 Okay, we're back, we're live, I'm Jay Feidell, that first show of the week, Think Tech Hawaii. And we're going to do Think Tech Asia now, we're going to talk about Asia with a very honored guest, and that is Admiral Thomas Fargo, a retired Pacific commander, which is a very big job. Admiral Fargo, it's so nice to have you here. Great to be with you again, Jay. So yeah, so you have plenty of experience in dealing with Asia and your role as Pacific commander, and since, with all the things you do. And I'd like to talk to you today about Korea, North Korea. This is a big thing, and it is a big event that affects the United States' position in Asia-Pacific, don't you think? Well, absolutely. And of course, we've been working the North Korea issues for decades, really, throughout my whole time. And of course, over the last couple of weeks, there have been some dramatic happenings. I mean, you looked a couple of months ago, we were watching missiles fly over the top of Japan and nuclear detonations in North Korea, and now we've had some startling pronouncements. Yeah, I'll say. I mean, a complete reversal just a few days ago was like headline news from a point of view of arguments and name-calling and threatening, and unfortunately false alarms here about nuclear missiles, that'll get your blood boiling. Now we have Kim Jong-un saying, no, I'm going to hold up on that. I've already achieved my goal. I really wonder about the statement. I've already achieved my goal, so I'm not going to do any more of that. You should be happy. So, Querry, is he telling the truth when he says he's already achieved his goal? Well, it's hard to tell. Because in large measure, we don't believe that he has accomplished all that we would expect in terms of the testing regime, the kinds of things that would give you the confidence that you could actually have an operational nuclear weapon that you could move to the United States. So, we don't know the answer to that. But he may have achieved maybe what he believes are the domestic political efforts that he has to accomplish to move forward, and time will tell, but we don't have clarity in that issue right now. And do you believe him when he says he's really stopped whatever he was doing? Well, I think from external appearances, certainly he will. I mean, I do think he wants this summit very much. He appears to be trying to set the stage to ensure that it actually happens. Because as you know, there have been statements that are made that we're not going to go into these discussions unless certain preconditions are clearly met. So, yeah, I think from an external standpoint, he thinks that he is going to meet those requirements. But, you know, we don't have anybody in country, we don't have an inspection regime. Really hard to know. Yeah, well, we can, we have the technology to tell when he's doing a nuclear test, right? Sure. There's a seismic reading on that. Yeah, he makes a detonation. We'll know it. And we can, in many respects, measure the size and the nature of that detonation. Sure. And the same thing with testing a ballistic missile. We can see it coming. I mean, I assume we're out there somehow with whatever technology we have, watching everything. We certainly have the ability to monitor ballistic missile testing and also anything that occurs that would release into the atmosphere, the kinds of indicators that a nuclear weapon has been detonated. Yeah. Gee, there's so many issues here. And it's change of heart. What, you know, that's a remarkable change of heart from name calling to, okay, okay, I'll do it your way. Do you have any idea, any even speculation about why he changed on a dime that way? Well, it's hard to tell. As I said earlier, I think he wants this particular summit. He wants these negotiations. But what the end state is, and what his believed end state is, is really hard to tell. If you look at all the experts that have been talking over the last couple of weeks, they've fallen to kind of three camps, in my view. The first camp is the most optimistic one, is that Kim has actually decided that now is the time to exchange his nuclear weapons program for the kind of economic stimulus that the world can provide. In other words, he's going to forego this investment, which is considerable. And of course, there's limited investment in the North Korea can make and limit that investment, the nuclear program, and look to invest in the economy and its people with an awful lot of help from the United States, China, the other key people that have a clear stake in this. And of course, the other thing that's on the table is we're not on a peace treaty yet with North Korea. So that's the optimistic point of view that would say, and maybe there is a universal solution here where he gives up his nuclear program completely. We end up with providing economic support for him, and eventually we come to some agreement on a number of different issues on the Korean peninsula, of course, the Armistice, which is at the top of that list. In the middle is what I would call what he's really looking for is some sort of an arms control agreement, where he would limit his nuclear program. There would be an inspection regime. He would make various promises that we would have to be able to ascertain or valid. And we'd have to accept something less than the total denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. So there are folks that think there might be a position there. He might believe there's a position. And a matter of fact, my guess is that that's probably where he would like to see the outcome. And then on the other extreme is the view that, hey, we've been down this road again, this is just the next iteration of kind of the bait and switch. And we're going to go to the table. And when we really get down to brass tacks, he didn't want to give up this program, and this will be a futile effort. You have concern about that? Well, you have to have a concern about it. I mean, history is on the side of that argument, of course. And hopefully that's not the way this will end. But certainly if you looked at the cycle we've been on over the last 20 years, it leads you in that direction. Well, reviewing the events over the past couple of weeks, we should look and see how various events we've read in the paper affect us. For example, the director of the CIA goes out and plays apparently a diplomatic role and that had to have some effect because it happened in approximate time. What was that all about? Do you have a sense of that? Did that catch you by surprise? You did? Yes. Oh, yes. Me too. But I don't think it's an indication that there is some seriousness here, that maybe there's the potential to ease the current very serious situation on the Korean peninsula. So I think it caught everybody by surprise. Of course, they managed to pull it off without it being tipped in advance, which is tough to do in the current day and age. So I would have to think that's a positive event. Yeah. And it had to be done with the subsequent move of appointing Pompeo as Secretary of State. It had to be done with that in mind, don't you think? You know, I think Pompeo was the logical guy to go as the director of the CIA. If you look back into other events of this nature over time, the intelligence, not agreements, but relationships and access and back channels that we have, I think allow the director of the CIA or other folks in that community an opportunity to do that. So I can't tie it directly to the Secretary of State. I think it's more closely tied to his current role. Interesting. Another thing that happened, of course, is that the propaganda loudspeakers at the 38th Parallel, which had been operated by South Korea for how many years, were turned off. For the first time. I've heard those speakers, by the way, up close and personal. They're just running North Korea down and talking about the wonderful life in South Korea, asking people to desert, that sort of thing. Sure. But I think you're saying a lot of what might be considered relatively minor, but signaling initiatives of that nature that are happening kind of across the spectrum, certainly the South Koreans and the meetings that are being keyed up for their leadership, even discussions out in Japan about meetings. Yeah. We should take a look at your map, your chart, and sort of get a geographical view of this. So we have this chart, and it shows the various countries, among other things, it shows the various countries around North Korea. And I wonder if we could tick off the involvement or lack of involvement of each one of them. For example, you mentioned what we know South Korea is important in this, and certainly Japan is important in this, and China is a big question. Sure. I really like this slide, and we'll talk about it a little bit more in a few minutes, because it relates to China's strategy. But if you look at the right-hand side of the map, and you can see the Korean Peninsula and Japan and, of course, China to the west and north of Korea, China, obviously a big player, and very important to these discussions, you saw the visit that Kim Jong-un made to China. What about that old railway train he's got? The old railroad. It's really cute. This is before, for those purposes, but his first time out of the country, and once again, I think one of those events on the periphery of all this that is significant in terms of how you stage these potential talks and those communications, and obviously citizens like you and I don't know what was discussed in those conversations, but hopefully others do. So China is a huge player. They've got great equities. They've got great equities over the long term with respect to the Korean Peninsula. Obviously, they have a significant border on the north, and certainly any kind of resolution of the armistice of the relationship between the north and the south, and with the United States, China is more than just hugely interested. The unification would be a big problem for China, wouldn't it? Well, it could be. That puts the armistice, not the armistice, our alliance with the south on their border, and that's probably an uncomfortable position for China. So that's a factor, and any long term solution, they would certainly want to be a robust player. With respect to South Korea, I think their equities are very clear. They have taken the lead on this particular set of talks, and they have, as you can imagine, with North Korea on their border and chemical weapons that can range Seoul, they've got huge equities for their future. And even if it was an amicable unification of some nature, you can imagine the economic aspects of that, because they'd be dramatic. Japan, Japan has a huge equity in all this. Obviously North Korea can range, and they've had issues with the north over decades. You're well aware of all of them, from people being actually taking hostage in Japan and brought back to the north to the threat from the North Koreans to a long history. So that's a big player. And then the Russians, obviously, they've got a border also. They're concerned they were an original member of the Six-Party Talks during the last significant effort to resolve these difficulties, and they believe that they ought to be involved in some extent also. It's so interesting that you spoke about this in the Scheidler-Pammy program, Paul Chun annual lecture about 90 days ago, something like that. And we didn't realize how much would happen in that 90 days. No, as usual when you talk about North Korea, you're going to find out three weeks later you're precisely wrong, maybe not precisely wrong. But there's obviously new elements that are really dramatic this time. Well, I think the big one, we should look at all this as an assemblage of nations in Asia Pacific. But the big one, of course, is us. And right after this break, Admiral Fargo, I'd like to cover that with you. We'll be right back. Look forward to it. I'm Ethan Allen, host of a likable science on Think Tech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., I hope you'll join me for a likable science, where we'll dig into science, dig into the meat of science, dig into the joy and delight of science. We'll discover why science is indeed fun, why science is interesting, why people should care about science, and care about the research that's being done out there. It's all great. It's all entertaining. It's all educational. So I hope you'll join me for likable science. Hello, I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on Think Tech Hawaii. 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons, and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up, and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe. Aloha. Okay. We're back. We're live with Admiral Thomas Fargo, the retired former commander of Pacific, well, all of the services in the Pacific. It was quite a job. Did you sleep well during that time? Yeah, actually, I slept pretty well for most of it, largely because we have such a tremendous capability in terms of our people and the quality of our military, both forward and throughout the Pacific AOR. So I actually, it wasn't that there weren't things that we worried about, but we could sleep. And you and I got to know each other in the connection with the AMI Maru in 2001. We were on different sides of the fence. I was with the press, and you were of the, I want to say sync pack. I always want to say sync pack, but the commander, the convening authority in the case of Scott Waddle. Yeah, I was a commander of the Pacific Fleet then, and I was a convening authority. And we did talk a lot kind of across the table. We were asking the questions, and I was answering the questions, and we were fortunate that the Court of Inquiry laid out all there was to possibly know about that tragedy. And we were able to, one, hold the right folks accountable, two, deal with the significant cultural concerns of the Japanese. And as you know, we actually salvaged that ship and recovered the remains. And certainly, even today, that's a big part of Hawaii, and I think about it on a regular basis. Yeah. It was an extraordinary time, I remember. It was probably the most difficult, single issue I had to resolve in my military career. But it was resolved well, I thought, and I'm happy it came out the way it came out. Thank you. Yeah. Anyway, so back to Hawaii and the United States, and how all of this in Korea plays for them. As you mentioned during the break, Hawaii is a center of the Pacific in so many ways. So we are unique in the, may I say, equities that we have in this whole issue. Very much so. Hawaii is strategic in nature. I mean, this is the center of gravity of our Pacific forces, you know, not only Admiral Harris's headquarter here, but all of the component commanders from the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines. So obviously, any conflict in Asia, in the Pacific, even actually Indo-Asia and the Pacific would essentially be coordinated from Hawaii. The second piece is that Hawaii connects to Asia. And I think everybody understands this culturally. It certainly does, you know, the diversity of our population here. Many folks that live here have their roots in Asia and not just Japan, you know, Korea, the Philippines, all of East and Southeast Asia. And certainly, you know, there is a potential threat to Hawaii. That threat is, I don't think, tremendously more significant now than it is for the West Coast of the United States since the Korean missiles, as we know in the most recent tests. North Korean missiles can range the West Coast of the United States, but at some point we need to think about it. And as you know, Admiral Davidson just testified in his confirmation hearing last week, and we talked about what we need to do to make sure that we can defend Hawaii robustly moving forward. Yeah. That would be of concern because we're so far away from anywhere else and because a nuclear attack on Hawaii would have a devastating effect, I think, if not from the immediate blast and from the fallout later. Yeah. I don't want to make it sound like that's probable. That is still a very tough task to send the Koreans to gain the capability to send a nuclear weapon that could actually hit Hawaii. I mean, that's in the very small percentiles. Well, this all reminds me of the mouse that roared with Peter Sellers about some unknown country in the South. I'm old enough to remember that. I can talk to that. At the end of the day, there was an article in The Times this morning or yesterday for the proposition that maybe the president gave up too much. It's not clear what he gave up, though, is the problem. Some people think, well, just meeting with Kim Jong-un is giving up too much. On the other hand, there must be other things in play here, and if you gauge it from the remarks made by Kim Jong-un, as you said, these are economic things. This could be the mouse that roared. They make all this noise with the specific intention of inviting investment, of inviting trade, of becoming a responsible, more responsible member of the Asia-Pacific community and getting wealthy in the process. It could be. In my heart, I believe that's his motivation, and really the question is, well, what's in your heart? Well, I mean, I think that that may be precisely his motivation, but that's not going to be given away without very, very significant concessions on his part that are a tandem amount to essentially neutering his nuclear capability. It's just, as you point out, Trump hasn't given anything away yet. And I think this is an opportunity you can't miss. I mean, I know there are folks that say, this is a waste of time. We don't know that. And frankly, nothing else has worked, right? And this is an opportunity that I think is a responsible effort. I don't know where it's going to end up. It could end up like all the rest of them in the dustbin, but I think it would be a mistake to pass it up. What's the role of the military? I mean, if you can see it from where we are, the role of the military in developing this initiative and organizing this meeting or the moves that are being made. Well, I don't think the role has really changed. I mean, we need to have a strong, resilient capability to back up the political and diplomatic efforts that are made by our government. And we do. And that comes in a lot of different forms. Missile defense is probably one that I'd put at the very top of the list, but also our ability to help defend South Korea. And we've been doing that for decades, right, 60-some odd years. And that's important, because I think what everybody needs to understand, not only the North Koreans, but everybody in Asia, is the quality of our capability as well as the quality of our relationships with the rest of these countries in Asia. Yeah, it's all about hegemony. And the United States has had tremendous influence in Asia and Asia Pacific since the war. And it's remarkable how much we have been able to do with mostly soft power and smart power rather than hard power. And a fellow by the name of Simon Winchester out of the East-West Center wrote a book. And in one of the chapters of that book, he talked about the relative decline, if you will, of the influence of the United States in Asia. And you can measure that, if you like, with the fact that China has taken over the South China seas. And his point was we have to get used to it. We have to get used to being more of an equal partner than a commanding partner in the power structure of Asia Pacific. So I guess I'm interested in your thoughts about that and how the North Korea scenario as it plays out affects our hegemony, excuse me, in Asia Pacific. Yeah, I wouldn't call it hegemony. But I do think what you said at the very start is an important point. Essentially, the economic prosperity of Asia that has developed over the past 30 to 40 years is a direct result of the stability that the United States military ensured throughout Asia. And we did so in a manner that didn't threaten anybody's sovereignty. But we did, and even China talks to this, we did provide the relative peace and stability that is always necessary for economic prosperity. And Japan prospered, South Korea prospered, and China has prospered as a result of that. And it's been really good. And I think if you look at the current situation, because of that, nobody's anxious the United States leave the Indo-Asia area. I mean, that stability that we provided remains important. And I would disagree a little bit on the South China Sea. I mean, it's very clear that China's effort to build these suburb features, in some case, into military bases. And when you look at them and you see the actual models of them, it's hard to recognize them as anything else other than certainly a potential military base. 10,000 foot runways, ports that could take an aircraft carrier, they're very significant. But in that same period of time, I mean, right now, we haven't left either. And we're not about to create a vacuum there. And we're not about to leave our allies and our friends in an uncomfortable position there. I mean, we're going to remain present. Our capabilities will do nothing but improve. Once again, we're not looking for bases. We're looking to be a good friend and ally and maintain the appropriate presence in the region. It's really important for us, I think, for all of us. China is a wonderment here. China, we always see as the one who supported North Korea and the war back when in the 50s. And China has an ongoing trade relationship, but some substance with North Korea and has supported it and maybe used it as a buffer, but it's also useful for China to have that relationship. The train comes with Kim Jong-un, and they have a meeting, and with you, I'm very curious to know what happened. I hope we find out what happened at that meeting. But if you wonder about it, you think, well, the two of them are in a league in some way. They're fashioning some kind of plan together. And then we find, most recently, an article, again in The Times, that suggested that China may be losing control of the situation, that China may not be as strong in this whole scenario as it was, or we thought it was. Where is China in this situation? China has always argued that they don't have as much influence over North Korea as we contend. But they clearly have their hand on the oil valve, and they have their hand on all the trade across that border. I do believe that China has stepped up in large measure to help with the kind of pressure the Trump administration has put on North Korea. And my personal view is the best of the sanctions have always been the financial sanctions where you can cut off foreign currency reserves and take that away from him. And it's very difficult for him to maintain the same standard of life for the elites in North Korea. Just as the best sanctions are economic, so are the best incentives are economic. Sure. And that's kind of the direction this thing is headed. But I do think that China can play a constructive role here. I think North Korea has been a pain to them in a lot of respects. And China is not anxious for North Korea to have a nuclear capability. That leads to lots of things, including our buildup of missile defense capabilities in South Korea and things like that. So the China-North Korea relationship is not all hugs and kisses by any imagination. And there's friction there, too. But they're going to be a relevant player. And so for a minute, my last question, and I apologize, it's a political question, if the president succeeds in this, I mean arguably succeeds, even close succeeds, this is going to be a huge political impact, don't you think? This is going to affect the midterms. It's going to affect his re-electability at the end of his term, don't you think? Well, you know, when you look at it over the time you and I have been talking about this, Jay, this has been the most difficult problem that we've dealt with. I mean, we've tried time and time again different approaches and have been unable to resolve it. And once again, the war, the Korean War from the 50s hasn't been resolved yet. So it's been intractable. And if this administration could pull that off, it would be hugely significant, momentous, really. And of course, in a lot of respects, it'll have huge impacts on Asia moving forward. Thank you, Admiral. Thank you. Admiral Fargo, Thomas Fargo. We know each other since 2001. Thank you so much. Thank you.