 All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Frank Am and I run the North Korea program here at the US Institute of Peace. I'd like to welcome everyone to this virtual roundtable discussion, which should run for about an hour and a half. For those of you who are not familiar with USIP, we are a national independent and nonpartisan institute, funded by Congress, and focusing on preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflict. Today we're talking about North Korea. We've had a pretty volatile and seesaw period over the last several years on the Korean Peninsula. The basic upshot is that we have not made any progress in tangibly reducing the North Korean threat or enhancing peace and security in the region. In fact, North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities continue to grow today, both in quality and in quantity. In addition, we are in a diplomatic stalemate with North Korea. Part of this due to the fact that there is an unwillingness on both sides to adopt a more practical approach and to be more flexible. And then another part of this due to the fact that we are in an uncertain political period in the US right now due to the upcoming presidential elections. So we have an opportunity right now to take a step back to assess what's happened over the last several years. But more importantly, explore options for what the next administration, whether it's a Trump 2 or a Biden 1, what options this next administration should be considering to make real progress in enhancing peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. We've assembled a fantastic lineup of speakers who offer a compelling voice for new approaches to our thinking on North Korea and the region. I've asked each of them to speak for about seven minutes each. And then after that we'll spend about 20 minutes where I'll post some questions to the speakers. And then in the remaining 30 minutes or so, we'll leave it open to audience Q&A. So let me introduce the speakers briefly and in the order that they will be speaking. First, we have Marcus Garlaskas, who is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. And up until fairly recently, he was the National Intelligence Officer for North Korea in the office of the Director for National Intelligence. Next, we have Suzanne Dimajae, who is chair of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. She's also a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The next speaker is Ankit Panda, who is the Stan Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program. Also at the Carnegie Endowment, he's also author of the recent book Kim Jong-un and the Bomb. Next, we have Van Jackson, who is senior lecturer in international relations at the Victoria University of Wellington. He's also a former senior defense strategist at the Department of Defense, as well as author of the 2019 book on the Brink, Trump Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War. And then last we have Christine Ahn, who is the founder and executive director of Woman Cross DMZ. And she's also co-founder of the Korea Peace Network. Marcus, since you're used to kicking off meetings as an intelligence officer and briefer, let's turn to you first. Frank, thanks for this opportunity. Really appreciate the invitation and appreciate the opportunity to go first. So I just want to caveat just to keep in mind that even though I'm recently out of the government, what I'm about to say just represents my views alone, and doesn't imply there's any endorsement by the US government or by the Atlantic Council for that matter. So bottom line up front, I think that the shortfall that there has been in policy consistently on North Korea across administrations is not necessarily basing it on hardheaded realistic intelligence and strategic analysis. And I think in particular, there's been a lot of wishful thinking and a lot of mirror imaging. It's not going to single out any individual or administration, but just say that's a broader trend, and it's not necessarily exclusive North Korea I think that the United States a lot of times engages in a certain degree of wishful thinking in mirror imaging it's a common challenge that we face. So as this applies specifically to North Korea, I think we have to begin with looking at what can be achieved through economic sanctions. There's there's a declassified memo going all the way back to 1991 where the National Intelligence Council my former organization long before I was there concluded that sanctions would not cause North Korea to give up its nuclear program. And so, obviously, you know, here we are now several decades later and that that assessment has been borne out so I think the idea that that you can just keep applying economic pressure in North Korea and it's going to cause it to make this strategic pivot to give up its nuclear program I think that that definitely can't be the premise of policy. Another element that we really have to look at is what our North Korea is current intention so let's not talk about 1994. Let's not talk about the history here, looking at Kim Jong Un as a leader and what his intentions are now back in 2017. The DNI said very authoritatively and clearly that Kim doesn't intend to negotiate his nuclear weapons at any price, and he's intent on proving that he has the capability to strike the US mainland I think those are premises that you have to base policy upon. In addition, we have to base it on another important premise is that North Korea is unlikely then in the end to give up all of its nuclear weapons even if you can change its intentions to some degree. And it's going to seek to negotiate partial steps to obtain the key concessions that it wants to pursue its goals and objectives. We also have to keep in mind that Kim Jong Un very publicly ordered mass production of weapons, and it shows that even under sanctions that North Korea is going to be able to continue to produce strategic weapons. As you look at the effects of sanctions and clearly the North Korea's lost revenue, especially in 2018 but by early 2019, they were already making really key progress in sanctions evasion and generating revenue as we know through overseas labor through cyber theft, illicit commercial exports various other measures to to get around sanctions. And a lot of the analysis out there doesn't necessarily have to be intelligence to be rigorous and effective I think in providing a foundation. So you see project stands sandstone from from Lucy in the UK. They've provided some very good detailed analysis of how North Korea has been successful in circumventing maritime sanctions on exports of coal and imports of petroleum if those sanctions are being fully enforced. It's a different place in terms of the challenges North Korea would be facing on resources, but the fact that they've been able to engage in sanctions evasion on such a massive scale. So relatively soon after those new Security Council resolutions came into place. I think that that has to provide a bit of a reality check for policy. Another big element we need to think about as an additional weapons testing is probably just a matter of time, particularly since North Korean state media has been very clear that Kim is threatened that that there's going to be a new strategic weapon revealed, and that he no longer feels bound by his previous pledges, not to test ICBMs nuclear weapons. And further, we've even seen Kim reemphasize the importance of improving the deterrent in meetings early this year, he elevated the head, the former head I should say of missile testing in North Korea. So I think it's vital to a very key position in the, in the presidium of the party. And you see this, you see this individual literally sitting right next to Kim Jong-un in meetings you don't elevate someone with that kind of background that sort of expertise, unless you're intending to make use of it. And so if you take all those assessments it paints a pretty, a pretty unpleasant picture. And it does potentially lead us to pragmatism and I noticed that that pragmatic was used in the in the title so given the progress that North Korea is made in its weapons testing given their resilience in the face of pressure given their their devotion to strategic weapons Kim resolve. I think a pragmatic approach should focus on preventing further weapons testing before entertaining anything more ambitious in terms of full nuclearization rollback or or even a more ambitious sort of arms control approach. Now there's no need to give up on those as long term ideas or to say that we're not we no longer intended to mobilize North Korea. I think it needs to be recast as a much longer term goal rather than as something that can be achieved in the near term. So ideally, you could potentially achieve an agreement, a formal agreement is to stop the testing that goes beyond just this unilateral pledge that Kim had previously made. But if not, if you can't get to that agreement, then just some some stronger incentives not to test and some some stronger more credible punishments if testing does take place would I think be a very helpful policy approach. You can also consider potentially as part of this options to interfere with testing in various ways, or at least to signal the willingness to actively interfere with testing if it continues as a means to help reinforce deterrent deterrence of testing and just Kim's calculus. So why does this matter right why is this important of course, you've already got UN resolutions that prohibit tests of nuclear devices and any test using ballistic missile related technology. This includes short range ballistic missile tests like what North Korea has done since 2018. And of course it includes SLB so if those resolutions are to have any meaning you have to make some sort of effort to to really show that those actions are not acceptable. This is a clear precedent from 2018 the fact that they didn't have any ballistic missile launches or new tests shows that this is this is a pragmatic potentially viable strategy. But the bottom line is, even if North Korea eventually breaches an agreement or the you can no longer entice or deter North Korea from testing the delay to the improvement of the reliability and credibility of those systems is meaningful. So this is sort of possible allow us to test North Korean intentions give space for diplomacy, and then ultimately a breach of an agreement or a North Korean return to testing in a way that looks much more like a clear violation would help justify returning to a more unified approach in the international community in North Korea, and will allow us to potentially do some things we need to do that that might otherwise be seen as provocative. So that's about seven minutes there I thank you very much for your time look forward to the discussion. Thank you very much for that great overview of the current situation. Let's turn to Suzanne, who has a wealth of experience in the track two setting dealing with very difficult countries. Also including North Korea so Suzanne. Thank you Frank greetings to everyone let me begin by thanking the US Institute of Peace for bringing us together for this event. I'm happy to be part of it. I'm going to divide my remarks into two parts. First I'll offer some thoughts on what the current administration has gotten right and wrong and diplomacy with North Korea. And then I'm going to conclude by outlining some possible ways forward post election. The current administration in my opinion has gotten quite a lot wrong in its approach to North Korea. The list of missteps is actually quite dizzying. But as kind of limited I'm going to focus on two key mistakes and as a side note, the North Koreans also have made a lot of mistakes to which we can talk about during the q amp a if there's interest I won't be addressing that in my presentation. So the first issue I want to get to relate to President Trump's leadership style, his world view, and to put it simply how ill suited he is to helm a complex diplomatic initiatives. In particular, Trump's disdain for expertise and experience together with his dismissive opinion of the hard work that's required to make diplomacy effective, have consistently undermined the process of establishing a durable trap for negotiations with the North Koreans. However, his poor judgment led him to stack his team with two anti diplomats, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, if we assume that Trump really wanted to make deals with the North Koreans. Following Bolton's advice to demand a Libya style deal with Pyongyang was just egregiously misguided. In his recent book, Bolton, who has advocated for a first strike against North Korea portrays himself as the all knowing adult in the room at the Hanoi summit, actively working hand in hand with Pompeo to derail negotiation with Kim. So by surrounding himself with saboteurs who are posing as advisors, diplomacy under Trump really never stood a chance. The second mistake is directly related to this first one, and that is Trump continues to double down on a failed maximum economic pressure approach with North Korea. We see the same digging in on failed approaches to both Iran and Venezuela, all coercion, no diplomacy. The Trump administration's engagement with North Korea has focused nearly exclusively on Pyongyang's nuclear missile program at the expense of exploring efforts to establish peace and make progress on other issues. At the Hanoi summit, the US insisted that the North Koreans fully denuclearize as well as give up their missile biological weapons and chemical weapons program before receiving any concession. This so-called Libya model has always been a non-starter for Pyongyang, that's always been known. The North Koreans then responded by turning the tables on the Trump administration, insisting that the US meet all of Pyongyang's demand to drop the hospital policy before they do anything on disarmament, let alone denuclearization. Both are unproductive, untenable positions that have resulted in the stalemate that we face today. It should be known by now that the North Koreans are not going to agree to any process that provides no security assurances to safeguard their regime and no opportunities to address economic challenges early in that process. The US continued to push for this all or nothing approach to the nuclear issue, even as international pressure against Pyongyang had started to wane. An incremental approach certainly would have given the US a better chance to achieve at least some progress. More importantly, I would have allowed us to test whether diplomacy with Kim is workable. The purpose of an excessively coercive approach was to constrain the development of North Korea's nuclear and missile program. It has been a spectacular failure. Kim has nothing concrete to show in terms of economic progress for his engagement with Trump. This is a problem for Kim, but what he can show is clear advancement in both his nuclear weapons and missiles capabilities. So what did Trump get right? This is a far shorter list. I'm going to focus on two points. First, I think sustaining the suspension of major US ROK military exercises in exchange for a moratorium on North Korea's nuclear and long range missile path has been the right move. It has helped to present a re-escalation intention, and it also has kept the door open to diplomacy. Second thing that I think was a good move is the decision to directly engage Kim Jong-un himself. I think this was the right decision. Personality, but let me say, let me qualify that, but I can only give the president minimal credit because it's been executed so poorly. Personality-driven diplomacy has resonated with Kim. It's signaled that the US was ready at the highest level to forge a new kind of relationship after years of hostility, but it never gained traction because Trump was unable to back it up with a coherent strategy. He couldn't back it up with a unified and empowered negotiating team, and he couldn't back it up with realistic goals. So I hope the act of meeting with adversaries carries over to the next administration, but that it is done in a responsible way that advances US interest. In some, I think it was the right initiative, but frankly the wrong president. Following the pageantry of two summits, a handshake at the DMZ, and a couple of dozen love letters that we're learning more about today, we need serious diplomacy and a renewed appreciation for expertise and experience. Now on to ways forward. I think no matter who prevails in November, it's clearly time for a new direction in our approach. If Trump is re-elected, his administration will need to re-assess options, adjust their negotiating positions. They'll need to set achievable goals, transition to an action for action approach with incremental benchmarks and flexibility to manage debt tax. And of course, this will requiring empowering real negotiators to conduct real diplomacy, preferably quiet diplomacy. So we have to ask, will Trump in a second term have the discipline and the vision to extrapolate lessons from the past and course correct along these lines. So let me put this nicely, I'm very skeptical. If Biden prevails, he would be facing an urgent array of priorities on the domestic front and on foreign policy issues that will require immediate attention. There will be resistance, no doubt, on his team to spend any bandwidth or political capital to an issue as dicey and unforgiving as North Korea. Even so, I think a strong case can be made for starting a process with North Korea early. So let me conclude with five elements on a plan to get back to diplomacy with North Koreans during the first hundred days of the new administration. First, make an early approach to the North Koreans while initiating a policy review. There's a strong possibility, a likelihood that Pyongyang will make a provocative move after inauguration days to create leverage. Second, it would be wise to signal to the North Koreans a serious interest in engaging in a strategic approach to revive diplomacy before Pyongyang forces the crisis. In other words, avoid getting bogged down in a time-sucking scenario by taking a proactive stance. Second, assemble a team of real negotiators, of course, not including anti-diplomax like Bolton is a given, but I would even take it a step further. Avoid stacking the team with those who savor the Obama administration's approach. In other words, those who would be quite comfortable with strategic patients 2.0. Third, reach an early remit with Pyongyang to maintain the dual suspension of major U.S. ROK military exercises and North Korea's moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests while exploring how best to restart talks. Fourth, communicate a clear break in approach with the Trump administration away from maximum pressure towards readiness to engage in a process leading to synchronous progress on the key elements of the Singapore Declaration. Yes, I am suggesting using the Singapore Declaration as a jumping off point for restarting talks. Move to a de-escalation and risk management approach and, most importantly, be prepared to focus on item number two of the Singapore Declaration. Efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. This means look at peace declaration, starting with security dialogue, political normalization, sanctions relief, humanitarian assistance, the list could go on. And fifth, let me just conclude with this point, coordinate and work with others, particularly Seoul, while attempting to bring Beijing on board. I think I'm out of time, so I'm going to stop there. Thank you. Suzanne, thank you very much and I appreciate your courage in not sort of having a knee-jerk criticism of the entire Trump administration's approach and trying to be nuanced and pick out the ways that they were very unconventional and may have been productive if it was implemented in a better fashion. Let's turn to Ankit, who I think is one of the most prolific writers on North Korea, and probably has a lot of interesting insights to share from his recent book. So Ankit, please. Thanks a lot, Frank, and thanks to USIP for organizing this panel. So I actually have a lot to agree with what Suzanne and Marcus just says. I'll take my remarks in a little bit of a different direction and hopefully offer some food for thought. And let me just start off by saying that if there's one message that I want viewers to walk away with today is that the set of policy problems we have to concern ourselves with with North Korea is no longer limited to denuclearization and disarmament and human security issues in North Korea, human rights, these issues are familiar issues, older issues, but really something happened in 2017 that hadn't happened for 46 years for the US security community in particular, which was that when North Korea demonstrated the capability that year to strike the US homeland with a nuclear weapon, it effectively established itself as the third direct adversary with which the United States had to practice nuclear deterrence. 1971 was the first year when China tested its DF5 ICBM and that actually established Beijing in that similar position. And of course, if you compare the discourse in the late 60s in the United States on Mao acquiring a nuclear capability and many of the debates that we saw here in this country about Kim Jong Un's purported rationality, the meaning of North Korea pushing ahead with these capabilities, you'll find a lot of similar ideas at play. But the point is that we have to now concern ourselves with the risks that arise with North Korea's possession of a, I don't want to say robust nuclear deterrent, but a nuclear deterrent that is credible enough to hold the US homeland at threat hold the territory of American allies, South Korea and Japan at risk. And this I think demands real measures by both sides to really manage this situation as we know from the Cold War. Nuclear deterrence is not automatic. It requires, it requires communications between the two sides to manage misperceptions. Our understanding of how North Korea does a lot of things when it comes to its nuclear forces remains limited. For instance, while we might understand how well North Korea's nuclear weapons explode because we've, we have seismic measurements of those events taking place under Mount Mantap at a Punggirri at the nuclear test site. And while we have good data about how well their missiles fly, there's a lot we don't know about the ways in which the North Koreans implement things like nuclear command and control. The North Koreans tell us a few things about this, of course, but there's a lot more that we could learn. And here, there is a another line of value to direct engagement with North Korea. One of the things that I was most pleased to see that came out of the Trump administration's diplomacy with North Korea, and certainly the inter Korean diplomacy was the resumption of the hotline between the Korean People's Army and the United Nations command in in 2018 after the Singapore summit. That was an important accomplishment, particularly because we all live through late 2017 when of course we were parsing and trying to make sense of what exactly the Trump administration meant when it wanted to give Kim Jong-un a bloody nose, what the strategic objective there was. And of course, that was a very dangerous time on the Korean Peninsula, more dangerous than perhaps any time before. And we got quite close to a nuclear exchange with North Korea, if the chips had fallen in a in a different way. So in many ways we did get quite lucky with Pyongyang. So that's the first message I want to emphasize is that while it's while it's all fine and good to talk about diplomacy and moving towards denuclearization progress with North Korea. There are certain new burdens that we now find ourselves having to contend with by the virtue of Kim Jong-un having successfully demonstrated some capabilities that, you know, before 2017, folks have been saying that North Korea would probably get there. And they did. And they got there probably a few years ahead of schedule. The ICBM capability when that became apparent in 2017. More than a few people were shocked to see that. And that again tells us that we shouldn't underestimate the North Koreans. I want to go back and also share an important anecdote that I think, you know, that's really reverberated with me. This goes back to 2004. I actually came across it in the process of my book research. SIG Hacker presents this in his testimony in January 2004 after a trip to North Korea where Kim K-Kwon, the former vice minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in North Korea, a well-known figure in US North Korea diplomacy, effectively tells Dr. Hacker that North Korea's qualitative and quantitative capabilities will advance the longer the United States waits to do a deal with North Korea. And this, of course, was a point being made in 2004 before the North Koreans had even detonated their first nuclear device. This was a little more than a year after the events leading up to the collapse of the agreed framework in late 2002. But in the aftermath of the Hanoi Summit, I think this is a message that we should really think about. Ultimately, the policy community here needs to recognize that North Korean and American bargaining positions are not static. And I think something we learned in Hanoi was that the North Koreans perceived themselves to have quite a bit of leverage, certainly given the price they attempted to exact for the concessions that they offered up. And there's been some debate about, you know, whether we're going to look back five years from now and kick ourselves for not taking that deal in Hanoi. And I think looking at developments since that summit in North Korea, which have included continued missile testing, as Mark has indicated, very good indicators of new types of missile testing missiles, they'll be more reliable, more flexible for North Korea, certainly making its threats against the United States more credible. The point of making is that the next administration is going to find itself with less bargaining power than the Trump administration enjoyed in Singapore and Hanoi, which wasn't a great deal of bargaining power to begin with. And of course leads to the main policy takeaway, which is that like I suspect many of my co-panelists, there is now a need to recognize the realities of what negotiating with North Korea on nuclear disarmament and denuclearization really does mean. Given the capabilities that they've demonstrated, the way forward necessarily has to begin with trading a very small set of relief measures, be that sanctions relief, be that certain adjustments to US and South Korean force posture on and around the Korean peninsula in exchange for a small concession in return for North Korea. And I completely echo Suzanne's point that the basis that we have for productive talks back in 2018 was effectively the implementation of the freeze for freeze proposal, the idea that North Korea would cease missile testing and in return the United States and South Korea would adjust their military exercises downwards. So that's I think an important baseline condition. The second idea and here's where I think the Trump administration really ran into major difficulties just coming to a common agreement with the North Koreans at the negotiating table was the notion of getting the North Koreans to agree to a roadmap. I've been trying to sort of use an analogy to explain what what exactly I mean by this. In effect, we can imagine the United States and North Korea beginning on the east coast of the United States, trying to take a road trip out to the west coast. And the whole idea of the roadmap, you know, let's pretend the Pacific Coast represents denuclearization and once once the car makes it there, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump get out and they celebrate their accomplishment of denuclearization. Of course, a roadmap in that process represents every every routing choice on the path to getting there. And the North Koreans, they had a different idea about how that road trip might play out. They were happy to get in the car with the United States, but they wanted to be a little bit more spontaneous and see where we could go step by step. Instead of agreeing that you know the drivers would drive for 12 hours spend the night at this motel drive another 12 hours and then I hear take this highway take this road. The North Koreans wanted to progress as as as step by step would permit. And this was really the major hold up with the Trump administration. And this was I think a source of confusion when certain administration officials were negotiating with North Korea, said that they were open to a step by step process but they still needed the North Koreans to agree to a roadmap that would culminate with their disarmament and the things have been quite clear about of course their understanding of denuclearization as today being something that will only happen when the entire world disarms it's no longer unilateral North Korean disarmament which is why when administration officials were using the phrase to the final fully verified denuclearization of North Korea. The North Koreans got quite irate to the point of correcting officials including Secretary of State Pompeo, who used that phrase quite repeatedly, indicating that denuclearization was really a process to be taken together. So, the outlook that I have is our prospects for getting a Hanoi style offer from the North Koreans are probably not going to look to get there's one important caveat to that which is that 2020 has been I think an unprecedented year certainly from North Korea and the entire world, but just looking at the internal stresses currently that North Korea is contending with particularly the economic pressures the environmental damage. The North Koreans may find themselves in early 2021 in a similar position to where they were in early 2012 the Obama administration was able to cinch the so called leap day deal with the North Koreans which was partly born out of the North Koreans being in a position where they didn't need food assistance from the United States. If an opportunity like that were to present itself. The United States should certainly walk in with a unilateral gesture, indicating that first of all, US policy is not entirely motivated by security concerns but also human security issues in North Korea human rights issues in North Korea these I think remain needs remain on the agenda the Trump administration. And made the mistake of leading the negotiating process with North Korea in an overly securitized way. And ultimately, if an if an opening like that does present itself, whichever administration is empowering early 21 should take that as probably the openings make progress. The final thing I'll close with is actually I think Suzanne made a very good point which is that under Kim Jong-un. I think we've established a new president now which is going to be the Singapore summit the North Koreans the gold standard that Americans hold North Korea to is the September 19 2005 six party talks declaration but North Korea agreed to disarm and no uncertain terms have the IAEA returned to North Korea. We haven't seen an endorsement of that agreement under under Kim Jong-un and we're very unlikely to at this point the basis that exists for a productive US North Korea negotiating process going forward for better or worse is going to be the Singapore summit and those four points that Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un agreed to. So whatever happens in 2021, I think it will be important to use that as a baseline and there's plenty there to work with of course, not limited to a new type of relationship between the US and North Korea establishing a peace regime on the Korean peninsula. And of course, North Korea's commitment to move towards denuclearization, certainly as a process. So I'll stop there. I'm very happy to expand on anything there in the Q&A. Thank you very much. I think you laid out in a very sobering way, the price precise reasons why we need to focus on pragmatism when we're talking with North Korea. I also like your analogy about the road trip. Over the road map. I'm not a fan of road maps for precisely the same reason that you mentioned, but I do agree that the goal is to get North Korea in the car. Hopefully they fall asleep and then they wake up in Cleveland. They're like, how do we get to Cleveland? Sorry, I know Marcus is from Ohio, right? Next speaker is Van Jackson, who is also a prolific policy pundit and entrepreneur. And so I'm sure you have some good insights as well, Van. Go ahead. Thanks. Yeah, I'm totally loving this so far. When you when you look back at US North Korea policy, I'm not inclined to give high marks to anybody or to any administration necessarily I think we've gotten a lot wrong. And I have three big critiques in particular. One is that, you know, going back 30 years, every administration has underestimated not just the importance that North Korea has always placed on its nuclear weapons, but also the logical extension of that, which is what it would take to get North Korea to denuclearize or reduce its nuclear arsenal, given how important its nukes are. Right. So I was told to avoid jargon for this but in bargaining theory this is Goliath's curse. It's almost insurmountable. Right. US engagement with North Korea got worse, got thinner, got more transactional with every presidential administration. I'm implicated in this too from the Obama era, but the way we did diplomacy became more and more cynical, more and conservative in the sense of risk aversion over time. By the time we got to the Trump era. Our track one diplomacy with North Korea. I don't want to say it became a joke but it had become a perfunctory or ritualistic. Not good. Right. Three, we have failed to understand a strategic culture in North Korea that can be summed up as pressure for pressure. I have a chapter in my book about this, this strategic culture specifically. There's a lot more to say about it but when we look back at stupid situations like the crisis in 2017 that emerged out of brinkmanship versus brinkmanship that it was maximum pressure, responding to maximum pressure, right. And so this came out of the Trump administration making this very bad assumption that was a more extreme version of what other presidents had made, frankly, that pressure was going to cause a better situation for us with North Korea. And that is not just logically questionable, you know, like, weird, does that make sense not really. Don't get the math, but it's also anti historical. Okay, so being so divorced from a realistic sense of North Korea and of its history is precisely why we were immersed in the level of pressure that we were during 2017. And so that's that those are like my big hang ups, when we look back when we when we look forward right to the next presidency. I think the context is very different now. Our overarching priority, you know, echoing what Ankit said has to be has to be reducing the risks of nuclear war, and it has not been historically, right. There are any number of ways to address or implement that as the priority, focusing on managing nuclear risks. I think we can do it partly by correcting for these mistakes of the past. So number one, taking diplomacy more seriously right have it be less transactional, less desperate. One of the funny things about the Obama era, not funny tragic was that when we engaged with North Korea as track one outside of the foreign ministry. We did so only in a Hail Mary desperation we're seeking something very specific from them almost hat in hand kind of way. And it's like, Okay, well, you're also that you guys see each other as enemies. Why is your enemy. You're lucky if they grant you a meeting let alone grant you what your request is right. So, don't call that engagement right that's desperation when you're engaging only in the moment out of desperation because you need some specific thing. You're not likely to work man to do a better job of pricing in how valuable North Korea's nukes are to the regime so that we can calibrate a more realistic bargain North Korea policy. I think Marcus mentioned this Suzanne mentioned this like, we've always had this ends means mismatch that's been quite dramatic. And we need to fix that if we're going to get anywhere good. And then number three, you know, we need to think less about how we can pressure North Korea. I'm not saying pressure can never be in the in the picture but we need to think much more about how we can stabilize the situation to reinforce on gets point. And to me that means making a serious, even costly attempt at probing North Korea's willingness to step back from existential rivalry and everything that accompanies that right including this question about like arms control versus denuclearization. I think we have done a bad job historically of probing North Korea's intentions, because we've never been willing to give up much, and a real probe a credible probe is going to require putting things on the table, and not in a one off kind of way but as like a package or a series of moves that signal, hey, we're in a different headspace now. We recognize the situations different. We're interested in moving forward, right. So, you know, think about declaring an end to the Korean War, but don't just do it by itself and call it a day, and think it will be magic on its own, right. Think about sanctions relief that you might unilaterally lift, but don't just grant some sanctions relief and call it a day and expect it to magically produce something different by itself, right. You have to combine this stuff for concentrated effect. It's statecraft man. So, you know, the next administration, it's facing a very bad situation with North Korea I think time is not on our side I agree with on kid about that. But it's also, you know, paradoxically, the next president is going to be more free to take a different approach than any past administration. So if we can make some better choices in this space I'm actually pretty hopeful about where we can end up. I'll leave it at that. Thank you Ben and you brought up probing North Korea's intentions. Let me use this moment to actually put in a plug for your recent report that was published by us IP, which makes a case for engaging with North Korea's broader national security establishment, but particularly the military to military diplomacy. And then last, let's turn to Christine on who brings a very unconventional but sorely needed perspective to our Washington echo chamber, Christine. Thank you Frank, and thank you to us IP for hosting this and giving me the opportunity to speak with you today. My work to advocate for peace on the Korean Peninsula stems not just from my experience as a Korean American whose family was impacted by the Korean War, but also as someone who has traveled extensively throughout the country and North Korea since 2004. My last trip was five years ago when I led 30 women leaders including Nobel Peace Laureates and American feminist icon Gloria Steinem across the DNC to call for peace. We held peace symposiums in Pyongyang and in Seoul, where both North and South Korean women shared how the unresolved war was impacting their lives. We walked with thousands of women on both sides of the border in Kisang and in Paju. Since then I've had the opportunity to bring several North Korean women to Indonesia and to China to participate in women's peace building dialogues. These experiences shaped my understanding of the conflict and what we must do to realize peace and security for Koreans, Americans, and our world. Unfortunately, for the last 30 years, Washington Orthodoxy has held that the Kim Kim regime must denuclearize first before peace can exist between the US and North Korea. Policy has been driven by the belief that more pressure in the form of sanctions, military action, isolation will convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons. Today, North Korea is the most sanctioned country in the world, and yet its nuclear arsenal continues to grow. As John Jackson has pointed out, the US and North Korea were dangerously close to nuclear war in 2017, and the US top priority must be to prevent such a catastrophe. At the same time we must recognize the reality, as Ankit Panda notes, that coexistence with the nuclear arm North Korea is the only possible path forward. While Trump's engagement was a positive step, it failed to be accompanied by fundamental change in US policy. To resolve the security crisis on the peninsula, the next administration should reject the status quo and create the necessary conditions through normalization and trust building to eliminate nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. It seems like we are kind of co-hearing around that theme. Here are some concrete actions that we can take. First and foremost, start by ending the Korean War. The continued state of war is not a mere technicality, it is the root cause of tensions and the ongoing militarization of the Korean Peninsula. Formally ending the Korean War with a peace agreement is the most effective trust building mechanism available, and it would fundamentally transform and reorient the relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. Let's not forget, the armistice was signed in 1953 by US and North Korean military commanders with a promise to return within 90 days to negotiate a political settlement. Specifically, the US should agree to a step by step reciprocal verifiable process. As we've seen, all or nothing demands have failed. The US cannot realistically expect North Korea to unilaterally disarm before providing any sanctions relief for security guarantees. The next administration could start by reducing our own nuclear arsenal and committing to a no first use policy. Furthermore, the US could advance peace by taking these five concrete actions. Number one, strengthen sanctions and exemptions for humanitarian activities and remove travel restrictions for people to people engagement. You know, the travel ban has been in effect since 2017. I mean, relatedly, the US must just totally rethink sanctions as a policy tool. They are not benign. In fact, they are war by other means, and they have had devastating consequences on innocent people in North Korea. Number two, refrain from actions that complicate diplomacy, such as deploying additional missile defenses, conducting military exercises or engaging in hostile rhetoric. Number three, facilitate reunions between long divided Korean Americans and their family members in North Korea. Before the Trump travel ban, approximately 1000 Americans traveled to North Korea yearly, including many elderly Korean Americans who visited or sought to find their relatives in North Korea. Number four, honor the US ROK Alliance by supporting President Moon Jae-in's pro-engagement policy towards North Korea. In 2018, President Moon signed with Chairman Kim, the Pomwon Jump Declaration. It calls for replacing the armistice with a peace agreement and for advancing inter-Korean economic and civic cooperation. Given that President Moon's party just won a landslide victory in the National Assembly elections this year, he will seek to ratify the Pomwon Jump Declaration. We should support our key ally in this conflict, not impede inter-Korean cooperation. Finally, the US should democratize the peace process and make the negotiating table more inclusive. The Korean people have lived under the constant threat of war for 70 years. Instead of waiting for leaders to resolve this conflict, we must establish an inclusive peace process involving those most directly impacted. Civil society participation not only helps ensure that a peace agreement will be signed, but that it will last. According to a recent study by Georgetown University, the participation of women's groups helped legitimize the formal peace process among the public. Women's participation also ensures that the final agreement includes gender provisions, which is critical because according to political scientist Valerie Hudson, gender equality is a greater predictor of peace in a country than wealth, religion, or level of democracy. That's why my organization, Women Cross DMZ, is calling for civil society and women's groups to be involved in the peace process. We have a unique role to play in creating the political space for peace. For example, Women Cross DMZ has helped build a powerful grassroots network to advocate for an end to the Korean War. We worked with Congressman Ro Khanna to introduce House Resolution 152, which calls for an end to the war with a peace agreement. It now has nearly 50 co-sponsors, which is a huge leap from a decades ago, when on the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, only two members, Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee, were brave enough to call for peace with North Korea. Despite the fact that the Korean War is known as the Forgotten War in this country, according to an October 2019 data for progress you go poll, two out of three Americans supported a peace agreement with North Korea. It's time for US policy to reflect the wishes of the American people and bring an end to the US longest standing overseas conflict. Finally, the American people are tired of endless war and it's very clear just how the militaristic framework has failed us. In the US, 53 cents out of every toddler is spent on the military. The pandemic has laid bare that all the guns, tanks, and missiles in the world mean nothing if people don't have economic security. They don't have housing, healthcare, or a safe environment. Ending the Korean War would be a major step forward and creating a more just, peaceful, and secure world for everyone. Thank you. Christine, thank you so much for your voice and I know there's a lot of common threads that run through a lot of the speaker's remarks. At the same time, certainly some nuances and we're not all on the same page in our prescriptions and our analysis. So now we moved on to the portion where I'll ask a few questions of the speakers. We're running a little bit behind time, so maybe I'll try to truncate a little bit. But since we were talking recently about sanctions, this first question actually would go to Van. You're one of the analysts and you've talked about it in your remarks that talked about how pressure is not only ineffective but can be counterproductive in our negotiations with North Korea. But since we're talking about a pragmatic policy, you know, sanctions and other aspects of pressure, they're oftentimes baked into our laws, baked into our policies. Things like the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, things that are tough for administrations to maneuver around. So what is the role, if any, of the role of sanctions and pressure in a pragmatic policy towards North Korea? Yeah, it's a good question. Given, so there's, I wouldn't have a prejudice against sanctions a priori, except that we've learned that sanctions are just wildly counterproductive in the context of North Korea, right? And so that's like, without extreme sanctions, we wouldn't have gotten into the nuclear crisis in 2017. And then one of the funny things about, again, funny, not funny, freaking tragic about the Obama era. When I was doing my book, I interviewed a bunch of, I mean, frankly, like my friends from the Obama administration after I left like cut bait in 2014. In those final two years, the Obama administration matchively ratcheted up sanctions, right? And the reasoning at the time was not to have those sanctions be on the books forever. They were trying to position US North Korea policy for the next president, whoever that was going to be, with extra leverage. So like, they were trying to give temporary extra leverage to the next president. So like if the new president wanted to go down the path of pressure, well, Obama was helping you get a head start, right? If you're trying to eventually end up in a bargaining process, which of course any sane person would want to be in a bargaining process, you're creating artificial leverage that you could remove, right? Because we had to kind of increasingly losing hand with North Korea. All the sanctions from 2016, let alone 2015 and 2014, those sanctions are viewed now as like sacrosanct or like we can't possibly get rid of them, but they were never intended to be permanent in the first place, man. So like, let's, let's make some, let's, let's remember the history first of all, that these weren't supposed to be permanent. This was supposed to be leverage. We've never used the leverage. You have to give upset. You have to unilaterally, like what North Korea asked for at Hanoi. Maybe it was a bad deal, but it was like the best deal to be had that there was like asking to go back to a 2016 level of sanctions is not crazy in my view. What's crazy is thinking that you're going to get them to give up their nuclear weapons. So I think sanctions are not useful and going back to a 2016 level of sanctions that North Korea asked for, I think is not, I think that's reasonable if we can do it, if we can get it. Thank you, man. And I forgot to remind the audience that we're open for questions and to ask the question if you haven't already please use the chat box function that's located just below the video player on the event page for us IP. This next question is for Marcus and Suzanne. So we've been talking about a more practical policy towards North Korea, but North Korea itself has also been inflexible, and it's also made unrealistic demands. In fact, I think in John Bolton's book, he talked about how President Trump actually tried to explore a smaller deal that would provide partial sanctions relief, but Kim Jong-un rejected it. So how do we get North Korea to be more flexible and practical? Is it through more creative enticements? Is it through greater pressure? Is it a combination of both or something else? Let's go to Marcus first. Well, I think what we saw happen at Hanoi was a fundamental underestimation of U.S. will, right, or in this case the will of President Trump. And so I think what North Korea often sees from the United States is a lot of inconsistency. And when you looked at the popular kind of sentiment about what was going to happen at Hanoi, I remember reading constantly all these articles, editorials saying, oh, you know, the President is desperate for a deal. And so therefore we should worry about, you know, the North Koreans putting one over on us and that sort of thing. And then there was also, I think, a bit of a disconnect in terms of sort of even in the official message that came out between what the North Koreans were essentially receiving and then of course what they faced in the actual situation at Hanoi. Now, I don't think we're entirely to blame. I think Kim made a massive miscalculation. And certainly he wasn't happy with how he was staffed. And, you know, we don't know all the details, but clearly some people were fired and some people were purged after Hanoi. So even Kim himself recognizes it was at least in part his fault. But I think that sort of the inconsistency and this, and I think these mixed messages sometimes have encouraged North Korea to engage in wishful thinking as well. And I think that's part of the challenge. Thank you. And Suzanne. Yeah, so as I mentioned in my remarks, the North Koreans clearly also have made their fair share of mistakes. You know, I think a key miscalculation is they bought the snake oil from the snake oil salesman. They narrowed their focus completely on only engaging Trump, refusing to meet in working level negotiations with American counterparts. You know, not coming to the table to work out details. So I think a key lesson I hope they drew from Hanoi is that minimal engagement in the lead up to a summit or major meeting isn't going to bring about successful outcomes for them. So coming to the table without clarifying it in advance, their key negotiating points did not work to their advantage in Hanoi. They need to commit to a person, not to, I mean to a process, not to a person, you know, and throughout this process. You know, they could have easily engaged first special representative for North Korea, Joe Yoon, and then his successor Steve Deegan who are two serious diplomats. And they chose not to. I think that was a critical mistake too. I can't say it would have led to a better outcome, but at least it would have been a sounder process. I think another miscalculation is they've been holding diplomacy with Seoul hostage to progress with the Trump administration. This has not been a good bet for them. It's brought the into Korean reconciliation process to a switching halt when such impressive progress was being made. And, you know, maybe we shouldn't say this out loud, but if they had moved forward with this, it could have resulted in greater leverage for them with the US. So just I think looking ahead, I think the North Koreans should recognize that if they a new Biden administration comes in into office in January. They can't approach it in these same ways. As I mentioned, we'll be focusing an array of urgent issues that they will need to begin addressing on day one, the triple crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic crisis that we're facing, the racial justice crisis crisis that we're facing right now. North Korea will not be one of the top issues on the agenda. And as I said before, I think the worst thing the North Koreans could do is miscalculate by initiating a crisis in an attempt to rise themselves to the top of the heap. So this means that the North Koreans are going to have to restrain themselves from resorting to the usual playbook, and they're going to have to meet a new administration halfway, especially in a post COVID world. Thank you, Suzanne. Let's turn to Ankit for this next question. One of the debates within the North Korea water community is, is this tension between this arm control approach or, you know, focusing on long term risk reduction versus the focusing on denuclearization. You know, one of the concerns is the fear that if you follow this arms control approach that we are basically politically upsetting North Korea as a nuclear power, because we're not talking about near term denuclearization, then that leads to that cascade of countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan pursuing a nuclear program. Is there a misunderstanding or how do you reconcile arms control approach and the denuclearization approach, at least, you know, from a political perspective? Sure. No, I think that's, I think that's a terrific question. I mean, as, as time has gone on since 2017, I've been talking about arms control with North Korea, really, I mean, going back to 2016, at least, I think, which I think that idea has started to catch on, even if for a lot of people arms control can be used to represent something that superpowers do. Right, that is one of the inherent challenges is that we don't really have a very good precedent for doing arms control under the level of qualitative and quantitative that exists between the nuclear capabilities available to the United States and North Korea, where do you even begin to talk to the North Koreans about that I mean we understand the conditions under which nuclear deterrence can be stable where both sides are mutually vulnerable to the others nuclear forces but North Korea is I mean first of all just its geographic strategic depth, its constraints when it comes to fissile materials, the actual force size that it has today. The Americans will never get to a point where they will feel that they are in such an advantageous position that it will make sense for them to lock in their force levels by entering into a verifiable arms control arrangement with the United States. That said, I have come to start to frame many of these ideas under the risk reduction heading because I think that captures a lot of these arms control ideas, preventing North Korea, for example, from developing larger solid missiles which are more flexible and responsive which we really don't want them to do. They haven't done that yet so it's again an area that's realistic to focus on anything that North Korea hasn't done is something that we should be focusing on stopping them from doing, which is again why in 2015. You know, a few of us were talking about how the North Koreans might test an ICBM in the coming years and should probably do something so that doesn't happen. And now we're in the unenviable position of talking to the North Koreans about getting rid of their ICBMs, a much more challenging thing to do. Your question about acceptance, so there are two kinds of acceptance I think of nuclear status of the international system right there is a legal de jure status, which really the only status that codifies that is being a recognized nuclear weapon state under the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. That's never going to happen for North Korea. But that said, de facto acceptance is an entirely different yardstick. For instance, you know I asked a lot of folks in the United States if we ever really accepted India or Pakistan as a nuclear weapon state after they broke out and the short answer to that is, well, yes, and maybe. And so I mean that's going to get the point that de facto acceptance is there are many benchmarks for that right. We did a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India, for example in 2005 and the North Koreans talk about that you know they recognize that when the United States has a different geopolitical relationship with a certain country it's willing to end the rules of nonproliferation and this is something that North Koreans have raised with American counterparts previously. But that that concern about acceptance I think is a real concern for the nonproliferation regime North Korea is the only country to have signed ratified the nonproliferation treaty have claimed to have left that treaty and successfully broken out as a nuclear weapon state so how we handle this precedent does matter. That's that policymaking is all about trade offs and clearly we're already in a very bad place with North Korea. And in so far as at the nonproliferation regime goes on doing this damage is is something that we probably won't be able to undo in the short term. So, I think it's worth recognizing and this is a value judgment. Really, I think it's worth recognizing that that trade off that acknowledging that this is not where we wanted the nonproliferation regime to be in 2020 and moving to this production nonetheless because the costs of a nuclear war frankly outweigh the costs to the nonproliferation regime of treating North Korea as it is, rather than as we prefer to be. To me that's that's a bargain worth making. And of course I mean you know I'd also make the claim that when we talked about potential breakout in South Korea and Japan, there's a lot to be said therefore how we treat our allies how we handle extended deterrence is one of the best. You know we don't do extended deterrence to be nice to be altruistic to South Korea and Japan. The big reason we do it is to prevent these countries from proliferating right it was a big concern with NATO countries during the Cold War preventing German breakout it's why Charles de Gaulle left left NATO's integrated military command because he thought the American nuclear deterrent simply wouldn't be credible after the Soviet Union acquired an ICBM capability so there's a lot of hard work we need to do and that's honestly my biggest recommendation to the next president when it comes to undoing and mitigating some of the negative nonproliferation consequences. Thanks, and I know you could have gotten a lot longer on that so I appreciate the abridged take on that question. And last let's turn to Christine on. So you talked about democratizing are engaging with North Korea certainly what would help is you know ending the travel ban, allowing for more humanitarian assistance engagement, including, you know, US citizens engage with their divided families in North Korea, you know we used to have the congressional delegations that went to North Korea but that's basically has stopped since I believe 2008 or 2009 start the Obama administration. So, you know, what are some specific other ways that we can enhance the participation of women and civil society in our engages North Korea. I think all those points that you reiterated. I think it's really important as you've demonstrated Frank here on this press on this round table to include the voices of Korean Americans include the voices of humanitarian aid workers with on the ground expertise I think it's really important obviously to have the analysis from intelligence experts or based on satellite images but it's really important when we're in a peace process to include and here are those voices I think we need to have a holistic view of this of this conflict. I think Dan Jasper, a colleague of mine from AFSC he often talks about this program that the State Department has it's called the International Visitor Leadership Program. The US does this with it invites mid careerists to come to the US to understand the US system its political system invites, you know, people from Iran from Russia from Cuba. North Korea is the only country that we don't invite. I think this is a very small tangible thing that would help bridge understanding between the two countries. From that perspective, you know the US I mean there's 10 UN Security Council resolutions on women peace and security this is the 20th anniversary of 1325, calling for women's inclusion and all levels of the peace process. In 2017, Trump, probably unknowingly signed the the Women Peace and Security Act, which was bipartisan, and it calls for women's inclusion at all levels of the peace process, including having women in the official negotiations from my point of view I've only seen Allison Hooker on the Trump team. I hope that the next administration takes that it's commitment to international law and also its own US policy, seriously, and we need you know what the research has also shown that what has made peace agreements so possible is actually this interesting nexus it happened in the Philippines it happened in Colombia, and it's where the women official negotiators have a regular official negotiations with the women's peace movements and so I'm really hoping that we can see as a piece I know it's dreaming at this point but if we don't actually lay out the tangible steps that we want to see a more democratized peace process that is inclusive so that it will be lasting. We have to we have to begin somewhere. Thank you very much Christine. So now we'll open it up to the audience q&a we have a long list of questions that have been queuing up. So let me just remind it remind the speakers to be as succinct as possible in your in your answers to these questions and I'll try to as much as possible to direct them to specific individuals but if you also want to chime in. To the chat. So actually the first two questions let me address it to Marcus. The first one addresses Kim Jong I think she's become the focus of attention recently, because of her increased role in in engaging with South Korea but more and more so with the US but also because she's been out of the public spotlight recently. Maybe a North Korean regime look like under Kim Jong, you know, maybe a premature take but what would look like under Kim Jong and then the second question gets to Marcus point about credible deterrence against weapons testing. Is this something where we've done unilaterally or multilateral so Marcus. So, I've gone on record saying that I really disagree with the assessment that Kim Jong is being prepared to be Kim successor. So I think it's possible that it could happen but I don't think this is something that the regime is setting the conditions for. I think that reason if if Kim were to say suddenly Kim Jong Moon were to suddenly die or being capacitated and Kim Jong ends up being the successor. Then you have a leader who's in a really difficult spot, I think, and I think it would really constrain her. And so regardless of what her predilections might be, I think she would be in a position where it would be difficult for her to rapidly depart from the policies of her brother. So, so I think though in general, we personalize us a lot because of course North Korea has the Suriyong system where with with the with the leader. You know, having this tremendous authority but in the end I think there's a lot of consensus within the North Korean elite in general about the importance of nuclear weapons, a lot of the trends that we've just been talking about I think are really, you know, they're there in place. So, so I think the sort of the fundamental elements of the priorities of the regime elite and the regime system are going to be dominant regardless of of who is actually running the regime. So, Frank does that adequately address what what you're asking. Yes. Did you answer the second question about unilateral multilateral response. Fair enough. Yeah, so I'll shift to that then. So, I think, ideally you want to have a multilateral consensus of the major players, particularly the the P5 and the Security Council, making a very strong case as to why North Korea should not conduct any additional tests that violate the UN resolutions. In the absence of such a consensus or willingness to take concrete action to both offer entitlements to North Korea, not to do such testing and offer some some pretty significant additional action of some type that would would go against North Korea is in the absence of that. I think there has to be a willingness by the United States to work with other allies. And even if necessary alone to convince North Korea that this is this is really not a good move right and again, both entitlements and and punishments I think are necessary. I don't think that you can. You can convince North Korea not to test just by dire threats. I think you have to give them something to convince them that if they continue to refrain from testing, or if they were in this case return to a refrain to refraining from testing that that there will be some benefits that will accrue to them I mean it's a, it's a price I think that you essentially you have to pay to pursue that strategy if you if you are trying to to prevent weapons testing as a priority. And then you have to be willing even unilaterally to offer something to North Korea, other than just threats of punishment. And Christine I think you said you may have a thoughts on Kim Jong-un. Well, I mean I agree with Marcus. I don't think that rumors of leadership changed in North Korea is on. It's clearly unfounded and we saw that in the case, the spring where there were rumors about Kim Jong-un being dead. I don't think he's going away anytime soon and were he to get ill and pass away and she emerges as the leader I don't think that North Korea will change their course based on individual wins and the personalities of the leaders and really I mean the only way that we can influence North Korea is our own orientation. And I hope that's towards peace. Thank you. This next question I'll direct to Ankit. So there is some anticipation about the October 10 celebration of the founding of the North Korean Workers Party and the military parade that they'll have then and you know some concern about unveiling or even demonstrating a new strategic weapon that North Korea has promised over a year ago. What's your take on on this new strategic weapon. Ankit, I'm sorry you're muted. There we go. Sorry about that. Let me just let me start by talking about the smoking guns that I've been looking at here right so we're coming up on the 75th anniversary and let's look at what happened at the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers Party they unveiled a yet to be flight intercontinental range ballistic missile design known to the US intelligence community as the KN 14 that was unveiled in 2015 at the 2010 October 10th parade they unveiled the Musudan which was an unsuccessful missile tested eight times in 2016 in December 2019 Kim Jong Un told the whole world that we will soon see a new strategic weapon we haven't seen a new strategic weapon there's a parade coming up so you put those things together and for me it appears pretty likely that we will see the North Koreans demonstrating something and the parades are useful because they're not a flight test so they're generally lower on the provocation scale but they still allow the North Koreans to message effectively internally and externally show that the treasured sword as the North Koreans call their deterrent remains under under good care and continues to progress in North Korea we have seen interesting signs in Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang where the parades pass through where Kim Jong Un observes from we've seen bridges being reinforced suggesting that we may see heavier vehicles than have trans than have transited the parade grounds previously we've seen parade preparatory work at the marine riding grounds a previous horse riding area that's been converted to a parade prep area and there's reason to think that Korean People's Army troops have actually been quarantining there during the pandemic to prepare for this parade that said this has been a difficult year for North Korea like I indicated and there are certain themes in the regime's propaganda particularly when it comes to internal morale that have been repeated and morale can naturally be an important factor for any military I think this has been a difficult year for the KPA in March after a period of lockdown in North Korea when the military was unusually inactive because of concerns about the pandemic which North Korea called a threat to national survival Kim Jong Un sort of made the month of March really all about morale we actually saw more missile tests than we've ever seen in a single month in North Korea I believe there were nine individual projectiles at the short range class and above that were launched that month and I think this parade will have very much a similar role to play especially after the difficult last few weeks when North Korea has been repeatedly hit with flooding and typhoons all in the middle of growing concern about the pandemic and a declining economic situation so I'd be very surprised if this parade wasn't something to ride home about it may be the most spectacular parade we've seen since April 2017 it has the purpose of also coming right before the US election elevating North Korea on the agenda certainly as as both presidential candidates offer their thoughts on how they might proceed with North Korea so my expectation is that we will see something worth talking about Thanks Akit and Marcus you had some points on this one. Yeah, no I think that was a spectacular lay down there's just two other things that I'd like to add. First of all, there's been a lot of buzz, understandably about submarine launch ballistic missile developments including the recent report by CSIS of parent preparations for an SLBM launch and also remember that I think that you're going to see at some point indications of a roll out of a new submarine so the joke being you can see a red October surprise right the reference to the submarine movie. And so, obviously you don't parade a sub down the middle of the middle of the square in Pyongyang but that that I think is also going to be something that's going on it shouldn't be a distraction from probably the more important land based systems that North Korea has but I think that's another thing that will be going on in in sort of this timeframe that that could be a factor. The other big thing I want to emphasize is there were some comments made by a South Korean lawmaker, shortly after Kim Jong-un's announcement that that there was going to be a new strategic weapon, speculating that it might be a weapon that has multiple warhead capability potentially a MERS multiple independent running area that's not to get wonky. And I think that's that's a capability that long term of course North Korea I think would want to establish to show it can overcome missile defenses, and also to overcome sort of the reshorts shortfalls of only being able to build so many airframes materials that has available so I wouldn't be surprised if one of these systems braided is either claimed or implied to have multiple warhead capability. Thanks Marcus. So I'm going to jump around in the questions a little bit because we're running out of time and I want to make sure everyone has a chance to speak so I'll jump to Christine next. And there's a question about the role of Congress. I think people tend to associate Congress with using their hammer of sanctions because that's what they do they legislate and they use sanctions. What should the role of Congress be when it comes to North Korea. I think we hope that the next Congress will see a new version of House Resolution 152. I think it's really important to reflect the will and the wishes of the of the American people for peace with North Korea. And so I hope that they continue to play that role because, you know, as we've seen with past agreements. You know, most of these agree agreed framework, for example, was done on arrival, you know, when Clinton came back and faced a Republican administration, Newt Gingrich. And so I hope that it can play a more constructive role instead of, you know, further delaying diplomacy and peace with North Korea. Just really quickly to the point about the parade. I think the point that I would make a vis-a-vis that is North Korea is having a Workers' Party Congress in January. Our sentiment is that they like unlikely will do anything provocative until after that meeting takes place but I think the important point is that it just shows that North Korea, that maximum pressure isn't working in terms of containing weapons production and capability. And so I think it's ever more urgent to try to come to some agreement with North Korea that brings the conflict to an end. Thank you. And Suzanne, you had a point about Congress's role as well. Yes, so on this point, I'm going to constrain myself because I'm pretty agitated when I talk about Congress. I think, you know, what we want from Congress in situations like this is pretty plain and simple. And that is to support diplomacy, support peaceful solutions to resolving intractable problems like North Korea. Just a quick story, when I visited North Korea, Pyongyang, three weeks following Trump's inauguration in February 2017. And the message I was asked to carry back was that the North Koreans were ready for engagement without preconditions. And when I came back and spoke to members of Congress and in the Senate, you know, it was very, very dismayed. There was such a knee jerk reaction against engaging in negotiating with adversaries. I've come into the same, I've hit the same issues on my work with Iran. But I especially want to direct my ire to Democrats, you know, the many who did not support the JCPOA and the Iran nuclear deal, even though it was a signature foreign policy effort of a Democratic president. But what I found in the case of North Korea was that Democrats also didn't support that, mainly because it was Trump. So I think we have this problem of, of course, Congress has an over-reliance on sanctions. I understand this because this is one of the few tools that they have at their disposal to actually have input. But it does seem to me that sanctioning has become the end, not the means to reaching realistic policy goals. So that is my very big pet peeve of mine. Also, I think Congress needs to reassert its oversight role during these past years it hasn't. There have been very few congressional hearings on the administration's North Korea policy. I don't think I can't even remember when Secretary Pompeo last testified on this issue that's completely unacceptable. There should be more hearings and also calling nonpartisan experts to testify as well so that they can get another point of view. It seemed to call the same people. Great. So we just got the notice that we have 10 minutes to go. So I'd ask the speakers to be very brief in your remaining remarks. Next question I'll direct to Van and there's actually two questions. One is kind of unique. The question asked about the role of sort of a psychologically, a psychological or conflict resolution approach to North Korea. So maybe this is putting on your negotiator hat or your political, psychological, psychological theory as an academic that had on. Second question is he talked about the, the role of mill to mill diplomacy. How would that actually work. So, Van. Yeah, so on the psychological thing, the academic thing. North Korea has a very rigid image of us, right, that's been built over time it's crude over time. So everything that we do we have to be sensitive to the extent to which we're sort of confirming their own biases of us. And it's very images can change, but they're also quite sticky, right, especially when they've accumulated over time so like, how do you shift that. I, I agree with the in principle like a bargaining position where you're trying to do tip for tat or reciprocity or incrementalism. I think that we can expect North Korean reciprocity until we have first done credible signaling that we are in a different headspace that we are not the image that they have of us, or at least we're not any more. Right. And so we have to engage in significant unilateral gestures that we've never been willing to accommodate before, before we can expect the step by step action for action to actually work. Like we have to concede much more than we've ever been willing to imagine in order to get to the place where like most reasonable people want us to be. And so like at a, at a psychological level, I think it's about changing the image that North Korea has of us. Right. And that's going to be tough medicine for us to swallow on the mill mill thing. I have a special report out with us IP just out this week about how we would structure mill mill the case for it what it's the purposes that it serves. The risks of doing mill mill with North Korea, even though I think I explained why those are acceptable risks necessary risks. The one thing I would say is that there is, there is latent value unexploited value in establishing ties with North Korea national security elites, so that we can learn, among other things about how they think about coercion about deterrence about their nuclear actions about stuff that we don't think about like their image of us. Right. This only comes through sustained engagement, it can't be in narrow channels it has to be broad based can't hang all your hopes on, you know, Cheson he by herself, right. So we have to engage more broadly, and that will get us somewhere. I have a specific road. I hate roadmap. I have a specific roadmap in that report for like how we could do this but there are many ways to slice that apple. Thank you. Christine turning back to you quick question. Peace treaty three or parties. Where are your thoughts on that. I guess, I mean when we think about a peace agreement, it's, it's an agreement between the Liderance and when we think about, you know, which are the countries that would negotiate peace agreement obviously the United States and North Korea, South Korea, and the question of China, and both the US and South Korea have normalized relations with China, but in terms of the long term sustainability, I think it might be important to include China. But you know I think the, the kind of maybe closing statement I want to make in this is the palm and jump declaration which was signed by the two Korean leaders, expressing the will of the Korean people is that they want a peace agreement. And unfortunately I'm not hearing enough among the panelists here about a peace agreement as a sustainable and valid possibility and a real policy goal of the next administration. And if that's what the will of the Korean people are, then I would hope that the US stops impeding that process we know that after the Pyongyang summit that took place in September of 2018 that Pompaya picked up the phone and to call and like Chastisle, Chastisle the South Korean Foreign Minister for moving too fast on inter Korean reconciliation that they would block the South Korean, you know, businesses from doing their investment in North Korea. You know, I think that we need a fundamental orient reorientation, and I feel that too much of South Korea's voice and agency is totally absent. I just want to bring us back to what is our alliance with South Korea if it's not honoring and respecting the wishes of the Korean people to bring an end to the 70 year conflict. I would just add that I think there's a lot of criticism about a peace treaty, especially because of the political hurdles that are tough to overcome, you know, getting the endorsement of two thirds of senators for a peace treaty. I would also add that there's many attributes of peace that don't require peace treaty, like economic relations, the ending the travel ban that the people the people exchanges, those are all aspects of a normal relationship that doesn't require the formal peace right. I know but Frank I would just add that we've done that with countries like Vietnam we didn't have to go through a major it could just be an executive order that makes that happen. But I do want to add that you know when the summit took place at the DNC between Trump and Kim and moon was obviously facilitating behind the scenes. You know we heard from a senior administration official that said we are getting attacked basically we need some help to try to support the peace process because we're getting attacked within and from our opposition and so I think that says so much that despite the will of a president and senior officials to try to get to peace. Obviously we need so much for this administration to get its house in order. I think they're tremendous interest to maintaining the conflict. We know that when the Singapore declaration was signed that investment or that the stock prices of the defense contractors were annoyed failed, they rose back up the Korean War inoculated the military industrial complex. We have a responsibility to end this war because it's not just good for Koreans, it's good for us, and our security, our investments at home to improve. Yeah. I saw that Suzanne, I'll let her chime in and then I'll quickly go to Marcus and honk it for the last words. So Suzanne very quickly. Actually, I was just I think scratching my head, but I just want to endorse everything Christine said I think if I didn't come clear that I'm pro peace declaration versus foremost, which could happen. And then get out on our way to a peace treaty. But again, you know, our Congress is allergic to treaty. Once the last time we reached the treaty. It's, you know, problem that goes beyond just the administration, I think it's our Congress too. Thank you. So two last questions. The first one I'll address to Marcus about China's role in North Korea's denuclearization. And then the second question to on kit about how the US looks at its own nuclear policy and and how we should take that in terms of our engagement with the DPRK so first Marcus about China's role. So China plays a critical role and fortunately it's not certainly a helpful one I think China fundamentally does not have the same level of interest in denuclearizing North Korea as we do. And certainly seems content to to focus on just sort of managing the situation avoiding a crisis. So China has potentially a tremendous amount of leverage over North Korea, but not a whole lot of influence. And primarily because I think China is fairly risk averse and has a has I would I would say a fundamentally different view of the importance of the denuclearization. But to be fair there are a lot of common interests I think in some of the issues raised today about working together to manage the manage the threat from North Korea but I think I think in the end, China is as much potentially a spoiler of any effort as it is a partner and I think that's something given the friction in the US China relationship right now is something we need to be aware of that we can't necessarily rely on China, even though it has that interest in denuclearization. Thank you. And then to Ankit about US policy towards nuclear weapon and that the role of that policy are engaged with North Korea. Sure, I mean, you know really goes back to the origins of the term denuclearization itself, which is kind of bespoke to the Korean Peninsula we mostly talk about disarmament and other contexts. You know, December 1991 American tactical nuclear weapons leave the Korean Peninsula days afterwards South Korean president at the time affirms that and then the two Koreas signed the 1992 January declaration on denuclearization which is really the fundamental basis of what denuclearization means on the Korean Peninsula that's later affirmed by the United States and North Korea in a 1993 agreement that actually almost takes place 25 years to the day of the Singapore sonnet just totally coincidentally July 13 I believe in 1993. But all of this goes to say that I think you know the choices the next administration makes about American nuclear policy can hinder us on the Korean Peninsula or they can help us. There are ongoing debates about no first use about a declaration that the sole purpose of American nuclear weapons is to deter the use of nuclear weapons against US territory or the territory of our allies. So congratulations to that and I think we can debate how credible they would be given the way US forces are currently structured, but they could have positive effects North Korea genuinely does perceive American nuclear weapons to be threatening to its interest so this is something worth taking seriously. And you know with with new developments like lower yield submarine launch ballistic missiles, which may make North Korea perceive that the United States might more easily contemplate nuclear use against its territory developments like that I think do set us back with those by saying though I mean you know we are now in a time of intensifying geopolitical competition in the Asia Pacific there's a lot of choices. The Pentagon is making about how we might posture to compete with China and Asia Pacific and of course, if you're North Korea and you're looking at the United States moving in newer military capabilities into this theater. These capabilities might not just be for China one day you they might be something that you worry about so now in the context of the end of the INF treaty and discussions about new US missiles in the Asia Pacific. I think all of this we have to not only think about in the context of China but also in terms of the deterrence relationship and crisis stability with North Korea these are things that I really hope planners are taking seriously and I can see the first point that this is something that's now more informing American strategic thinking that I'm used to that's a positive sign and definitely it's something that we need to endure going forward. Thank you. And I want to thank all the speakers we've run out of time but we discussed so many different threads and I'm very grateful that you were willing to talk about these issues in a very truncated fashion. I spent much more time talking about any, any number of these issues. So thank you to all the speakers I want to thank my colleague Lucy Stevenson Yang, who helped do all the logistics for the zoom platform, as well as the AB team at USIP, and also to the audience and viewers for tuning in. So until then, next time, I hope that we have many more productive discussions about North Korea and I look forward to seeing everyone again soon. Thank you all. Thank you so much.