 I'm very happy to have with us Dr. Sid Seiler. Sid is a good friend, both personal and an academic colleague, and I want to properly introduce him for all of our guests here, because he doesn't get out much in his line of work. Dr. Seiler is the Director for Korea in the White House National Security Council. He is one of the most authoritative experts on Korea, on both Koreas in the current administration. For the past 30 years, he has worked in multiple intelligence disciplines, including the National Security Agency, the Directorate of Intelligence, Directorate of Operations in the CIA, and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. He spent 12 of those years in South Korea. He previously served as Deputy Director of National Intelligence Manager for North Korea, having joined the service when it was established in January 2006. Prior to the DNI, he served with the National clandestine service of the CIA. He's the author of a very good book, Kim Il-sung, 1941-48, The Creation of a Legend, The Building of a Regime. I read that book in doing the research for the impossible state, my own book, and cited quite a bit in that book. Dr. Seiler received his MA in Korean Studies from Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Studies. He's a graduate of the Korean Language Programs at DLI and Yonsei University, and did his undergraduate at University of Maryland. So Sid, it's really a pleasure to have you with us today. We will proceed as follows. Dr. Seiler will have some comments to start us off. Then we'll have a bit of discussion, and then we'll open it just for a couple of questions. In spite of this terrible weather, while the rest of us will probably be going home after this, he's going back to work, he's got a full day. So, Sid, over to you. Thank you for that kind introduction, Victor. I thought I'd take an opportunity to build upon some of the excellent discussions we had this morning to kind of look at the alliance going forward. Within context of largely too broad areas, first of all, what we see with the evolving North Korea threat, its implications for the alliance in its next 60 years, and what we've already begun to do to meet that threat, to deal with that threat, and to lay a course for future cooperation to build upon the great work that these three former commanders of U.S. Forces Korea, Combined Forces Command, have talked about. You know, the last five years have witnessed, I think, a sea change in the environment on the Korea Peninsula. It overlaps with the administration of President Obama. It overlaps with the period, if one would say the, since we last had a meaningful six-party talks discussion. And I think it reflects the transformation of North Korea that had been long planned, but came about both in terms of capabilities and clarity of intentions. It's important to remember in January of 2009 when President Obama was inaugurated with an offer to raise out a hand to those who would then clinch their fist, that the North Koreans, shortly thereafter, responded by making preparations for a missile test, tapled on to launch, that would lead to a presidential statement out of the United Nations Security Council, which itself would then lead to North Korea's second nuclear test, their first one having been in 2006. And after the diplomatic dust settled in Special Representative Steve Bosworth went to Pyongyang in December of 2009, in 2010 North Korea turned its attention towards the Republic of Korea, toward the South. And then in 2010, as everybody remembers, we had the sinking of the ROK Corvette, the Cheonan in March, and of course the shelling of Yongpyeong Island literally under an hour after I had flown over it with Ambassador Bosworth on our way to China to talk about the North's revelation of its uranium enrichment program. Three lessons really emerged from these two years. First of all, on the security side, when you think about the event's nuclear test missile launch, sinking of a ROK Navy vessel, shelling of an island, the US ROK Alliance demonstrated its resilience and grew stronger, deterrence was secured, deterrence was secured. And in the process, Koreans, South Koreans, and people in the region were reassured, in large part because of the strength of the US ROK relationship, sole Washington cooperation responding to these events. And the lesson on the diplomacy side just began to emerge. For the first time in many years, the traditional cycle of provoke, rush back to the table, provoke, gain concessions from denuclearization dialogue that gave the appearance of forward progress, but in retrospect it was only an appearance. That cycle was broken. Pyongyang was taught in the 2009 and 2010 period that it will receive nothing from threats and provocations, only further diplomatic and economic isolation. It's effort to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington, it's so-called Tongli Bongnam strategy. It's effort to influence internal politics in the Republic of Korea, it's efforts to weaken the Republic of Korea's North Korea strategy all failed. North Korea began to learn that its bad behavior will no longer be rewarded. At 60 years old, the alliance simply was too smart and too wise for that. The third lesson though that I'd like to take away and kind of focus on this, because what it says about the threat was the analytical lessons. Here I kind of risked taking off my current policymaker hat going back to my old analyst days, but there's three real significant lessons learned from these events that I think will have implications for years to come. First of all, with the May 25th nuclear test, North Korea's second nuclear test, close the book on the question, does North Korea really intend to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, or is it simply pursuing nuclear capabilities to gain the attention of the United States and the world in order to engage in the build and deliver to the United States? And of course to do so under the cover of satellite launches, hence their repeated attempts to try to check the so-called boxes and what they claim to be a peaceful, legitimate, sovereign right of the DPRK to engage in space launches in spite of United Nations Security Council resolutions to the contrary. And then finally, the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island incidents both demonstrated that North Korea intended to continue to use provocations, kinetic, even at times lethal, as a coercive diplomatic tool of intimidation and violence. And as General Sharp and later General Thurman had to come to grips with this counter-provocation challenge, this had a profound impact on the alliance as well. None of these three conclusions were particularly newer, surprising. Many analysts had long said North Korea was not kidding when it said it was going to pursue a nuclear capability. The K-PoDong-2 was intended to be the delivery mechanism for it and North Korea's provocations where nothing new to anybody who's watched the peninsula for 60 years. But I do believe that the clarity with which they have now become the defining elements of the North Korea threat, the conventional threat still there, 50-27-like scenarios, the possibility of unification through force, all remain there on the table. What we've seen is an evolution of some new capabilities and new intentions that the alliance would have to respond to. And I'll go through these one by one in reverse order. First, in terms of provocations, this is a tool of coercive diplomacy. This really demonstrated, first of all, the importance of solid deterrence to deter these types of actions, but perhaps even equally so, close integrated real-time U.S.-ROK cooperation. I really like what General Tillelli mentioned earlier in that challenge of gaining a shared situational awareness. Any two or three people gathered in the room watching a single event have different ways in which they perceive it, how much even more so when you have two large countries, even as integrated as we are looking at developments in a country as opaque as North Korea, coming to a shared understanding, a shared assessment, and a shared conclusion of how to respond. The incidence of 2010 really emphasized for the alliance, and this is a context in which we pursued the counter-provocation plan, which in March 2013 was brought to a conclusion. Here we have the two sides, mechanisms in place, capabilities in place, and more important, ongoing planning that gives us an extra advantage. It's a force multiplier to have the experience on the ground with North Korea for now 60 years in armistice, but the experience working together to respond to such type of provocations, where North Korea's intent is provoke, and our intent is to respond accordingly. The U.S. commitment here, I should add, can never be any clearer. Ambassador Rice mentioned this in her speech recently in November at Georgetown, that there will be significant costs to future provocations by North Korea. Pyongyang has a choice, continue to pursue this path and encounter greater isolation and crippling economic privation, or take a new path and find a true chance for peace, development, and global integration. The evolving missile threat is another area in which the alliances had to work together more closely to counter a threat that I remember when I first went to Korea in 1982. It was free rockets over ground, frogs. I remember we used to say, jokingly, we all were hoping that we were the target of the free rocket over ground because their accuracy was so poor, be certain not to be hit. It's kind of a flippant way, but that's what privates talk about when they're young and inexperienced, but the emerging North Korea missile threat is real. And General Thurman mentioned the long-range artillery, which has also always been an existing threat to the Seoul metropolitan area. With North Korea's pursuit of missile capabilities, we even more of the peninsula and even larger numbers come under threat. And this was a context in which the alliance met this challenge with revision to the new missile guidelines. In 2012, we came to an agreement, we've now called the revised missile guidelines, which allows the ROK to develop new ballistic missiles up to 800 kilometers in range. It committed to improved intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, so if you're going to shoot at a target, you've got to know where it is and what it is. It included enhancements to our working together, command and control, so that when we face the situation in which we have to use these capabilities, we do so deliberately and smartly. We are developing and we will continue to develop a comprehensive alliance approach to the North Korea missile threat. This is key, this is crucial given its evolution. And then finally on the nuclear side, I think there's four, I see four overlapping yet reinforcing lines of effort in how we deal with this North Korean nuclear capability. The first is denying Pyongyang the benefits of nuclear coercion. I think the most immediate threat that we face obviously is that on any given day, a North Korea provocation, whether it be some type of asymmetrical provocation or conventional provocation, always has in the background that concern, that fear. And North Korea knows that. And the way to stand up to the bully on the playground, who has this capability or alleged capability in his back pocket, is to have transparent and seamless coordination like we do in the US ROK Alliance. Real time, close cooperation so that when we get into this period, any period of heightened tensions, there's no splitting of the alliance, we deal with it smartly, and the value to Pyongyang of this nuclear coercion is strongly diminished. Firm but calm responses. Remember the word provoke means to elicit a desired response from your counterpart. The best way to deny North Korea the value of provocations is to not respond in the manner that they're hoping to get you to respond in. And that's where close US and ROK cooperation at all periods of the provocation cycle is so crucial. No rewarding bad behavior. I talked about that earlier, so I won't dwell on it, but don't underestimate the value of even these diplomatic areas of having strong value in encountering the North Korea nuclear deterrent. And then finally, to inflict political and economic cost on North Korea for refusing to denuclearize. It takes away some friends of mine, when we get into frank discussions, they say, aren't we in essence being outfoxed and outmaneuvered by North Korea? And I would just say, well, nuclear and missile capabilities aside, look at the diplomatic isolation, look at the economic isolation, look at the number of countries who joined in condemnation of the third nuclear test, look at the support that we get in the United Nations Security Council after each and every missile launch and each and every nuclear test, resolution after resolution. So in addition to denying disrupting, now when it comes to disrupting the progress of the North's nuclear program, the United States uses a range of national multilateral sanctions. These sanctions target North Korean WMD entities and they're designed to curtail profits from weapons exports and access to critical technologies and components abroad. These have had the effect of slowing the growth of the program. And they will continue to be critical in impeding both the qualitative and quantitative growth of these capabilities that North Korea seeks. Deterring, deterring is another way we counter this capability. Now we talked briefly in the last session about the Taylor deterrence strategy and the importance of extended deterrence. You know, I quote from the communique for the 44th SEM held in October, where Secretary Hagel reaffirmed the continued U.S. commitment to provide and strengthen extended deterrence for the Republic of Korea using the full range of military capabilities including the U.S. nuclear umbrella, conventional strike, and missile defense capabilities. There's two phrases here to focus on, full range and United States. I don't think there's really much more to say as far as deterrence. I mean, you will get no better guarantee that we are prepared to meet the threat posed by North Korea as it's evolving nuclear missile capabilities than what is represented by the wording in the Taylor deterrence strategy, what is represented by extended deterrence, full range the United States capabilities. And then finally, our fourth element of our efforts against the North Korea nuclear program or what we do in the denuclearization diplomacy realm. You know, we in our pursuit of denuclearization under the Six-Party Talks umbrella, in other words, all the diplomacy we do with People's Republic of China, with Russia, with Japan, Republic of Korea, all in accordance with the principles and spirit of September 19, 2005 statement, work to negate and reduce and deter the North Korea nuclear threat. Our work with China in particular has demonstrated that it, as well as all five, all of the other four parties, three parties, subtracting North Korea, all of us are opposed to a nuclear North Korea. All of us are committed to denuclearization on the peninsula. Multilateral diplomacy has built a strong consensus and will continue to do so going forward. Life for North Korea will not get easier as it tries to pursue its so-called Byung Jin policy. It's policy of pursuing in tandem both economic development and expansion of its nuclear forces. My colleague Glenn Davies during one of our recent trips to the region called Byung Jin a dead end and I'd like to reinforce that today. North Korea is learning from the United States, Republic of Korea, and indeed the entire diplomatic international community that it will not have its cake and eat it too. So that's probably the way we're dealing, I think, within the context of the United States-R-OK relationship with these new threats that we're facing from North Korea. North Korea will continue to test us. North Korea will continue to push the limits. A lot of these cycles, we go in and out of these so-called provocation cycles and charm offenses. We've seen them before and as I mentioned to a few of you during the break, it is not a trivial throwaway talking point that we use when we say, we will judge North Korea by its actions and not by its words. And when we do so and we continue to have the close cooperation that we've demonstrated through these last five years as the North Korea's program has developed and its behavior has been so unpredictable, is that a strong U.S.-R-OK alliance continues to be the best deterrent to the threat that is growing and posed by the North. And with that, I think maybe some questions. Great, great. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have a few minutes for questions. Let me just start us off before we go to the audience, Sid. I don't think there's any argument that sort of in this administration, you're the guy, right? You're the guy who knows the most about Korea. And the past five years, you've been sort of doing it at the higher policymaking level. I'd like to ask you to put your analyst hat on and tell us to the extent that you can in this audience, what do you think is going on there right now? I mean, with all the internal churn and obviously Changsung Tech and then before him, Young Ho, what do you think is going on there? Is everybody calls it power consolidation, but is this a path to stability or is it a path to instability? Well, Victor, if the social sciences, politics, economics, you know, foreign relations, international relations could be that good at predictive analysis, we'd all be rich on the stock market and we'd probably have a much more peaceful world. But, you know, let me talk about... Since Kim Jong-un came in to take his positions at his father's death some two years ago, you know, I urge people to look at the continuity in North Korean behavior, particularly the strategic continuity. Sure, North Korea has always employed the element of surprise in its actions and behavior and therefore you could almost say North Korea as always is predictably unpredictable. But at the same time, there's no particular elements of North Korea's behavior that are entirely out of character with the historical precedents so that, you know, there's nuance differences, there might be some differences in style, one person likes, you know, joint editorials, one person likes joint New Year's speeches. But in general, there's no... Regardless of what is going on in North Korea, there's nothing there that has a significant impact as far as the critical issues. As far as denuclearization, if you look where North Korea is today on its denuclearization policy, it's largely consistent with what I call the strategic arc of their longer-term goals. And their longer-term goals were actually clarified in the proclamation of Byung-jin policy last year because we always knew that North Korea eventually was hoping that the world would just simply be worn out, acknowledge, tolerate, just learn to live with a nuclear in North Korea and then it could begin to recover its economy, restore some type of relations with the outside. In other words, have their weapons and have their economic development. That's been a longer-term goal and Byung-jin makes it clear. And I think going forward, one would imagine that is what Kim Jong-un is shooting for as well. So recent developments, it's speculating on those. I don't know, it'd be particularly helpful, particularly since we get into intelligence matters relatively quickly. But what is clear is that we see no policy changes so far. We see no policy changes. We'd love to see policy changes, but we haven't seen anything yet. Speaking of policy changes, how do you think we're doing with China right now? Well, I think we've had some good cooperation with China. We had senior-level interaction with the Chinese at both Sunnylands and St. Petersburg last year. The vice president visited toward the end of the year. And China has made it repeatedly clear that it supports the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, that it supports real negotiations that get us to the denuclearization. They see that the actions that North Korea takes are destabilizing to the region, are not in their own best interests. And so we've been able to make progress with the People's Republic of China. We go, Glenn Davis and I go out and engage with our PRC counterparts. There's a shared understanding of the challenge posed by North Korea, a shared understanding of the urgency of the issue. So I think we've laid a foundation for cooperation going forward. I know that people might say that the United States expects too much out of China. And I can just say that we look forward to cooperating and working with China, but at the same time, we know that we will have to continue as we have over the past several years to take actions in our defense and the defense of our allies, like the Republic of Korea, in response to the growing North Korea nuclear threat. I know that you don't have a lot of time, so we'll open up. We'll just take a couple of questions from the floor. Yes. Hi, I'm Qing Yi Cheng at Phoenix TV. Just today, China and ROK announced to build a defense hotline as soon as possible. I'm just curious, how does the U.S. or the White House see this latest development? Thank you. Have announced to what is China ROK hotline? Well, you know, we certainly encourage cooperation and communication between all the parties in the region, anything that contributes to the reduction of tensions and the ability to have that type of, you know, transparency, ready communications necessary to respond to the various contingencies in the region is positive. You know, there's no reason not to be positive about that. Yes. Katie Lee from KBS. Is there any plan for U.S. government official to visit North Korea in the near future? And then there are some negotiations under the table between the United States and North Korea over the release of Kenneth Bell. Can you explain what is the condition from the North Korean government for the release of Kenneth Bell? Well, that's a great question you should be asking probably to the North Koreans, though, at this point. Let me just simply say this. The United States has made significant efforts. The United States government has made significant efforts over the past year since Kenneth Bell was detained, convicted and imprisoned in North Korea. We've made a number of efforts, sustained efforts for his release. And as you know, we have sought to have our special envoy for human rights, Robert King traveled to Pyongyang so that he can go in and secure Kenneth Bell's release. You know, the North Koreans have not been responsive to those appeals over the course of the year. We continue to ask North Korea for their pardon of Kenneth Bell, and we'll continue to work for it. I think anything beyond that, you know, we have to wait and see. You know, the challenge, you know, with North Korea always is, you know, when they publicly articulate a desire for dialogue and yet, you know, trying to sit down and have a conversation, a meaningful conversation, can at times be quite elusive. But that doesn't deter us from continuing to seek, you know, robustly Kenneth Bell's release. And we hope that the indications given by the North Korea Central Television carrying the KCNA interview of Kenneth Bell over the weekend are an indication that North Korea is considering. Moving forward with the progress by which Kenneth Bell can be pardoned and returned. I think we can take one more. Hi, Sung Jin Kim of CSIS, a visiting fellow. You talked about the shared understanding with China about North Korea, and what is the exact and concrete shared understanding with China about the current, you know, the execution of Jang Sung Taek and the recent, you know, the Kim Jong-un regime's, you know, development. That's my question. Why, you know, when I spoke about shared understanding, I was talking primarily about the policy goals of establishing a denuclearized Korea Peninsula that is marked by peace and stability and hopefully one day prosperity for the people of North Korea when they choose the right path, the correct path of denuclearization, integration into the international community. Not necessarily that, you know, we have a shared intelligence assessment of the situation in North Korea, but, you know, that shared policy goal, that shared outlook for the future of the Korean Peninsula, that shared emphasis on denuclearization is the basis upon which we can have a dialogue going forward and we can begin to work very closely on this difficult issue. Sid, I personally know how many hours you put in this job and how hard you work, and I want to thank you for taking the time to come out and join us today in spite of the elements, and I wish you well. Thanks again. Thank you, Victor.