was taken to be genius as it should have been because Kennedy elevated the situation to a genuine emergency that was worldwide in proportion. So when Trump responds in kind by saying, I've got a button, too, not a very nuanced statement, not a very well-delivered statement, but not altogether different from the statement John Kennedy made back in October of 1962. They certainly, the Koreans certainly have not gotten a similar statement from the United States from the time of Bush senior through Obama. We have not addressed the North Koreans in that bold statement. We haven't talked to them directly. We talked about them, right? But we haven't actually asserted statements in their face this way. You're right. Throughout this entire period, one of the not very ingenious approaches of the United States has been to talk about six-party talks in which we would engage along with Japan and Russia and South Korea and China. And yeah, those up, and that's the six-party talks. What we have done more earlier, now that we're looking at it, the answer is yes. And not only is it yes, but it's probably obviously yes. But that's not the approach. And the big question is, what is earlier for this context? Because earlier could have been a long time ago, right? 1980s. 1980s. Then during that period of time, the late 80s was a period of time when Bush senior came into the White House. Certainly, well, Bill Clinton tried, and it was worth a try one time, to deal with the nuclear issue by trading heavy water reactors with light water reactors, which don't produce the kind of fissionable material from which a bomb could be made. Just the power plants, then. Well, it was a generation of energy for North Koreans. In fact, we agreed to set up power plants, non-nuclear, and to provide them with fuel oil. That was never done. Well, we haven't paid attention to them. And meanwhile, it's festered and passed on from generation to generation. And somehow, these generations of leaders have gotten the public worked up, I don't ask you about that. But first, what is the effect of this tough talk on Kim Jong-un? Is he really affected by these insults, or does he know he's just playing a game? The answer is that the Koreans know they're just playing a game, but they're getting pushback for the first time in over 20 years. Trump isn't very elegant about the way he pushes back, as we know from the very many recent pronouncements which he's made, and then later either denied or tried to put in a weird context of one form or another. But this is the first time that they've gotten a sort of sojourn old man kind of kickback from America when Trump says we have a bigger button. In some form or another, probably a more restrained one, that's a message that's worth repeating. This entire, the entire family of nations that have a bomb, and it includes some pretty weird people, have an understanding which we call mutually assured destruction. And basically that means that any country, United States included, if you're prepared to push a button, there's somebody out there that's prepared to push a button that lands a bomb on your land. And it's that mutually assured destruction which stays the hand of every country in the world. Well, unless the leader is irrational, then maybe not. And so the question I put to you is, Kim Jong-un irrational or rational? I would say he's rational. There is a method in his madness, and he's not the first North Korean leader. In fact, he's the third Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, to make similar statements and to go through what is really brinksmanship we've practiced. So if that's so mutually assured destruction, that's so we don't have to worry. The U.S. does not have to worry. Hawaii doesn't have to worry about being attacked. Is that right? I would say to a degree that's true, but we're tempting the fates, as we always have. From the time the first bombs were produced, we were tempting the fates. And now we have a larger community of nations that are tempting the fates. But if... Well, it takes us a mistake, a bad hair day. It could be. In fact, one of the things Kennedy talked about was the possibility of a mistake causing a nuclear war. He was talking about Barbara Tuckman's book, The Guns of October. Guns of August. The Guns of August. Thank you. And the idea was that all of these interlocking agreements that we had, and one of my talk about treaties with nations, so that if one nation goes to war, then it triggers another... It's all programming. ...triggers another treaty obligation, which triggers another one. And you couldn't escape the war. You know, all of Europe is at war, and World War I, even though no one intended that, at the outset, they felt obligated to proceed because they had a treaty obligation with another country. It could happen again. Now, you've been to North Korea a number of times. You've come on this program, talked about it a number of times. And you've been sympathetic with the people, the people of North Korea. You like them. I do. And I just wonder, you know, based on those trips and the engagement you've had with those people, how do they feel about this war of wars? How do they feel about this breaksmanship? Excellent, excellent question on both sides of the dividing line. In August, I took my final trip in conformance with U.S. law. You know, the Congress passed a law which Trump reluctantly signed, which put North Korea off limits to Americans. That is an American law, and I have to obey it. You can't go anymore. I can't go anymore unless and until that statute is allowed to lapse. It has to be renewed every year, but if it's allowed to lapse, I could go back again. The reason that I went this time was because I wanted, while it was still lawful to do so, to see the cultural icon observed by both of the Koreas, which is Mt. Paektu. Mt. Paektu is nothing less, although it's portrayed as a very strong cultural site. It is nothing less than an active volcano, and once I saw it, that was the only time I needed to see it. I don't have to go back. It's a big, ugly... You think you'll ever have a chance to go back? To somewhere in North Korea to an appropriate place? Yes. And I have people there who, it's surprising to me that I count as friends. On this trip, as with every trip we've taken, I went down to the DMZ and a small bus. And when I got to the... There's a midway point where they have a coffee break stop. When I got there, I saw immediately my tour guide for my 2013 tour, and he recognized me just as fast. We had a nice conversation for about 10 minutes before my bus pulled out, and I said, how's your son? How old is he now? And he pulled out their version of an iPhone and showed me the photo of his now 10-year-old son. He was startled that I remembered, and we both recognized each other instantly. It was a double take from the outset. We had a nice conversation, and I count him, and really about a half a dozen other of the people who have taken me on tours. They recognize us. I'll show you the human connection. There must be something I'm doing which makes them recognize me in a favorable light. You are a memorable person, Pat. And we're going to dwell on that for one minute during a break and see if you agree or disagree with me about that. We'll come back, and after this break, Pat, I want to talk to you about the elephant in the room, the thing we haven't touched on yet, and that is the Olympics, we'll be right back. Thank you. I'm going to the game, and it's going to be great, early arrival for a little tailgate. I usually drink, but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver, and that's okay. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line, keeps them from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day. I'm the guy you want to be, I'm the guy saving money, I'm the guy that says, let's go. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii, not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea, a law. Okay, we're back, we're live with Pat Border, citizen, journalist and diplomat who visits North Korea and opines about it and has a deep understanding and sympathy for the people in North Korea. So here we are and things are tense, you'll have to agree with me, they're pretty tense, there's tense they've been since I've been watching this issue. Nails have been bitten. Nails have been bitten, a lot of people are talking about it, even worrying about it. A lot of it has to do with confidence not only in North Korea but also in this administration in the United States. So you take two guys who yell at each other and you don't know what the result is going to be, if they have a street fight, you could be a victim. So pretty tense and now all of a sudden out of nowhere we have a kind of mini-conciliation. Why? What happened? This is part of North Korea's MO, their modus operandi, how they work. They have been very successful with what I've called brinksmanship and it, brinksmanship means going right up to the edge and never going over into the abyss. We tried that during the beginning of the Eisenhower administration when as the only holder of the bomb we sort of let it be known informally in circles that if we didn't get our way, well, you just don't know. Then of course in the early 50s the Russians got both the atomic and hydrogen bomb courtesy of our spies and then it became a different game and so that receded somewhat. But from time to time we've played brinksmanship too so it gets them remarkable results every time in one of the now I'd say misguided operations that take South Korean presidents up to North Korea for what amounts to a glorified guided tour of Pyongyang. So Kim Dae-jung and Noh Tae-woo, the second president Noh, are very well versed in the wise and wherefores of the city of Pyongyang and it is a pretty city but they had little for that otherwise and they spent hundreds of millions of dollars for the privilege of going there. One of the telltale features of that diplomacy, that form of diplomacy is that the northern leaders never go south because they couldn't deal with the press and that's basically what goes on. But at the outset when the current president Moon Jae-in was thinking of going to North Korea and using that sunshine policy as they call it, the incidents that were happening made it clear that in order to be with the program he couldn't do that and so he's taken a tougher line which is not his natural politics and he and Trump are pretty much on the same page. How about the people in South Korea? The people in South Korea are very worried about the THAAD, that anti-missile system because they're afraid that there may be a fallout from it for which they would suffer and they're also concerned that it puts the U.S. in the position of being the decision maker because these anti-ballistic missile systems are run by Americans. They're afraid that they could be sucked into a war or a situation they don't want to be in so there is a considerable worse yet that the Americans could fail them, could fail to defend them at the critical moment. That's a possibility but that's not what they're worried about. I've been there for a couple of occasions. I was there last year during the impeachment process of the previous president and they were raising the issue then. There is a legitimate concern on the part of South Korea that the U.S. could in effect take over the strategy and they would find themselves simply the object of a war that's being run by the U.S., just like Vietnam. That's how Vietnam came about. It was run from the White House. So let's go back to the issue of how this Olympics peace initiative came up. Who started it and why did they start it and why was it interesting to the other side? Well, the South Koreans wanted maximum participation and they had the Seoul Olympics from 1988 as an example. Kim Il-sung tried to share in the Olympics by suggesting to the Seoul organizing committee that some of the sporting events could be held in the North. That spawned a sort of hyper technical discussion that led to the conclusion that Olympics are awarded to cities not countries. So Seoul had the Olympics so they had the right of refusal and they refused. Kim did not send sport participants in 1988 but nor did he do anything to disrupt the Olympics and they came off very well and that's what I would expect in Pyongchang. Getting the entire world angry at you by creating a dangerous incident that could injure people from all countries of the world is the last thing the North Koreans want to do. So the Pyongchang Olympics, the winter games of this year will come across without incident. So why they're participating? What's in it for them? They just came off a big argument with Trump. Still having an argument with Trump. They're in this cycle of brinksmanship which you threaten and cajole until you get mostly usually financial concessions and then there comes a period of peace and almost adulation between both sides and then after a while they go back to being belligerent again usually picking some pretext for doing it and then once they've done that you're back in the cycle again. It's a big circle. Yeah so if there really is a successful engagement here on the Olympics we have less to worry about because they're going to be focused on the Olympics rather than arguing with Trump. For now you have less to worry about and once again you know Trump has had his share of missteps but on this one this is a problem that was delivered right to his front door. I mean fair is fair and he finds himself in a situation that no prior president did and so I would say the fact that Trump is in the White House does not in my estimate increase the likelihood of something bad happening. Calling him rocket man and you know confronting him attacking him on a personal level that's not good diplomacy no matter how you cut it. Yes those finely nuanced statements don't add much to the body. I'm being a little sarcastic but it doesn't help any but it's it's the statements are in a way they're in kind. They're he's responding to them in a way that's not altogether different from the way that they respond. Yeah you know so that method is it's overdue but it could be a good deal more nuanced than Trump puts it but there's there isn't going to be any kind of a war and least of all because anything because of anything that Trump does. This is the first time in over decades when we push back to their forms of belligerence. So there's not going to be a war that's a good that's good news but what about a piece I mean is this going to lead to a true Daenamon? Is this going to lead to open border it's going to lead to trade or the resumption of some of the economic ties that used to exist between South Korea and North Korea which you and I have spoken about on the show. Some of those ties the answer to your question is some of those ties are beginning to be relaxed again the up at the border the factories that are owned by South Koreans and worked by North Korean labor that'll begin again and part of it will be just simply because it's a form of income to the North Korean government because all the all the paychecks that are paid nominally to North Koreans are going to the government and some of the some of the incentives are disincentives that we're about to undertake are going to put some teeth into sanctions which we always thought occurred but they didn't. The coal has always been those deals have always been struck by the banks the Chinese banks in Dandong right across the border from Korea which means we thought we've always thought over this period of time that coal would not be sold by the North Koreans to anyone and that was a false assumption. So basically what we're dealing with is when people say sanctions don't work the logical response to that is well let's try them first because if the Chinese are cheating as they do routinely then we're not applying sanctions at all. So you know what so where does it go in terms of I don't know the nuclear initiative that he's adopted is this going to slow him down is it part of this Olympics initiative a reduction of the nuclear effort? Very likely not the cooperation that the Olympics will have no effect exactly where North Korea is getting the materials to make a bomb and to make it deliver deliverable we don't know but we do know from just world history that any country that wants a bomb badly enough will not be denied. Let's not forget that at the time our forces were going into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden Pakistan is one of the countries with a bomb okay so and and we are noting more recently that their behavior is a good deal more duplicitous than we originally thought. Now that Prime Minister Modi in India is working more toward a commercial mercantile economy we're beginning to tilt more in the direction of India and more than a little bit away from Pakistan and you know I'm not one and I don't think you are either who would posit a great deal of faith in Pakistan as an ally they're duplicitous they hid Osama bin Laden from us for years. Let's go back and we only have time for one more question and that is when the Olympics are over when everything settles down and whatever happens happens hopefully without incident where are we going to be? I mean we'll be back to a war of words or worse are we going to be at an age of enlightenment what's going to happen? Don't count on ages of enlightenment they don't happen naturally you're going to be back to arms race and the Koreans the North Koreans will be closer the counterbalance against them sadly is going to end up being nuclear power nuclear bombs in South Korea we use in the 1980s during the period of time and in 70s when I was stationed in South Korea we did have nukes on the Korean Peninsula under U.S. control but the Korean Peninsula was nuclearized and that may have to happen again as a counterbalance it's this it's the it's the balance of terror. It's tragic you know I heard recently that that the North Koreans had agreed to let families continue resume meeting families South Korean families coming to meet North Korean families however small a trickle that may be but you know the reality is that this is a great tragedy for the Korean people the Korean culture and it's from what you say it sounds like it's not gonna it's not gonna resolve anytime soon it's gonna remain a hot spot in the world in a rogue nation. I don't think that family reunification is ever going to be as great as it once was because families are dying out right the people the brothers and sisters who knew each other and who were tragically separated in the 1950s by the war are gone now and their children and grandchildren are dealing with the matter but it's much more it's abstract it's you know there's no one to miss if you've never met your cousin in the first place right and I'll give you a tragic separation for us Pat we're about done we run out of time. I could have gone three or four times as long as this and been overjoyed the entire time. Pat Porter citizen diplomat thank you so much. Thanks Jay.