 Good evening everyone Thank you for coming I should say good afternoon soon to be evening Thank you for coming inside on a finally a beautiful day here in Newport For those of you who have been with us now for nine lectures I see a few familiar faces we started and it was bitterly cold and snow on the ground and we finally made it to the other side Terry, thank you for that. I'm gonna say it's all because of your lecture I'm Dave Pilatti, and I'm delighted to host this evening's international Issues in national security lecture series We're extremely fortunate to have Dr. Terry Roerig with us I'm just gonna cover a few ground rules and I'll get right into his bio so he can get started because I have a feeling There's gonna be a lot of questions on this topic tonight Just like to remind everyone that this lecture is being videotaped from the back So Terry's face will be seen the back of your heads will be seen But when the questions part comes up at the end just please remember that we are on video And this will eventually go up on the War College YouTube channel When Terry speaks he is giving his own personal opinions Not those of the Naval War College the US Navy or the Department of Defense But I also can pretty much think he's gonna give some really amazing opinions And as I mentioned we have our very distinguished professor of national security affairs here Professor Terry Roerig He is also the director of the War Colleges Asia Pacific Studies Group, which as you can imagine The breadth of that particular area of the world and the issues that go on there He's got his hands full between teaching and running this research group He has been a research fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard He's also been a visiting professor our neighbor to the North and Providence at Brown University Been with the War College now for just over 13 years So quite some time he has not only a huge following here in Newport Rhode Island But around the world because he is a preeminent expert on affairs related to not only the Korean Peninsula But all across the Indo-Asia Pacific region and I have to mention that he got his PhD at the University of Wisconsin Madison So while he likes cold weather He's much happier to be here this evening with you and good weather in Newport ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. Dr. Terry Roerig Thank You Dave and thank you for that kind introduction. It is a pleasure to be here and to have a chance to talk about Korean security issues here and in particular The nuclear piece and how we are doing so far Well, it has been a crazy two years as we have gone from fire and fury Little rocket man. We all learned what the word dotard means possible conflict on the Korean Peninsula to now some it's breaking out all over and Yet the question still remains is denuclearization possible. That is the goal But how far have we come? Is it possible? How did we get here? It's not entirely clear at this stage whether the goal is actually reachable or not and what possible goal might be somewhere in between Nothing and denuclearization is another key piece to this Certainly there is a debate out there as we go forward of whether It's just simply not possible or whether we have to try harder and that it actually is possible if Some of the right moves are made tonight I would like to explore a number of those different questions some of the circumstances how we got here what the chances are that we can reach Denuclearization and to see where this might go in the future So let me begin with first a little background for those who may not be familiar with North Korea We are looking at Kim Jong-un now having been in in power for a little over seven years Wow, it's amazing how fast time flies. He came into office in December of 2011 when his father Kim Jong-il passed away This is not the first time in North Korea that we have had a father son transition to power as the first one occurred in 19 or excuse me in 1994 when His grandfather Kim Il-sung passed away of natural causes he had been the leader of North Korea since its founding in 1948 and designated his son Kim Jong-il to succeed him and Had probably about 15 maybe 20 years of preparation before he took over for his father passing away in 1994 and yet we still had concerns that that transition was going to be stable and relatively peaceful Kim Jong-un had probably only a year and a half to two years of a transition before his father passed away and We had certainly a great deal of concern about that and and it has turned out to be a relatively stable transition When Kim Jong-un took over there was again a great deal of concern for how this was going to happen he was given initially some of the chief positions and and Duties as well to transition into that role. He also was crafted very much in the position or excuse me in the Notion of his grandfather as opposed to his father Because when you look at the political hierarchy in North Korea Kim Il-sung is Absolutely revered around North Koreans. I mean almost to the point of being godlike and so Kim Jong-un when he came into to power as in his Mid 20s late 20s this guy had very little legitimacy So he was very quickly crafted in the image of his grandfather Even to the point when you look at that picture on the the far left there of looking like his grandfather So if you've ever wondered where the Kim Jong-un haircut comes from You have to look to his grandfather an early picture of Kim Il-sung Again because Kim Jong-un had very little legitimacy coming into power They had to do a lot of different things to try to make sure that his position Was secure even in regards to that image So when Kim first took over in 2011 I think this picture really summarizes the ruling structure in North Korea in these early days This was the funeral procession for Kim Jong-il you see on the left-hand side Kim Jong-un his father or his uncle John Song-taek and then he has another story Which I'll get to in just a minute Two other chief civilian leaders on one side on the other side. You see the four top military leaders though Kim again is part of the family that is Crucial in the power structure in North Korea in these early days He likely ruled as part of this committee of some of these senior leaders again imagine. Here's a kid who was in his mid to late 20s and He's going to tell these senior leaders in the military in the party what to do It was probably ruled by committee in these early days but slowly but surely Kim purged a lot of individuals and a lot more in an earlier Time frame than his father did so that it it looked perhaps more severe than his father's extended period to remove some of these people so that when you look at the Picture again the military guys on the right. They're all gone now On the left-hand side a number of the John Song-taek is gone And we'll talk about his story in just a minute And so Kim Jong-un purged a lot of individuals to slowly cement his position in power and Also to remove the individuals that owed their position to his father and put in people that would be loyal to him in the years ahead and That included again removing people even that were close to you. And so John Song-taek Was removed and executed in 2013 where he was pulled out of a very high-profile party meeting Arrested and then within about a week to ten days. He was executed He was an uncle now not by birth. He had married Kim Jong-il's sister, but nonetheless a family member and most likely because he had just gotten too powerful within the political structure and Politically economically and just could not be tolerated in that regard and had to be Removed and ended up being executed sent a very clear message that even if you were a family member You were not safe if you were a threat to Kim Jong-un's rule Then more recently you may recall that his half-brother Kim Jong-nam was killed in Kuala Lumpur in the Malaysian capital city airport where two young women Their story was that they were Coopted by North Korean agents in what they thought was a reality TV show To come up with a rag with vx agent behind him in the airport put it over his face and Kim Jong-nam will die very quickly after that We think that the two women were probably Expected to die as well And so that would take care of any of sort of the trail from the North Korean agents but the two women were very quick to go into a bathroom and wash their hands and Survived they were arrested interesting story One was an Indonesian woman the other was Vietnamese They eventually were released and the Vietnamese woman just last week after they were prosecuted for this but Again were released and eventually sent back home And so when you look at all of this, you know, how secure is Kim Jong-un's political position? I would argue that it is very secure politically There is no clear opposition to his rule. Of course, that's not good for your health But every time these kinds of things happen. There is always a question about what about opposition to Kim Jong-un And it seems that his rule is very secure in this regard One other last point a reminder that North Korea as well has a very sad human rights record And I say this because it's important when we get into the nuclear and security issues The human rights community always tries to remind folks that you get so wound up about the nuclear weapons piece Don't forget about the human rights problems with nuclear with a nuclear North Korea But of course that that adds some further complication to the issue if you are going to push North Korea hard on It's human rights record It's going to be that much more difficult to get any sort of concessions on the nuclear issue Economics When Kim Jong-un came into office a year or so after he was in power He declared what was going to be his centerpiece Ideological Project and that is what is known as the byeongjin line It was the idea that North Korea would pursue Simultaneously two twin goals one was the development of nuclear weapons. The second was to grow the economy We think that Kim Jong-un over the last year or so has become confident in the nuclear program and has now shifted full Speed towards economic development But the sanctions that are in place because of the nuclear program are really going to make that difficult And I will get to that in just a little bit But I think it's important when you look at North Korea and its economy. It is changing and There is a good deal of evolution to the North Korean Economy first of all there is increased marketization in North Korea the state economic system collapsed in the famine years in the 1990s and people had to survive as best they could and that meant buying and selling using their own skills Whatever they had available in the marketplace to try to generate some level of economy so in the picture That you see here You will see a lot of different markets that are up and running in North Korea where people buy and sell things for profit Money matters in North Korea the society is modernizing as there are from two to three million cell phones subscribers in North Korea So that it is changing you are seeing some of the fashions that you would see in Seoul showing up in North Korea Much more than it was in the past Important though to note that that is largely confined to the elites in the top Maybe two to three percent of the population the rest of North Korea still Struggles greatly and for the elites. They also have a couple of very high-profile Projects to enjoy these pictures that you see here. This is a ski resort in North Korea It got a little bit of attention during the Olympics And and part of some of the joint training. This is a water park in North Korea And here's an amusement park and if you look very closely this gentleman right here is Kim Jong-un enjoying a roller coaster ride So you have some of these elements of modernization that are slowly creeping into North Korea More and more North Koreans know about what's going on in the outside world Despite still being heavily propagandized from little on About the regime and its benefits and what it does for the people But those things again are slowly changing in North Korea And so it is a very different world in particular for the elites that top two or three percent of the population But for the majority of other North Koreans It is still a very tough life and I like to point to the map over on the far left That is a classic that's often used when you talk about the North Korean Economy a satellite photo taken in the evening It shows how the power grid is not very dependable in North Korea still and so you have a Great deal of the metropolitan areas in South Korea in China But the main dot that you see in in North Korea there is Pyongyang some other Lights as well that are part of that the old motel six commercial will leave the light on for you In North Korea the power grid is very Undependable in a number of different cities Here are some stats showing what the comparison is of the North Korean and South Korean economy South Korea won this battle a long time ago And I think one of the key numbers here as you look at this is The dependence that the North Korean economy has on China for trade 85 to 90 percent of North Korean trade is involved with China China has the lifeline to North Korea and it could squeeze the North Korean economy if it chose to do so and it did in 2017 when all of the testing was going on and China was not happy with any of that either and China we think was very vigorously enforcing sanctions during that period now not so much and so when you look at GDP growth and these numbers are not reported by North Korea These are estimates by the Bank of Korea in South Korea 2016 the Bank of Korea reported a three point nine percent economic growth rate Wow, the United States would have loved three point nine percent at that point, but then in 2017 it goes to negative three point five percent What explains that the sanctions and we think the sanctions have had a good deal of impact on a number of different ways Two reports that I have seen lately have shown that some of the the sanctions have Possibly cut down on the income that the Kim regime uses to provide benefits to the elites That's a big issue and a big concern for North Korea Also, some of the prices that are charged to rent stalls in the marketplace seem to have gone up Another indication that the government needs to generate greater income from the people that sanctions may be having some degree of an impact and then lastly a couple of years ago there was a report in the UN that said 70 percent of the Population in North Korea was food insecure Just last week a UN report came out again that there will be 40 percent of the North Korean population Will be an urgent need of food aid because of a poor harvest and bad weather and so in North Korea has continued economic troubles despite the fact that there is some Interesting elements at the top end, but the sanctions seem to have had some degree of effect So if this is some background, let's shift to some of the security pieces I like to start with this slide because I think we often start by looking at the nuclear Pieces and we focus so much on that we forget about the conventional weapons side of this a few of the numbers that are Part of this as you compare the North Korean military to the South Korean and what the US presence is Some of those numbers are very interesting and look like North Korean superiority But there are some important caveats next to a number of those those numbers First of all on the North Korean side those tanks and combat aircraft a good deal of those are old Soviet and Chinese models that go back to the old Cold War days and so would not do well against modern South Korean and US assets many of those systems also lack fuel and spare parts that make a number of them very difficult to keep running For the aircraft there is one report that indicates that North Korean pilots Train in their airframes about 20 hours per year That is not a very Significant amount of training time in their airplanes When you look at some of these numbers though some of the big problems though are the artillery Pieces that you see and the slide the picture to the left You see the black dots across the border there on the North Korean side Those are where the North Koreans have their long-range artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems The lighter gray circles are the ranges you see a number of those ranges overlap the metropolitan area of Seoul And so this is one of the serious military realities of a North-South competition is North Korea has the ability to wreak an awful lot of damage on Seoul in the early days of any conflict before It would be likely that you could take out all of these different positions on the North Korean side The North Koreans also have a strong Special operations force that numbers range. I've seen numbers from eighty thousand to anywhere from two hundred thousand of that 1.2 million North Korean Military and those folks are well trained well fed and and all of the unclassed estimates that I have seen indicate They would be a very Significant fighting force for the North Koreans the other key piece to this are the submarines that number 73 While those are not necessarily the most modern boats puts them as one of the largest submarine forces in the world and Operating off their coast they have been able to be somewhat successful in their operations one last Slower picture that I want to add to this is This photo you may recall in November of 2017. There was a North Korean soldier who defected across The DMZ this is in close to Panmunjom the joint security area. He got shot at I think he took a couple of rounds getting across the border But what was interesting is when he was examined by South Korean doctors They found that he was very undernourished and had seven or eight tapeworms in him This was an interesting indication of what perhaps was the readiness level of the North Korean military if this was an example of How well fed and and the health condition of the North Korean military Some significant questions about what sort of fighting force this would be if push came to shove There are also stories that the North Korean military is routinely Pulled off the line to help bring in the harvest in the fall also to help with construction projects At various times and so some significant Questions about the overall readiness of the North Korean military not to dismiss their ability to cause a great deal of damage But certainly raising some serious questions about some of those issues So now to the nuclear weapons piece North Korea has conducted six nuclear weapons tests the most recent in September of 2017 you can see the increasing yields of those tests up to the last one being a hundred kilotons North Korea argued that that was probably or that that was a hydrogen bomb And you see the photo that they released in the lower left Which is the sort of two-stage design that you would have for a hydrogen bomb That is a fusion device that requires an atomic bomb to set off the fusion part of this and Scientists think that that that does look roughly like a potential design for that although. I'm not sure we necessarily know for sure We don't know exactly what the status of North Korea's nuclear arsenal is currently But some of the estimates roughly are around 20 to 25 warheads Some estimates indicate that there may be fissile material for another 30 to 60 warheads, but again, it's not entirely clear David Albright a few years ago had put together an estimate that he said worst-case scenario by 2020 Which I seem so far off, but that's getting a lot closer Suggested that that could be by 2010 excuse me by 2020 they might have a hundred warheads at that particular stage It's also important to note that the North Koreans have two routes to nuclear weapons either through their old plutonium reactor and spent fuel that they have from that as well as One possibly to uranium enrichment programs And you see the centrifuges that are shown here Siegfried Hecker in 2010 who was the former director of Los Alamos was given some unique access to North Korean facilities and He was shown one of these facilities and was shocked by how many center fuges there were and how modern they were and that pointed to most likely some degree of Working with the Pakistanis in getting facilities and equipment to help further this particular program now North Korea has said that it has a test in freezing in testing and on production And so far has held to that since September of 2017 their delivery vehicle of choice is ballistic missiles and they have a Big array of ballistic missiles They have about 500 short-range scud missiles 150 to 200 medium range no-dong missiles that can reach Almost all of Japan Likely weaponized with conventional warheads possibly even nuclear warheads certainly Chemical warheads as well. And so that's probably where some of the first Weaponization occurred the North Koreans though have also been working on longer-range missiles the Hwasong 14 Which was tested in July of 2017 and then there was the Hwasong 15 Long-range missile that was tested in November of 2017 that the rocket guys think really Demonstrated that this probably can reach the continental United States They were impressed by the size and apparent capability of this particular missile The North Koreans are also likely working on a submarine launch ballistic missile although you haven't heard a lot about that lately That is likely taking one of their old golf-class submarines and putting maybe one maybe two Vertical launch tubes in that Submariners when they look at this will often start to chuckle at this point when they look at that as a viable Ballistic missile submarine But on the other hand if they can pull that off and in a crisis send one or two of those out to see That certainly is going to complicate matters for South Korea and the United States One of the big questions that remains is to what degree has North Korea been able to weaponize these systems With a nuclear warhead on top of them It seems likely that they have probably been able to weaponize a short or medium-range ballistic missile It is not entirely clear to me And I think there is still some debate in the rocket community as to whether they have been able to weaponize a long-range Ballistic missile to reach the United States with a nuclear warhead that takes Guidance systems and reentry vehicles that it's not entirely clear that North Korea has been able to master that technology But again there is some debate in regards to that particular capability I Want to get to before we get to the negotiations and the denuclearization efforts one last Set of questions that I think are important as we look at this and particularly if you are skeptical That North Korea can be convinced to denuclearize Then what are some of the issues that follow with the nuclear North Korea or as I've phrased it here How will North Korea use a nuclear weapon? First of all, I think there is the issue of North Korea wanting nuclear weapons as a deterrent I think this is the most likely reason and the key piece to North Korea's security calculations I think they believe that a nuclear deterrent is the ultimate backstop to secure the protection of the regime You hear many North Korean Sources talk about how the lessons of Iraq and Libya are that those regimes would still be around if they had nuclear weapons And so I think having it as a deterrent is going to be central to North Korea's security calculations What about the notion of North Korea using a nuclear weapon in some sort of an offensive first strike? I think this is highly unlikely. I think the North Koreans Understand that if they use a nuclear weapon in any sort of offensive manner the gloves come off That will be the end of this regime. I think they understand that and I am very convinced that they are not going to do that however If they feel that the regime and its existence is threatened To the point that they are backed in a corner have and have very few alternatives Then I think they are likely to use whatever means they have at their disposal including Possibly nuclear weapons and so again, I think under those circumstances They will make a very different decision about that now I want to raise a scenario that was talked about a great deal in 2017 that I think is important to think about in this Circumstance you heard a good deal of this of discussion in summer and fall of 2017 about the possibility of the United States Conducting some sort of military action against North Korea one of the options was a quote-unquote bloody nose That perhaps the United States might put three or five Tomahawk cruise missiles on a particular target to send North Korea a message more might be following if You guys don't decide to back off But here comes the challenge with this North Korea would have to decide in a relatively short amount of time Are these five tomahawks a message or is this the beginning of a regime change operation? And as well do they have the capability the ISR capability to know the difference? North Korea's decision is going to be very different if they think it's a bloody nose versus if they think it is a regime change operation and that raises a whole host of very serious nasty Possibilities and why I think military action is a really serious and problematic Direction to take Another possibility is something folks have raised in talking about an old Cold War concept called the stability Instability paradox and it goes back to this notion during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union had nuclear arsenals that could bomb each other to annihilation and so there was stability at the strategic level No one wanted to escalate to that degree But that allowed for the United States and the Soviet Union to do things at lower levels knowing that that sort of Those kinds of actions would be contained No one wanted to escalate and therefore you could conduct certain types of shenanigans at that lower level and know It wouldn't go to nuclear war Well does North Korea look at its nuclear capability in that regard and see nuclear weapons as again this backstop That will allow it to do more lower level provocations Think back to 2010 and the notion of when it sunk the Chonan Off the West Coast and when it shelled South Korean islands will it become more risk tolerant with a nuclear capability I Think it bears watching, but I don't think that's going to be the case And I don't think North Korea's behavior has gone in that direction yet And I'll leave that for Q&A if you want to explore that issue further a Related question to this is some are concerned that North Korea will use nuclear weapons to coerce South Korea into reunification on North Korean terms I Find that very very hard to believe on a couple of different accounts first of all What is the scenario that has this happened? How does North Korea threaten nuclear use in any sort of credible way? That is going to make South Korea rollover and give up its Sovereignty to be absorbed by the North Koreans. I just don't see how that's going to happen plus North Korea when we look at their economic history the Chinese have been telling them for years look at us You can open up your economy. You can reform you can grow But you can still have the Communist Party and the Kim family regimes stay in power and yet North Korea has been very reluctant to implement any sorts of major economic reform Because While they might end up like China they could also end up like the old Soviet Union or Eastern Europe and create forces within their country that they lose control of and Now suddenly North Korea is descends into chaos and the Kim family loses control of the country Can you imagine what trying to integrate South Korea a country twice as large a? Modern advanced economy is going to look like for North Korea to maintain control over that process I just don't see it and I think the North Koreans understand that that's a disaster So while all Koreans talk reunification, I don't think that's going to be an issue and going to be on the board All right, so to the denuclearization part and you know what in the interest of time I'm going to skip this slide will maybe touch on this a little bit later So let me get right to this Again, we were in a very different place two years ago in 2017 How did we get to where we are today and we have to start with? The election of President Moon Jae-in he was elected in May of 2017 in a special election to replace then ousted President Park Gun-Ae who was impeached removed from office Yes, those are guards taking her away She is in prison serving a lengthy prison term and that is probably unless she gets a pardon where she will stay for quite some time When it looked like she was going to be impeached and removed from office and there would be a special election Moon Jae-in was very clearly the frontrunner right off the bat And it was very clear that he was also going to be someone who was going to reach out to North Korea very pro-engagement that was part of his past and That was the expectation when he gets elected in May He is almost immediate in reaching out to North Korea for dialogue Let's move beyond where we are in May of 2017. Well, that was the North Korean response more tests Missile tests there will be a nuclear weapons test And so there was very little room for him to move on his pro-engagement policy So at that particular point the US and South Korea were very closely aligned in their policy in regards to the North Then we got to that missile test in 2017 that I mentioned earlier of the Hwasong 15 Kim Jong-un announces after that test that we have Completed the development of our program Okay, so the North Koreans are done testing they believe they have a sufficient nuclear deterrent And so now we wait to see what happens. Well, what happened came in January of 2018 when Kim Jong-un gives The annual New Year's address He reached out to the South Koreans he offered an olive branch He offered also indicated that he was willing to participate in the South Korean winter Olympics Which were coming up in February of 2018 and this was the window that Moon Jae-in needed to be open and he moved very quickly to offer that olive branch in return to the North Koreans and So at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang in 2018 you have the North Koreans sending a delegation and this is always one of the very interesting photos I think from that that event here is Kim Yo-jung that is Kim Jong-un's sister High-ranking North Korean official here is Moon Jae-in and his wife vice president Pence and Here is the head of the Olympic Commission Abe and his wife are over here by the protocol Officer that got to figure this out and decide who's going to sit next to who that must have been a very interesting job But you can see on their faces perhaps some of this Excuse me, but this was the opening and as a result of these meetings Kim Yo-jung and the North Korean delegation met with Moon Jae-in and this was the start of the new environment that we had Shortly after that in March the South Koreans sent a delegation to Pyongyang and they met directly with Kim Jong-un as you see here They came up with a number of interesting elements to this that the North and South agreed to a summit meeting that would happen in April Suspending of testing Kim Jong-un reportedly said I have no reason to have nuclear weapons if the United States relaxes its Hostile policy and a couple of other elements to that Shortly after this meeting the two South Korean delegates traveled to Washington DC to brief President Trump and Surprise low and behold all of a sudden you see the South Korean delegation in the driveway of the White House Making an announcement that in addition to all the other things in that meeting. They also were given an invitation by Kim Jong-un to invite Trump for a summit meeting and within the matter of Minutes Trump said yes, I will go which was a bit of a surprise Not only in his administration, but elsewhere and so we now have the summit meeting on for the United States with North Korea Now I'm going to move through the timeline there a little more quickly, but Kim Jong-un is going to meet with China before The summit meeting happens and we can talk about that later, but then we had the April summit meeting and They are going to meet in Panmunjom, which is at the the border Area and they come up with a delegation that has essentially four parts to it I Show you this because I think this is essential here in understanding South Korea's position on this when you look at the Four parts to this it says improve inter-Korean relations reduce military tensions and the armistice Replace with a peace treaty Then you can get to a nuclear free North Korea Moon Jae-in would tell you that order is absolutely important because you've got to do the first things Before you can get to denuclearization Problem is from a United States perspective There is concern that the North Koreans will take all the benefits in those first three parts never quite get to Denuclearization the United States position is they want to see progress on the last piece first a front-loaded Proposal or plan if you will But that's going to be difficult for North Korea to perhaps agree to From this Moon Jae-in again has been very enthusiastic to move on denuclearization And so the while the United States and North Korean side of this process has been stalled on the North South side it has been full speed ahead and here you see just a rough list of some of the things that the North and South Have already done in regards to their process First of all family reunions happened In August of 2018, which was I mean a major reminder of the humanitarian side to this There have been some joint basketball games That occurred soon into this process the South Koreans have also explored reopening railroad links and road links between North and South that would connect them then with The Russian and Chinese rail nets that would also then get them to Europe and perhaps to the Belt Road initiative South Korea would love to do I should say the Moon Administration would love to do more in this regard But they bump up against the sanctions that are in place from the United Nations And they were hoping in the Hanoi summit to have some sanctions relief in that Conclusion of that agreement, but they were not so fortunate to get to that particular result So in regards to the Hanoi summit It was very much a disappointment and I'm skipping Singapore just for the sake of time here And we can pick up on that and any questions that you might have But in regards to the Hanoi summit, I think many were surprised that there was no deal at all I thought there would be some small incremental deal But nothing happened in essence because both sides came in with the big deal if you will and that was just not Acceptable the North Koreans wanted major sanctions relief particularly the ones from 2016 to 2017 In return for the Yon-Byeong facility being shut down That was just not enough for the United States to give that much sanctions relief and as well We came in with an offer to have full or asking for full denuclearization That was not good enough or too far for the North Koreans And so it ended up not having any deal at all But there were some elements that came out of it Kim still agreed to Denuclearization in principle said that there would still be a testing moratorium in place The United States is still committed to suspending the military exercises, although we still are conducting Exercises, but they are reconfigured smaller scale happening more frequently than the big ones that we have had and We have had a number of other issues that are still on the table and When you look at some of these we still have not come to a common definition of what denuclearization means a Peace declaration we would like the North Koreans to formally declare what their Facilities are how much fissile material they have we really don't know what they all have in this regard a Road map for denuclearization and I think clarification of whether it's going to be some sort of major deal or incremental in some respects One of the key questions that I think coming out of this is was there an enough momentum From the Hanoi deal to be able to continue this process. I Think so but we shall see the next few months are going to be very very interesting to see where that Proceeds But I think when you look at all of this I'm sorry one last one last point Kim Jong-un in April came out and said We will give the United States a year to come up with a new plan and to change its position They haven't said what is going to follow after that, but we shall see to what degree that's a negotiating position Whether that is trying to get the United States to change its position What the North Koreans are willing to do to follow through on that? So let me just make a couple of concluding remarks, and then I will stop there so that we can get to any questions that you may Have in this regard When you look at where we are going forward, I think you can divide this into the optimists and the pessimists The optimists would argue that North Korea has given up a number of things up to this point And it's really up to the United States now to come up with something that it is willing to offer in regards to some concessions Particularly sanctions relief that is what the North Koreans really want to see they want to be able to grow their economy And they need the sanctions to be lifted to be able to do that But then there are the pessimists who would argue this process is failing We have been telling you that's what's going to happen, and it is no surprise to us that this process is failing North Korea has no intention of denuclearizing and any sort of effort to try to coax them is going to be a failed Process they will take whatever benefits they can and never quite get to that. I Think what you are starting to see is perhaps some Discussion about a middle ground to this that is it possible to talk about a freeze of North Korea's program Some sort of arms control a freeze in testing But the problem with that is that I think you are going to still have to talk about Denuclearization as the final goal because to just sort of give up and accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state has some very significant implications for the global non-proliferation regime and The notion that if you just simply say well, you can go nuclear We will impose sanctions, but eventually we all get over it and we'll accept you as a nuclear weapons state That is very difficult to do So I think what you will see is a slow process My own sense is I think if this is going to get anywhere it is going to be a process that will not have a big deal It's going to have to be a gradual incremental process and It is going to have to be a step-by-step stage that is going to take a number of years certainly beyond Perhaps any of the current political leaders And so it's going to have to be something that we'll be able to to stand the test of time Which is certainly going to be one of the key challenges to this as to whether it can be sustained My own personal view as I am skeptical North Korea can be convinced to give up its nuclear weapons I think it is going to be some it is something that is fundamental to North Korea's security calculations But if we can get something that at least gets tension levels down and get some limits on North Korea's program I think that can be a benefit from where we were two years ago But as with many of the things that I've said today a lot of this is is my own personal view And you could get other North Korea analysts here who are going to say very different things and Present very different arguments along the compass, but again those are those are my views So let me stop there and open it up to any questions that you may have about anything related to North or South Korea or the United States and Etc etc Who will go for the first question? Doctor what what what is your view of the issues that run the table with Putin and Kim Jong-un and what do you think came out of that meeting if anything of substance? Yeah, I don't think a lot in substance and I think the two sides Different calculations from a North Korean side I think Kim was very much trying to sort of hedge his bets. He understands how dependent he is on China economically politically I think partly this was his hope to be able to Generate support from another corner perhaps. I think if he hoped that he was going to get any sort of economic benefit from Moscow he was Disappointed and and I think very unlikely that Russia was going to do that Anyway, but at least politically that's the case. It also is going to give Kim another voice Perhaps on his side pushing the United States for perhaps greater concessions in regards to any future Dialogue there's a possibility of a third summit on the table It's not looking very concrete yet, but it hasn't been dismissed Some have have proposed perhaps a six-party framework again If there is a Russian voice to the table that may be against something that helps Kim Politically, but again if he was hoping to get some economic benefit I don't think Putin wants to get involved in this Economically there's an awful lot of risk here plus he just doesn't have a whole lot to spare on that particular side But I think from Putin's perspective, you know when you look at the politics of this The Russians and frankly the Japanese as well have been you know on the sideline This this brings Putin sort of back into the table again as one of the key Players in this and we'll see how this plays out politically to what degree he has Input into some of this Thank you for your remarks this evening It seems pretty amazing that a country that can't keep the lights on has training in nuclear science And and engineers that are capable of at least pursuing these these ends Where do they get the training? Where do they get the engineers and scientists are they trained in China? And and how do they have that I guess that? Intellectual capital yeah, I think it's a couple of answers I mean early in the program and certainly the nuclear site early on They they've got some assistance from the Russians for the nuclear reactor piece to this They pestered the Russians back in the 50s for nuclear weapons and there was no way Moscow was going to do that But help them with some elements of nuclear Energy technology a little bit of help from the Chinese, but not as much So they grew some of that from that indigenously, they also certainly have gotten help from Pakistan the aq con network contributed a great deal the North Koreans also worked with the Iranians and the Pakistanis on ballistic missile technology as well But they have been able to reverse engineer some things and also develop a lot of that expertise indigenously now From a resource standpoint one of the interesting numbers is the percentage of their GDP that they spend on defense Of course, the North Koreans don't report that number But the State Department came out with an estimate a couple of years ago that suggested it was about 25% of North Korean GDP goes to military spending So that answers some of that as well I think there also is an argument here that The North Koreans understand that when you look at those conventional numbers A lot of those systems are old and aging for them to be able to modernize those systems and to keep up with the South Would have been astronomical they have tried to do some of it for example some of their artillery systems have been modernized Some reports of a new tank showing up that may be You know a bit more modern than some of their old systems, but they just can't keep up with all the other stuff So that it is The asymmetric side and nuclear weapons are most likely what they have viewed as their asymmetric response to being unable to do that Missiles nuclear weapons special operations Etc. So the short answer is they devote a lot of scarce resources to the military side, which is part of their economic problem Yeah, they the president's just had a phone conversation last night I believe because one of the interesting one of the other pieces to this is that the UN report that came out about 40% of the population Going to be in great trouble there is a move afoot to have a major infusion of humanitarian aid and So Moon and Trump been talking about First of all the missile tests to which I didn't touch on I'll say a little bit about that They talked about that, but then also Trump gave his blessing for South Korea to go ahead with with humanitarian assistance This is an interesting part of this whole sort of story if you will in a number of respects This is fundamentally a Korean issue It is a north-south issue. It is extremely appropriate that moon should be in the lead in Moving forward on this and and I should say as well I corrected myself a couple of times when I made Comments about South Korea thinks and I said the moon administration because There is great political debate in South Korea over this stuff as well There are many on the conservative side moon is on the liberal side The Korean political spectrum many on the South Korean conservative side Who say moon is going way too far way too fast, you know He is making a huge mistake in what he is doing So there's disagreement debate within South Korea on this, but again, I think you get to the point where There is certainly an appropriate element to this that South Korea should be in the lead However, it is the United States that is the one that can and is is part of the notion of a regime change operation and is the key is a key ally of South Korea has the key military capability To possibly take out the North Korean regime and so we are very much a part of this process as a result of that I Think there is a good deal of concern about the alignment of the moon administration and the Trump administration on this From the Hanoi summit The moon administration was very disappointed that there wasn't more progress because they are just Absolutely chomping at the bit to move forward on more of these projects particularly the economic cooperation projects, but they need Compromise from the United States and some sort of sanctions relief or waivers perhaps for at least some of this and they Didn't get it So I think moon is always trying to sort of play the mediator between the north and the United States on Some of these regards, but but this is going to be a very important part of alliance management And it's not going to be easy and then Well, I won't go into another issue on that, but let me just say a word too about the missile test You may have seen a couple of weeks ago. There was a test for a Projectile that ended up being an anti-tank guided missile which isn't You know, it doesn't fit the definition of some of the things that that Kim had said he was not going to test Then just over the weekend. We're still not entirely sure what that test was The the reports are somewhere from 10 to 20 things were launched They were probably mostly some of the Multiple rocket launcher systems But there's one other projectile that may have been a short-range ballistic missile, but it's not entirely clear That's the case it is being identified by the south as what's the term a a tactical guided missile Well, if it's a ballistic missile that would be a violation of the Security Council resolutions But not what Kim has reportedly promised President Trump. He would not test And so you may have seen President Trump in one of his tweets said, you know, Kim didn't break his promise I'm still hoping for a deal. You know, I'm with them, etc. Etc. But we're still not entirely sure what that system is So that was part of the phone call last night to talk about how do we respond to that? But then also the humanitarian assistance, but how we manage this with South Koreans, I mean, I think that is a huge piece and and I personally believe it should be South Korea and the lead that is You know that is home for them very much Yes, thank you for the wonderful talk question is 1994 and 2010 were particularly tense times and both of them Involved leadership change Shortly after can you talk about whether North Korea had manufactured some? tensions there Looking to the potential of leadership change and then more generally just how they manufacture crises when they want to get attention Yeah, I think they are two different issues And certainly though you raise a point about what is often argued as as one of the chief North Korean tools in their toolbox is that they are very good at ratcheting up tensions Either rhetorically and they have some famous lines about turning soul into a sea of fire among other things But they have also conducted many actions over the years that have been highly provocative in regards to what they have done and and a history from the 1960s on to to that to that effect in 1994 though that was part of the nuclear crisis at that point and What you were seeing was this sort of Effort to try to get North Korea to agree to some sort of denuclearization plan We wanted inspections the North Koreans allowed some they wouldn't agree to all of them it was a complicated story during the Clinton years and We were reportedly considering military strikes on some of the nuclear Facilities that they had at that particular point You may recall President Carter former President Carter went to North Korea met with Kim Il-sung at the time Negotiated an agreement or the the outlines of an agreement despite being told specifically by Clinton don't do that He did it anyway But but came back and we had an outline of an agreement the agreed framework Ended up being hammered out one of the interesting what ifs was is that Carter had that deal in June of 1994 Kim Il-sung dies in July of 1994 and the agreed framework is in October It is interesting to speculate had Kim lived and he not been so advanced in age and lived for another 10 years he certainly had the authority To have been able to move North Korea to denuclearize at that stage But then he dies and his son Kim Jong-il who had about as much legitimacy as his son Kim Jong-un had coming into office, so you know, that's a whole interesting sort of set of issues 2010 I think is a very different piece and and I would look at that sort of out of the context of the nuclear peace That is much more in my view in the context of this disputed maritime boundary that the North and South Koreans have Called the Northern Limit Line or the NLL in the West Sea. I won't go into all the details of that, but in 2009 There was a skirmish along this line where the North Koreans took one in the neck and a ship was sunk on a couple of North Korean sailors were killed and the South Koreans came out, you know ahead in that skirmish I think the North Koreans were simply biding their time until In this case March of 2010 when they decide to retaliate and sink the Chonan The artillery exchange that happens the following November. I think is another piece that is really not part of the nuclear Story to this but these sort of ongoing back and forth But I would argue that after that engagement in 2010 When the Chonan was sunk, you know, you sink a warship, right? That's an act of war You have certainly every right to retaliate But it was not clear early on what had sunk the ship I mean, there are all sorts of theories that were part of this internal explosion and old Korean war mine that may have Suddenly, you know popped loosen and they ran into you know, and certainly in North Korean torpedo, etc After an exhaustive investigation It was concluded it was a North Korean torpedo although there are some in South Korea on the far left that still maintain it was something else but That time span made it difficult to retaliate Connecticut and so South Korea responded politically economically with against the North and the South Korean government got high marks internationally for a fairly restrained response then in November you have the artillery exchange and To South Korean civilians to South Korean Marines were killed in this exchange but now the South Koreans are you know, we we've had enough of this and There were indications that the South Koreans were ready to retaliate. I mean my understanding The F-16s are on the tarmac loaded and ready to go the United States Worked really hard to talk the South Koreans out of this because When you look at the history of the United States in this alliance, we have often been very concerned That we don't want to start something that ends up leading to an escalation and a broader conflict on the Korean Peninsula So we talked the South Koreans out of this But the South Koreans made very clear after this from presidential statements to from the Ministry of National Defense if this happens again, we are going to retaliate and possibly escalate and I sure believe them. I think the North Koreans believe them and so I think from that point on I think the North Koreans got that message and have not done anything Kinetic like that now I so that takes missile testing off the table I think that's a whole different sort of bag of provocations I think cyber is a whole different issue because you're not going to generate the sort of kinetic response that you would With a missile attack or something along those lines But you know again, it remains to be seen if North Korea decides to be more provocative along those lines But that gets to that stability instability paradox. I mentioned I think the North Koreans have been relatively restrained up to this point not that they are not going to try to Improve their negotiating posture Think we have time for one more One more question That's too nice a day outside to be in here talking about nuclear weapons and all that stuff I'm not that knowledgeable in the whole thing, but I did look into it for a bit and it seems to me Like, you know, this is a young guy, but he has learned a lot in the time He has been in power and he even though he's young and he's definitely milking the whole They're afraid we're going to hurt so many millions of people if they do anything to us if they try to do a regime change So he's going to continue to scare us and then stop and scare us and then stop So what you say about it being a gradual Denuclearization is what I agree with it cannot be sudden because he's definitely not going to agree to anything quick It has to be slow But how is it possible to have something slow when he can remain in power for indefinite amount of years until he's health Gives up and we have to keep on changing who's in charge, you know, we have we're going to have different views Possibly every four years if we keep the same president then it would last two eight years and possibly keep some of the same But even if we keep the same president, you know He's limited because he's going to be pulled two different ways So how can you have a plan when we have to keep on changing our leaders and our views? And he has the benefit of staying just whatever he thinks and that raises a very important question about the dynamics of this When you look at the United States going forward in the next year or two, I mean already you're going to have the administration being occupied by the election and Running for office and so that's going to eat up some of the bandwidth of the administration To do some things if Trump gets reelected for another four years Now you've got another possibility of this one of the interesting elements of this current situation from another time back in from 1998 on Etc. There was another effort by the South Korean government to reach out to the North Koreans But the South Korean administration had very little time left in office now You could potentially have Trump in for another four years or at least even when this process started Trump had a couple of years left in his term Moon by in South Korea's system their presidents get one five-year term Moon will be finishing up his second year in in a couple of days and so he's got three years left so There is some window to possibly have at least Kim's counterparts have a little more time in office to possibly see This come to fruition, but nonetheless are those timelines even long enough for this to be able to Move forward. I think you raised a really important point about the the notion of institutionalizing this process and It's not hard to imagine a new South Korean administration coming in from the right That says, you know, this stuff is baloney Moon has moved too far This is not good for South Korean security and now you're gonna have a Huge change because moon Succeeded two administrations that were on the conservative side of the Korean political spectrum who are far less open to engagement So you're absolutely right the the winds of democracy can complicate some of this that add another whole layer of difficulty to to getting this to work out but We shall see it's going to be you know again Kim said we've got till The end of the year to get ourselves straightened out Or stuff's gonna happen So we'll see what that means and what stuff happens and what progress Occurs within that time, but again, you know you in all countries. There is debate about what's the right direction to go Okay, I guess that's it time to get outside and you know either mow your lawn or I don't know Have fun outside. So thank you Hopefully everybody sees why this is such a highly anticipated lecture For our students throughout the year every time we get a chance to faculty and students we get the chance to listen to Terry Certainly insightful Current relevant timely, that's what we're looking for here. Thank you again I wanted to announce we have two lectures left the dates are both up there. They are back to back So next week is is definitely something special. We have one guest faculty come in all year That's mr. Jim Stockdale the son of the legendary vice admiral James Stockdale This is not one to be missed So highly encourage you to be here next Tuesday same time same location And then we will close out the year the week after talking about humanitarian assistance and disaster relief With a with an all-star team from the war college We will also hand out the certificates of graduation from this program I think if at the end of the day if you came to five of these we're gonna end up having the certificates here for you I have to say thank you to our dear friends from the fleet and family support center in the back of the room as You're leaving. Please go out the right-hand side my right-hand side you're left and And say hello grab some of their important materials. There are partner in this series We couldn't do it without them. Otherwise, please travel home safe and enjoy the weather. Thanks again Terry