 Thank you very much for coming along tonight to the 2017 Memorial John G lecture and we are at the National Security College and in partnership with the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre at the ANU always absolutely delighted to hold this event in memory of a real Pathbreaker in terms of Australia's non-proliferation efforts and Australia's diplomacy more broadly. Let me very briefly introduce myself My name is Matthew Sussex, and I'm the academic director here at the NSC and we are particularly happy and thankful for the support today of the College of Asia and Pacific and I'd like to acknowledge Professor Michael Wesley the Dean of CAP who's come along to hear our speaker tonight Scott Sagan Shortly I will introduce Professor the Honourable Gareth Evans the Chancellor of the ANU who will in turn give some remarks about John G to frame the the lecture that follows from Scott, but before we do that I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we meet on today the Nunnamal people and to pay my respects to their elders past and present. Well, ladies and gentlemen the Chancellor of the ANU Gareth Evans needs absolutely no introduction to any Australian or even overseas audience Particularly on the topic of arms control and weapons of mass destruction Professor Evans of course is Australia's former foreign minister and and former diplomatic person still has many things to say on this topic and We are delighted to have him here tonight. It's a real honour to have him open the John G Memorial Lecture ladies and gentlemen Gareth Evans Thank you very much Matthew and Welcome to you all especially the members of John G's family his widow live his daughters Rebecca Chrissie son Nicholas and His sisters Nikki and Rose and I think some other members of the extended family as well Welcome to you all to this 2017 John G Memorial Lecture to be delivered by Scott Sagan Who I'll introduce in a moment and which is as you've heard hosted this year by the ANU national Security College headed by Rory Medcalfs. I'm fortunately ill and unable to join us tonight But thanks very much Matthew for standing in with the support of the College of Asian the Pacific and Michael Wesley the Dean who will be winding up tonight's proceedings This lecture honours each year the memory of a man who made an extraordinary Contribution to making the world a safer and safer place In particular with his tireless and really quite brilliant work in bringing to a conclusion the chemical weapons convention And then even more tirelessly in many ways brilliantly in implementing it in practice Through the Office for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons OPC WC WCW rather an institutional achievement that was recognised worldwide With the award to the OPCW of the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize It's one of the many tragedies of John G's early death that he didn't live to enjoy that recognition Which is not an exaggeration to say would not have occurred without his own remarkable work As I've described before in cheering these annual lectures I first became aware of John's professional work back in the mid-1980s When as the chemical and biological weapons desk officer in the disarmament division of the Department of Foreign Affairs He was responsible almost single-handedly For the establishment of the Australia Group Which was founded in the wake of the use of chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war With the objective of denying access by countries of proliferation concern To chemicals and biological agents to precursors and dual use equipment In the mid-1980s again John started to take a close interest in the long-stalled Negotiations of the chemical weapons convention and working Closely with defense science and technology scientists Bob Matthews with us here again tonight and Shirley Freeman Drafted the critical path for the acceleration of those negotiations focusing particularly on the need to get industry support For a an effective verification regime That effort with which I became very closely associated as foreign minister after 1988 Ultimately bore fruit in the conclusion of the convention in 1992 Which is an international achievement of which I think Australia can continue to be very proud In 1991 John G was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to the UN Special Commission or UNSCOM Which had been set up to oversee the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction after the first Iran-Iraq war In 1993 he was appointed director of the verification division of the new OPCW being set up in the Hague Under the chemical weapons convention Charged with the complex and politically really very sensitive task of developing and implementing All the institutions and procedures necessary to verify compliance with the convention When the convention ended at force in 1997 John became the deputy director-general for the next six years before returning to Australia in 2003 working at the office of national assessments ONA until he was Terribly tragically struck down by the illness to which we lost him in 2007 John G was absolutely one of the best and brightest public servants that Australia has ever produced and I'm delighted that we continue to have this Opportunity each year to celebrate his memory through this lecture This lecture the first of which I was privileged to give back in 2007 was established That's 10 years old this year was established at the initiative of Bob Matthews Who continues to be in many ways the prime organizational mover for which we all thank him? Rod Barton the Lowy Institute for international policy and the strategic and defense studies center here at the ANU were all crucial to the Getting the lecture off the ground lectures since then All of which in the series have focused one way or another on arms control related issues They've been delivered by Mike Kelly in 2008 Malcolm Fraser in 2009 Joseph Cerencioni in 2010 Ramesh Thakur with us here tonight in 2011 OPCW director Ahmed Uzumchu in 2012 US Ambassador Christopher Hill in 2014 the secretary of DFAT Peter Vargas in 2015 and last year the IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yuki Amano So we couldn't be more privileged than to have the 2017 lecture given by Professor Scott Sagan One of not only America's but the world's best-known thinkers and writers on the subject of nuclear weapons The Scott taking as he subject the world's most current nuclear problem under the title the Korean missile crisis Why deterrence is still the best option? Scott is presently Monroe professor of political science at Stanford University where he's taught since 1987 Before joining the Stanford faculty he lectured in government at Harvard 1984-85 during the Reagan administration. He was special assistant to the Director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon and he's also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories Scott Sagan has written a number of discipline leading books and many other very highly cited publications on the subjects of nuclear safety and security Nuclear war planning the risks of nuclear proliferation and the need to get serious about nuclear disarmament I've had the pleasure personally of knowing and working with Scott for a number of years now We're trying to remember whether it's 10 or 15, but that order of magnitude on nuclear arms control issues We are absolutely united in our desire to rid the world of these most indiscriminately inhumane Of all weapons of mass destruction And I guess we're equally united these days now frustration at our inability to make hell of a lot of progress in getting them I suspect that the only real difference between us is that where I've tended to be on public policy issues Generally an incorrigible optimist Well, I have to say with my optimism more tested on this subject than perhaps just about any other Scott is rather tended to be more of an incorrigible pessimist I'm waiting with baited breath. So I guess we all are to see just how pessimistic he's now going to be on North Korea So please welcome to the podium our 2017 John G Memorial lecture professor Scott Sagan. Thank you for that kind introduction Gareth. I Hope I will live up to my reputation because this is a rather pessimistic Talk I will give today. I Do want to start by acknowledging what an honor it is to be delivering the John G Lecture John G was a major contributor to arms control and disarmament But he also spoke truth to power most famously in his reporting on the flawed nature of the Iraq study group And as I hope to make clear to you tonight We're in the midst of a very serious International crisis in which it is crucially important that US government officials Especially the US military speaks truth to power It's high time for the US government to acknowledge That it has failed to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles that can strike the United States North Korea is no longer just a non proliferation problem It's a nuclear deterrence problem And the greatest danger we face now is that the United States South Korea And North Korea will stumble into a catastrophic war that no one really wants The good news is that the world has traveled down this kind of path before between 1945 and 1949 the Truman administration seeing The Soviet Union starting its bomb program and thinking of the brutality and Aggressiveness of Joseph Stalin Contemplated a nuclear preventive strike against the USSR But decided in NSC 68 National Security Council memorandum 68 1950 that the resulting war would be devastating We would win, but it would resemble the Second World War And the Truman administration made the decision to practice containment and deterrence As a better option 1954 general Nathaniel Twining the chief of the US Air Force Secretly wrote to his fellow joint chiefs saying that we should contemplate starting a nuclear war against the Soviet Union While we were still ahead Because otherwise we would have and I quote we would have to base our survival on the whims of a band of proven barbarians President Eisenhower rejected that advice appropriately so In the 1960s the Kennedy administration feared that Mao Was mad and secretly approached the Soviets proposing a joint preventive strike against the test sites and nuclear facilities The Soviets said and yet over time we learned to live with the nuclear Moscow We learned to live with the nuclear Beijing and We can learn to live Not pleasantly and not without risk with the nuclear North Korea Deterrence is still the best option Deterring North Korea will not be easy It will not be risk-free Accidents false warnings Volatile leaders and Petrus decision-making could all produce disaster The Cold War experience offers us some lessons, but only some because we are in a novel and grave situation today because The US military must not only deter Kim Jong-un It has to prevent Donald Trump from making some really bad decisions The US leadership was also practiced the other Less discussed half of deterrence deterrence does not just mean having a credible threat To punish somebody if he attacks you or Attacks your allies Successful deterrence also requires a promise or a belief that you will not start a war a Reassurance of a potential adversary Because the best way or the easiest way to get the North Koreans to attack South Korea and the United States is For us to mistakenly give them the impression that we're about to attack them In which case a preemptive attack may be a rational thing for them to do it has commonly be said by a number of pundits Professors politicians even that we are in the middle of a crisis. That's like the Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion It's not like the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's worse. I Believe this is true for four big reasons First in October 1962 Fidel Castro did not have nuclear weapons We caught the Soviets shipping missiles after we had said you can't do that to Cuba and Soviets had told us that they wouldn't they lied to us and at the end of the crisis Fidel Castro who I don't believe fully understood the consequences Wrote to Nikita Khrushchev Advocating a nuclear strike immediately on the United States and I quote to eliminate such dangers forever To an act of clear legitimate defense however and harsh and terrible the solution would be And we received the message Nikita Khrushchev said this is insane. Fidel wants to drag us into a grave with him Fidel had itchy fingers, but he didn't have the bottom the more prudent cautious Khrushchev did in contrast today Kim Jong-un has nuclear weapons Use intelligence estimates around 60 although it could be 1020 more or 1020 less People are split on how certain The ability to strike different parts of the United States are but certainly the South strike South Korea Japan The party Guam and the West Coast Many people believe is already here the Cuban Missile crisis should also remind us That we should be very cautious about intelligence estimates after all the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended an Airstrike and invasion of Cuba because they believed that the nuclear warheads not already gotten there Ma'am were still on the way, but we now know that a number of them had Gotten there and had the United States invaded there almost certainly would have been nuclear use on the beaches Against the ships and against the southern United States Because of the ICBM capabilities, I believe that the window of opportunity for a successful US preventive war to stop The North Korean program is closed Second reason why we're in a dangerous situation is today is it just because of preemptive war plans in 1962 There was a grave danger because both the United States and the Soviet Union Had nuclear weapons for deterrent purposes But also had the option that they hoped They would execute if necessary of Launching first to try to destroy as much of the other side's nuclear forces as possible in the preemptive Last-ditch effort to limit damage, and that's why Nikita Khrushchev was so Alarmed when a US U2 Accidentally flew into the Soviet airspace in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis He wrote to Kennedy is this not a fact that an intruding an American plane could easily be taken for a nuclear bomber Which might push us to a fatal step for them to launch first Today We are experiencing a more complex and I think dangerous three-way fear of preemption The great Nobel laureate economist and strategist Tom Shelling called this the reciprocal fear of surprise attack But today Three countries have preventive options The United States To preempt if we see that the North Koreans are about to launch The ROK the South Koreans who claim that they have the right and ability to launch a Decapitation attack and a preemptive attack if they believe the North is about to attack And not to be outdone the North Koreans have announced openly that they have a right and ability to preempt if they think the United States The South Koreans are about to launch that puts us on a hair trigger in which A miscalculation an accident. I'll give examples of that later Could easily lead to war The third difference is that in October 1962 there was one volatile Leader Fidel Castro who had a radical misperceptions of the consequences of a nuclear war Today we have two such volatile and poorly informed leaders Kim Jong-un and Donald J. Trump Both leaders are I believe rational Both leaders are I believe ruthless But they are also prone to lash out impulsively at perceived enemies And are prone to give reckless rhetoric That can lead to dangerous behavior And this danger is compounded because their senior advisors are in a poor position To speak truth to power Kim Jong-un has executed People who have disagreed with him who he thinks may be a threat to the regime President Trump has not gone that far Thankfully But he has ridiculed People who disagree with him Anyone who has studied dysfunctional decision-making and dictatorships as a political science Scientist cringed when watching the US department secretaries compete To offer obsequious praise to the president and the Trump administration's first cabinet meeting And we should be worried That Trump according to the New York Times privately described National Security Advisor General Lieutenant General HR McMaster as a pain For subtly correcting him When he made inaccurate points and meetings Such decision dynamics Magnify the danger of war through misperception or miscalculation if people are not encouraged To speak the truth to power and the last contrast with 1962 is a curious one because 1962 as I suggested when describing the Joint Chiefs wanting to launch an attack against Cuba Based on bad information The hawkish Joint Chiefs of Staff the military was a major part of the problem It took a cautious prudent administration to insist on a quarantine instead And be willing to make secret compromises with the Russians to prevent a war But under US civil military relations The civilians have a good ability to do that human mr. Crisis was a Triumph of crisis management Today is the political leadership of the United States that's making dangerous threats And it falls to the professional US military leadership to be the voice of prudence on August 8th President Trump threatened a US nuclear attack not in response to a North Korean attack, which is a deterrent threat But in response to threats North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury the world has never seen Secretary-State Rex Tillerson U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley the vice president Michael Pence have not repeated the fire and fury phrase but have said That all options are on the table and all options and on the table is a code word for First strike prevent a war including potential nuclear attacks Then in September President Trump belittled Kim Jong-un for the u.n making ad lib nuclear threats calling him the little rocket man threatening to totally destroy North Korea this rhetoric by senior leaders is reckless and dangerous in my view In his speech and soul this week President Trump. I think was slightly better He largely kept on script And he underlined the deterrent threat, which I think is necessary when he said I speak not only for our countries, but for all civilized nations when I say to the north do not underestimate us We will defend our common security or share prosperity and our sacred liberty That isn't appropriate in my view deterrent threat But he also said two things that were more alarming one note the term the civilized nations implying that North Korea is not civilized A way of demonizing an adversary that makes going to war against them easier And then President Trump also hinted at preventive war again Saying we will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction Will not allow them to be threatened with destruction I am worried that some senior leaders in the u.s. Military have Not been consistent In their efforts to push back against such rhetoric General McMaster for example criticized Earlier this fall His predecessor Susan Rice for saying that we could tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea As McMaster said she's not right. I think the reason she's not right is that classical deterrence theory How does that apply to a regime like north korea? A regime that engages in unspeakable brutality against its own people A regime that poses continuous threat to its neighbors It may now pose a direct threat to the united states with weapons of mass destruction A regime that imprisons and murders anyone who seems to be opposed to the regime Well, that's what classical deterrence theory was developed for For regimes that are brutal Can be aggressive But want to stay in power And what McMaster said could be applied equally to explosive Stalin and chairman wow consider statements of Of us the way to move it forward I'm sure consider the This summer The icbm test launch of july 28th demonstrated that north Korea appears to have an ability to take out launch quickly for tests or for preemption or for retaliation a nuclear weapon And therefore when people will say That we're preparing for a preventive strike in my view the u.s. Military should have been pouring cold water on people who are advocating a us First strike but instead sometimes they added to the flames consider chairman of the joint chiefs Joseph dumford's complaint in july quotes Many people have talked about military options with words such as unimaginable It's not unimaginable to have military options to respond to the north korean nuclear capability What's unimaginable to me is allowing the capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in denver colorado So my job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn't happen Instead of reinforcing deterrence general dunford Was alarming the north koreans and creating a red line that the north koreans immediately crossed Now it will be very difficult for the u.s. Military to take preventive war off the table Is their job after all is to provide options now Duty is to follow Orders from political authorities unless they're clearly unconstitutional The constitution however says nothing about what to do if a president's orders are arguably constitutional, but also arguably crazy And that leads leads to utterly bizarre situations has occurred here at a and u In july when admiral scott swift was asked would he launch a nuclear strike against china next week? If president trump ordered him to do so admiral swift should have said That scenario It's so bizarre For the u.s. To launch a bulldozer blow attack. I'm not going to honor it. It's a ridiculous scenario and leave it at that instead he said Yes It is very difficult For the u.s. Military to cope with this condition And i want to be really candid And frank about the grave implications Of our election of donald trump to the u.s. Presidency There's a tendency Certainly in my country and maybe you haven't here on your late night Talk shows to make fun of the president's statements I view this as a natural defense mechanism To make us feel More secure by laughing To make us feel Like we're not in danger, but we are in danger We have a president who is deeply ill informed about foreign policy and defense policy We have a president who strikes out against perceived slights We have a president who in the technical and professional term Used by the u.s. Secretary of defense. I mean the u.s. Secretary of state After he gave a briefing to the president We have a president who is a fucking idiot Now we laugh and I laugh too when I read that that's a grave crisis that we're in And we have to think about that and confront it very directly In 1974 Then secretary of defense james lessinger fearing that richard nixon Had become despondent was drinking heavily because of the end of the watergate affair and the impeachment hearings Secretly contacted the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff george brown and told him that The chairman should contact him immediately And not automatically follow military orders if nixon independently contacted him Schlesinger's actions were extra constitutional But they were really smart And wise Given the extraordinary circumstances of having an un unarguably unstable or at least impetuous president I believe that we should acknowledge that we are facing a similar kind of situation every day today under president trump The senior leadership in the pentagon must be prepared to ignore belligerent tweets To push back against improved presidential policies And I am being Very precise in my language here should be prepared to resist any orders That they believe reflect impetuous or irrational decision-making by the president Their oath after all is not to an individual president but to support the constitution of the united states And the constitution of the united states includes article 25 25th amendment Which lays out procedures To relieve an impaired president of his responsibilities And if senior military leaders at any time believe that the president's behavior Is suggesting An impaired decision process They don't just have the right they have a duty To contact secretary madis immediately Who should then call for an emergency cabinet meeting to determine If president trump is quote unable to start discharge the powers and duties of his office And thus invoking the 25th amendment having the brice president take over now I do think That's an extreme situation, but I think we are in that extreme situation now And we're beginning to see some positive signs That senior authorities are pushing back at least at some of the More extreme And reckless statements Only some Secretary madis has consistently and honorably in my view Testified that while we would win In quotes a war on the korean peninsula win in the narrow sense that we would be able to conquer north korea And their regime and not the united states regime would be overthrown He has also consistently said that this would be the most devastating war we have experienced Since the korean war And perhaps even since the second world war now. I was very pleased just A few weeks ago october 27th that the joint chiefs Gave a report to congress It said that it could not guarantee the complete destruction of the north korean nuclear weapons capability unless there was a ground invasion Of the north I think that is a responsible and conservative thing For them to do and an active Act of pushing it back against some of the more exuberant discussions About starting a war But those discussions are still happening I want to Give my own take on why I think military options are Not advisable first Some have argued well, maybe we're gonna have a limited attack And decapitate the north korean regime Strike directly at kim jong-un in an attempt to destroy the regime and prevent retaliation That would be a gamble of epic proportions The repeated u.s history Of decapitation attempts Shows it they're not often successful We tried to kill more mark adafi in 1986 and fail We attacked Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003 Again failed to kill him Moreover, we have no reason to think that kim jong-un has not sent borders to his generals As did Saddam Hussein Saying to launch everything you have against the enemy if I'm killed in her first strike One of the most chilling Strategic documents I've ever read Is the translation of the tapes of saddam talking to his generals Giving him those orders In 1991 when he did have chemical and biological weapons as opposed to 2003 when he did not And successfully been disarmed And we have no reason to think that a fully indoctrinated north korean military Would refuse such orders Their president Their dictator He suddenly killed what makes you think that they would say oh We're not going to do anything After that the u.s Leaders should also resist the temptation to hope that a limited or surgical conventional attack on north korean missile tests or storage sites Would be effective There's an ill logic And a technical Reason to be concerned that any surgical strike Would not be seen as being surgical first the logic for people to say well We could have a limited attack against north korean and they won't respond by attacking south korea Or us bases or potentially the us homeland because they'll be really deterred By our overwhelming nuclear force Think about that for a minute We need to attack north korea because they're so irrational that they can't be deterred In peacetime But they are so rational that after we've attacked them Then they'll come to the census And we'll be deterred That's the logical fallacy. I think of a surgical strike in this condition The technical arguments I think are equally powerful Are there reasons to believe that the north korean nuclear arsenal is one point safe? One point safety is a technical term that We have used to say that under most Almost all conditions a nuclear weapon will not go off Unless it is triggered in a very intricate way by the fusing and triggering system American nuclear weapons were not one point safe for much of the early parts of the cold war That's why it was so dangerous if one Was accidentally dropped subject to a fire or to a conventional attack If a US surgical strike hit a north korean nuclear weapon It might destroy the weapon, but it could also detonate the weapon And would the north koreans Think oh the united states has just launched a very surgical strike Would they think United states has just launched a nuclear attack against us Others put hope in ballistic missile defense We know however that many ballistic missile Tests have failed even when we know the timing of the missile that we're Trying to shoot down And even though there have been some successes of late especially regarding the thad the More tactical Forces being put into south korea Any prudent military planner should assume that at least a few nuclear armed missiles would penetrate the target Estimating fatalities in a limited nuclear strike by north korea is really hard subject to many different scenario conditions But alex wellerstein's useful modeling tool called nuke map Has been very helpful by giving anyone A chance to look at estimates based on the real life experience of The victims of hiroshima and nagasaki about what the bomb of that size or then larger Would entail They have 60 weapons and even a handful get through well, alex wellerstein's model suggested a 20 kiloton warhead air burst above Busan and south korea, which we know from looking at the maps and back of some photographs of kim jong-un Is one of the targets Would produce 173,000 prompt fatalities A single 20 ton kiloton weapon in soul would produce 137 prompt fatalities and we know that the prompt fatalities are Only a portion We consider a longer term fatalities. It could be double that And then you consider conventional attacks on soul Conventional artillery consider the chemical and biological capabilities of north korea consider That if there's an attack on busan It could destroy the nuclear power plants outside of busan Is not unimaginable that the first day of the second korean war Would lead to a million people dead on a day And then think about the north koreans who would die in a potential retaliation now Let me say a bit more about this problem of the reciprocal fear of surprise attack In 2013 the chairman of the south korean joint chiefs of staff announced that quotes If there's a clear intent that north korea is about to use a nuclear weapon We will eliminate it first even at the risk of war The official white paper of the defense department Mystery of defense and soul in 2016 even featured an illustration with multiple cruise missiles a ballistic missile a command launch aircraft launch missile and a group of special forces commandos attacking when The was labeled as the war command building in peonyang Decapitation and command and control strikes look a lot like assassination plants and offensive regime change Kim Jong-un observed the u.s. And south korean military exercises and responded predictably in 2016 The north korean state media reported quotes the right nuclear preemptive attack is by no means the u.s. Monopoly The revolutionary armed forces of the dpr k decided to take preemptive attack as its mode of military action And this is why kim jong-un believes he needs a nuclear arsenal Because he believes it is possible the united states is going to try to oppose him Now certainly weapons development appeals to his directives audience's desire for self-sufficiency well known north korean ideology of juche self-sufficiency But his spokesman have also stressed that he will not suffer the fate of saddam hussein or muammar qaddafi Both of whom gave up their nuclear programs and were later attacked by the united states The north korean arsenal is not a bargaining chip to get goodies from the united states It is a potent deterrent designed to prevent the u.s. From attacking and to disrupt an attack That is about to be launched or even disrupt attack that has occurred By destroying u.s. Air bases and ports by preemption if possible And by retaliation if necessary And finally it's a means for revenge Targeting the united states american forces and american homeland if all else fails and that might sound crazy But remember that's what fidel castro asked crew chef to do in 1962 You can tell a lot about the north korean both retaliatory and preemptive strategy if you look at the different plots the maps behind briefings where you can see The strategic air command headquarters in omahaw The cyber command headquarters in san antonio washington dc being marked other one show busan an osan air force base These guys are serious And they view this as a deterrent But also as a preemptive option if necessary And that's why I think we need to spend much more time analytically But also in public discussions about how to reduce the risk of a preemptive war How to think about things that could happen We don't want them to happen. We want to try to prevent them How to think through accidents false warnings Let me tell you some of the things that keep me up at night If the us was to gain information That the dprk had loaded a nuclear warhead on a missile and was moving it Would we see that as a sign of an imminent attack? as a test As a defensive preparation As an operational exercise I don't know if a radar technician Accidentally put an exercise tape Of a missile launch onto an online warning system It's happened during the cuban missile crisis It's happened during the carter administration Would that be seen As a false warning Or as a real warning What if a us or south korean military aircraft accidentally entered north korean airspace? We are flying b1 bombers near north korea as part of our deterrent What if one flew into the airspace Or was shot down just outside the airspace as the ec 121 shown on the left and that was in 1969 that killed 31 american personnel Would we view that as the first act of war? Or would we decide not to retaliate As president nixon eventually decided Could an ill-timed inflammatory tweet by president trump Provoke the military preparation A rush missile deployment by kim jong-un We are in a Very strange new dangerous world What if The u.s. Military got an evacuation order If all non-essential Personnel non-combatants Evacuate Republican korea Would that be seen by the north koreans? As a Preparation for an american attack Would be seen as a defensive measure United states is taking because it's concerned about a north korean attack I don't know but I do know that something happened This fall it was alarming because the u.s. Military did receive Through social media Notifications to start the evacuation of non-essential personnel And immediately as you see here The eighth army counterintelligence advisory said don't Believe us. This was false information and the Pentagon is under Serious investigation to try to figure out what the hell happened Was this the russians? Possibly Was it the north koreans Trying to spoof us We're trying to give an alarm so that if we do do it in reality people will be less likely to believe it We do know the north koreans had hacked into the South korean ministry of defense and got war plan information. It was just some way of Having disinformation or was this a hacker? We don't know yet at least nothing's been announced That shows that even the cold war which supplies some good evidence about the risk of accidents Can't supply all the lessons because we're in a brave new dangerous world here Instead of the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion We have the danger of living in august 1914 like crisis But at twitter speed The social media and disinformation Making the complications Even worse So let me just conclude With the a few words that are are are slightly optimistic Living with a nuclear in north korea does not in dr. Straden's lovean terms mean that we need to learn to stop worrying and love the bomb It means constantly worrying about the bomb Constantly worrying about things that go wrong And trying to address every risk We need to convince kim jong-un that starting a war would lead to an unmitigated disaster for the north Particularly because his own ministers and military advisors in pyongyang may be too frightened of the wrath of the respected supreme leader to make that argument themselves But if i'm right We also have to be very careful That the u.s. Public understands the risks of war And that the u.s. Military convinces president trump That these risks are unacceptable today Other american leaders should join secretary tillerson and mattis and declaring that we do not seek the overthrow of the kim regime Unless he begins a war We should modify u.s. And south korean exercises and planning Perhaps in exchange for missile test notifications or limits In north korea And certainly a restoration of south korean north korean hotlines Would be useful I don't think sanctions will make North korea give up its nuclear weapons I think it might make it More painful for them to keep them I think it would also be a useful signal to other potential nuclear Weapon states that there are costs of violating the non-proliferation treaty But ultimately I think we are going to have to deter north korea And we're going to have to Do much better at that Than we have done in the first year Of the trump administration Living with nuclear weapons is not A long-term prospect. We need to still work towards nuclear disarmament But in the short term if the alternatives in nuclear deterrence Is starting a war I'll take nuclear deterrence I'm happy to take questions and comments Well scott as predicted you've left the pessimists cheerful and the optimists depressed Let's open it straight up for questions out But let me just ask you a technical question right at the beginning Assume trump in a moment of reckless abandon does take out his biscuit His little plastic thing with the nuclear codes on it And put it into the football or whatever it is you do to set that train of events going for the actual launch What is the physical scope for intervention by any Military personnel to stop that actual launch order being executed very little the the process was designed in For an emergency Warning system So the president would call The uh his military aid from the white house um The military aid normally gets the message from the warning system and he wakes up the president So under that condition the president has 10 15 minutes inside and he'd rush down to the An area by the situation room And all that the biscuit has is the long code That shows that the option being chosen has been chosen by a legitimate Authority the president of the united states And that's flash out the secretary of defense could come online if he's been able to be reached and he often is not been able to be reached And the president has sole authority and that's the Only way that the code does is to say that it's the legitimate president issuing Option a option b option c etc etc now that's In a normal condition if the president without having had a warning Contacts The military officer I believe although the system was not set up this way That he would call the secretary of defense right away Say sir, someone's going on here. You need to get here right away. We need to so I don't know Whether He would intervene in that condition but I do think that We need to talk about that and debate that Part of the 25th amendment would get invoked. I think not based on whether the president has chosen an option that exists But the manner in which he Has chosen it and if the manner is one that It's three in the morning. There's no warning out there. There's nothing going on Then I would think I would hope And I would want to encourage Them to say there's some impairment going on The system was not designed for that It's a pretty reasonable assumption in other words that secretary mattis Has made it pretty clear to the relevant military personnel involved in the immediate vicinity of the president Handling the football That if something like this happens he mattis has got to be contact. That's a pretty reasonable assumption Is I mean you don't you can't just wave this biscuit over the thing like a pay pass And away you go. I mean it's no you cannot just wave there There is a military officer all of all of the all of the biscuit code is doing is demonstrating this does come from the president Correct, but there's no automatic created for a condition in which the president is making a rapid retaliatory or preemptive option And I believe that if president has been given a low level option against north korea And there is a warning that I think That would happen If it is Out of the blue that I hope that you're right is a reasonable assumption But it's only an assumption and not a fact and there is a movement in congress There'll be I believe hearings next tuesday To say should we do something different there's a bill that has been Written by ted lu and ed markey senator markey and congressman lu Has not gotten very far only 10 senators willing to sign it to restrict First strike capabilities to say you can do that in retaliation, but you should have congressional opinions on first strike There are alternatives being waived and there will be congressional hearings to try to solve this problem Does it weigh with anyone in the united states that a first strike nuclear attack by the united states would Unquestionably be a crime against humanity as a matter of international law Does that matter or is international law having its usual impact on american policy magazine? Does it matter depends on who you ask and matters for whom? I I think you know from my other research gareth that For the american public, I think it would matter relatively little. I used to think before doing a series of survey experiments with Ben valentino that the american public would be a real constraint on any president deciding to use military force Especially nuclear force because of the so-called nuclear taboo Unfortunately a set of survey experiments have shown the american public does not have a strong nuclear taboo I find this deeply troubling and disturbing Most polls in the past used to Ask did harry chuman do the right thing by dropping the bomb in 1945 and support for dropping the bomb was gone from 85 percent in 1945 to 45 percent today That's evidence for a taboo, but those polls never asked people To put themselves in the situation where you Have to contemplate invading a country Versus using a nuclear weapon Baiting a country would cause lots of american casualties Baiting a country would be costly Dropping a bomb would be crime against humanity Be killing lots of innocent people Which would the american public choose what depends on the numbers and depends on who the enemy is In the polls that we did We asked public to read a separate representative sample to read a story that the jcpoa the joint conference of plan of action with iran broke down The iranians were accused of violating That with a secret plan the united states in the scenario said We put sanctions back on and iran in the scenario Attacks a us ship like In the persian gulf like prahar congress declares war president calls for unconditional surrender and then in the experiment we had the president told that you could either Invade 20,000 americans will be killed or you could launch a nuclear attack And we varied with different control groups The number of people killed from 100,000 to two million thinking surely at two million The majority of the american public would say no We'll take the risk of our conventional war and we were wrong 60 percent of the public supports using nuclear weapons With 100,000 people being killed in that scenario 60 percent Supports using nuclear weapons even if it costs two million to be killed We're going to some follow-on research to see what could we do to reduce those numbers Because those are unacceptably high It's a pretty scary article that one you've just written on the taboo You do acknowledge yourself at the end of that article that there are a number of Other factors that would come into play in a real world situation There would be other voices putting other factors into the equation. I hope so. I hope so But there could also be factors pushing in the other direction too. So okay, that's enough of us too over to you Yeah, up the back there And there's a roving marker for Please introduce yourself quickly and keep it to a pretty succinct question if you possibly can Daniel from the Crawford School of Policy my question is You spoke of the state actors as being irrational aggressors and the need for the US administration to implement deterrence strategies moving forward My interest lies with the effect of non-state actors. Um, for instance, do you believe there is a future risk of Terrorists, for example obtaining nuclear weapons from North Korea and how does that change the nature of the game when you've got non-state actors being involved in In what seems to be a crisis? Um, I think if you have non-state actors it changes the game entirely. I don't think terrorists are easily uh deterred And therefore with respect to non-state actors with terrorist groups Your strategy has to be something very different, which is ensure that they never get weapons And that's why the Obama administration put as much emphasis as it did on the nuclear security summit process And improving the ia ea the atomic energy agency's nuclear security division Try to reduce the risk that highly enriched uranium Or an improvised nuclear device or real Device could get stolen or put together by a terrorist organization What we have in north korea now is this really interesting problem. I think sanctions are a good thing The reasons I suggest it But they also make it more likely that north korea will try to sell Materials to another country and we've got to beef up as part of a long-term strategy Our proliferation security initiative Our intelligence and efforts to try to reduce the likelihood That north korea will do again what it did with syria and try to help syria build weapons Doug keen Doug keen from the office of national assessments Thank you scott for your lecture Especially because You have a characteristic That reminds some of us of john j That is A combination of logic and passion my question is Impossible to answer Well, let's move on then But i'd like to hear you talk around it How much one cares about arms control it depends on one's Guess at how likely it is that arms will be used One can get very different answers to all sorts of strategic questions depending on how likely you think war is Even if the probability is extremely low, of course the consequences Keep your mic in front of you man. What do you think Is the likelihood that there will be a major conflict And here we go I got a call last friday from Nick christoff of the new york time saying Chris saying how likely do you think asking your question? And i refused to answer it I say that i don't think i know how probable it is how probable By what time frame how probable that we would start something or that the north koreans How probable are each one of these accident scenarios i'm outlining I don't know. I just know that there's a real possibility It's not zero And that people who say that it's zero that we could actually get an attack or have complete confidence In deterrence. I think are ignoring those real possibilities He buried my quote in the bottom of his article had other scholars who were saying 50 50 50 33 That's all those people up in front, but I think I had the right answer Because I don't think we know how probable they are We do know that They're more probable than we would like And that's why we need to work Consistently to reduce The risk whatever it is to even lower numbers How to compare the probability of accidental war to deliberately initiated nuclear war Well, I certainly believe the position the accidental one is much higher Well, I certainly believe that until This particular crisis occurred and what we are seeing Is a repeat of the debates that happened in the truman administration and the Eisenhower administration with respect to the soviet union We're seeing them play out today But the difference is we don't have a harry truman and a Dwight Eisenhower. We have a donald trump And that's a very different condition to be in Okay gentlemen up the back It's all right Thanks, professor sagan. My name is josh. I'm from the corbel school My question is this Assume we accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons power and continues on its nuclear weapons program and gains the ability to strike the united states with an icbm In that scenario if north korea chooses to invade south korea How confident are you that america will come to the defense of south korea? Thanks Great question Let me move two points. One is I should have made this a bit more clear. I believe I think we should accept That north korea is an illegal nuclear weapons state Because they got their material by violation of a treaty that they had signed I think that's important And I think we should also keep Our goal of all of a denuclearized north korea Just as we should keep our goal of a denuclearized world That they have to work in good faith towards elimination So we shouldn't accept it as a permanent status, but as A fact of being today and one that is illegal in its nature But how confident am I that the united states would come to the rescue of south korea? I'm very confident Why? Because we have 28,000 troops there We have An estimated 100 to 300,000 American Citizens living there all the time Tacking south korea is an attack on the united states I hope kim jung un understands that. I know that some american senators do not You had lindsay grammick the shocking statement this summer that if there's a war it'll be over there rather than over here We forgot how many people from over here meaning the united states live over there now So yes, I think the united states has skin in the game From day one And I think that there'd be a large-scale american response There would be devastating to north korea Yep Oh, professor sagan. Thank you very much for your presentation Um, I'm wondering whether you think that china and or the saviour the russia would have Significant roles to play in managing the situations you've set out And what do you think washington would best be encouraging them to do I better be careful because whatever I say may be contradicted in the papers today because Washington as president trump is talking is in beijing today and clearly this is one of the issues That's being discussed in some of the Exceedingly optimistic statements that the president has been making today Suggest that there are discussions there my own view Is that china has much less influence on north korea than president trump Would like That they could do more But they're not going to do a lot more Because they don't want to see a collapse and the Humanitarian crisis that would occur and the crossing of the border would occur if there's a complete collapse of An emergency collapse of north korea and because Even though they don't like north korea getting nuclear weapons. They don't want to see a united korea. That Is a u.s. Ally on their border So I think they could do more, but I don't think they're likely to do a whole lot more And even if they did I don't think it's going to get kim jong-un to give up his nuclear weapons Yep Just an ethnic bug from you and us w. Canberra Just to follow up on this Should we be afraid of china entering a war? between the south koreans and the us and North korea Yeah Yes, we should There have been reported exercises in China on the north korean border in recent On the recent years Suggesting that they have plans to go in now. Whether this is to go in Try to seize the weapons Establish a zone of interest and not combat the united states Or whether there could be escalation through The decision that no we're going to defend north korea. They're not the same kind of ally that they were in in 1950 That's quite clear but I have seen reports and have heard from Chinese generals don't underestimate feel like a remember how many people we lost In the korean war that we're not here to see you unite north korean. Now it would be a different condition But yeah, we should worry about this greatly Yeah, up in the corner Oh, okay All right, and then behind you after that Where you going? Yeah Hi, Steve Beresford from the Department of Defense You talked a little bit about reducing the risk of pre-emptive war Inevitably that would require some level of acceptance from the united states about the condition that north korea is in How or where would you start? In terms of balancing The political kind of fallout from that In in accepting north korea's nuclear status Well first off I would stop demonizing North korea. I think this is really worrisome um President trump by belittling the north korean leadership is making it seem likely or more likely or less onerous That we could actually try to attack north korea So that's the first thing you do is stop doing that and treat the north korean people There's people who require who have rights And should be treated Appropriately now. I thought the speech and soul Was a bit better than others in the past in trying to do that Um, but I do worry that some of the rhetoric coming out of washington makes it easier To go to war and therefore less likely to accept Deterrence I think politically The far right Would say you you've caved in this is bad But I think the vast majority of americans If really educated about what the consequences of war would be and that's why I like this report to congress would say We could accept a nuclear north korea as a short-term solution even if we don't want to see this As a long-term Actual state And I think that could be persuaded now. Let me I said a number of negative things about President trump today. Let me give one Positive thing maybe it's because garth has come forward and I'm getting his optimistic Vibe being contagious here I've written in the past about The phenomenon I call the commitment trap That there's danger that a president Could make a threat for deterrent purposes It fails Then he and potentially she could feel I've got to act Because otherwise my credibility will be never trusted again. Think about john kennedy saying I should have Told the russians. It doesn't matter if you put missiles in cuba But now that I said don't do it and they said they wouldn't do it and they did it Now I've got to go to war or I've got to do something. I've got to get these out and the joint chief said Yes, that's why you've got to do something One positive thing about Donald trump is that he's terribly inconsistent And backs away from things that he's said While denying that he ever said no And I hate to make a strategic virtue out of inconsistency But in this respect there is a slight benefit to this And thus far he has gotten away With it among his base We'll see so I think you're raising a really important and difficult question I think that's absolutely dead, right? We're just on the question of a negotiate because trump has started to use the n word I mean admittedly totally inconsistently erratically and implausibly but what does What in your judgment would be enough to put on the table? From the north koreans to get us to a stage and reciprocally from the americans Which will get us to the stage at least of a freeze on further development if not denuclearization, which is another universal way Yeah, I I think opening gambit positions will be The north to have the united states pull out of south korea and for the united states say well, you've got to Denuclearize before we even talk to you right and that's where they're i'm talking about the real condition in the real condition I think there'd be an interest Not just because it is a bargain But because it could really be safe still north koreans. We want to get notified of any missile launches We want you to limit the range of things we want certainly Not do things that we consider deeply provocative like launching towards Guam For detonation in space and in exchange we might be willing to give up some of our exercise Work with the south koreans not just because it's part of a deal, but because some things that we've done are dangerous So it wouldn't be a necessarily a bad thing to have that now. I haven't worked out the details I don't think anybody has but we should be doing that kind of work Both privately and I think I hope inside the u.s. Government A lot of those details have of course been worked out in the past including the mid 90s negotiations Which I had a role as foreign minister including in the early 2005 six negotiations, which I was a close observer at international crisis group And I have to say in both those situations where notional agreement was reached It was at least as much the fault of the west walking away and being perceived to walk away from its commitments As it was the fault of the other side That led those agreements to break down. I don't think that's true of the 2011 2012 Further attempt to find a solution negotiated to this. I think that was unequivocally Kim Jong-un's responsibility to walk away from that But what confidence can that record of even under comparatively much saner and more credible administrations What confidence can that give us in the possibility of a negotiated solution holding? Gareth, you're supposed to be the optimist here and I'm supposed to be the pessimist the answer is It gives me very little confidence There we go. Okay up the back Hi This is kind of related question. But my name is Daniel and I'll be serving in the Korean army next year. So this is kind of related issue for me It's not really a laughing matter, but So I I would always wonder why don't the u.s. Governments of past and current Consider signing a non-aggression pact with the north current government in exchange of complete denuclearization of the north korean Nuclear weapons. Yep I think there have been talks about doing that but I think For north korea to give up its nuclear deterrent In exchange for a piece of paper and a promise would be A full hearty thing for the north koreans to accept it that I think they'd like to see an armistice and that may be part of See the armistice turned into a um A real piece But a non-aggression pact Is not it's easily broken A complete nuclear disarmament Would not be as easily broken and that therefore I think kim jong-un would have no interest in going that way Why has the u.s. Been so cautious about accepting that basic demand to change the armistice into a permanent piece? I mean that's always to me fairly surprisingly been right at the top of the north korean wishlist And it's never something on which we've seemed to be prepared to be delivering Um, you would know better than I would gareth. I I find this very puzzling because it's something that I would Certainly accept people will argue Well, no, this is premature. We have to do this from strength, etc But that's an argument. I think that we've heard too many times That becomes an excuse for ill act for inaction It's one of the question from me if I may about the oh, okay, there are so many hands up now I've been waiting for something to show up. There's one over here Okay, well, let's see here and one there. Okay, okay Where you? Excuse me chris heath. I'm a postgraduate student here at anu I want to sort of move a bit beyond the deterrence aspect of your presentation this evening and ask in the event that Deterrence files and there is some form of nuclear exchange on the korean peninsula Where would that leave global non-proliferation? Post that event I've often thought that the First use of nuclear weapons since 1945 Could be a very good thing for non-proliferation or could be a disaster depending on how it turns out so for example a nuclear use between indian pakistan if pakistani army does this and stops an indian assault on pakistan Even if it stays very limited I think that would be a disaster for non-proliferation Because many other countries would say oh well you can use nuclear weapons and it won't be a disaster right On north korea. I think it could if there was a limited use And the north korea regime survived I think that would be a bad thing for non-proliferation because other countries could say oh well We could use nuclear weapons too and survive If however, it led to the swift and utter destruction of the kim regime Then I think it would be a good thing for non-proliferation because other countries would say oh well Look what happened if you violate the treaty And mess with the united states and its allies in this way. So it really depends on what the final outcome was okay Let me Sir tracy douglas from the department of defense in your presentation. You talked quite a bit about What the u.s public the u.s military u.s congress u.s senate Could do to bring the administration to a point at which deterrence was a reasonable choice to make my question would be What could allies and partners in the region do to contribute to that and I think you I'm asking from an Australian perspective, but also the republic of korea japan and some of the other partners and allies in the region This is partly why I'm here I hope that The australian government and others Are saying no these plans to have a limited attack or a major attack are really wrong-headed And that you need to practice deterrence as complicated as uncertain as it is At least for the immediate term. I was pleased when the moon government said Correctly, I believe that you can't initiate war without us We get a vote in the matter. I don't think that's technically true But i'm glad that they said that because that's putting extra pressure And I think that instead of just Standing by and watching us drift Into this kind of crisis. I think allies Here and elsewhere in the pacific Should very firmly say that we think a war in the korean peninsula Is unacceptable. There's no military option now And that deterrence with all its faults Is the best that we can do right now. This does not mean we should embrace it We shouldn't marry it We shouldn't love the bomb But it does mean that We need to really loudly and often Tell individuals in washington that some of the rhetoric that you're using And some of the options that you're discussing Are not acceptable Scott, thank you for me for a lecture in the finest tradition. I think of the g legacy and the finest tradition of this memorial Lecture but let me pass it over to michael wisley to offer the last word Well, ladies and gentlemen, it falls to me to thank our 10th anniversary john g memorial lecture lecturer professor scott sagan I overlapped briefly at the office of national assessments with john g when he was Just back from his work with the iraq study group and I remember thinking to myself Just how extensive his knowledge and experience were and how rigorous his judgments were And it reminded me of that when professor sagan started out by stating very very bluntly That north korea has moved from being a proliferation problem to a deterrence problem I think that was an incredibly important statement to make at the outset And that this as he went on to say is a deterrence problem being managed By two inexperienced and highly volatile leaders some fascinating logic coming out of that I think the risk as professor sagan has reminded us Is that by making fun and retreating to laughter at both of these leaders both kim and trump We tend to ignore the seriousness of the situation There's also the fact that like a flash of lightning on a dark night The north korean crisis has drawn attention To a range of broader destabilizing trends In the nuclear and conventional weapons domains predominantly here in asia And as a little bit of self publication Or promotion do keep an eye out for a college of asia in the pacific publication That's coming out in a couple of weeks That contains 12 essays from 12 of our experts On these very dangerous dynamics So professor sagan your lecture reminds us That the beginnings of dealing responsibly with such an incalculable and unthinkable state of affairs Is to begin with rigorous disciplined analysis Yours has been an artful combination of keeping in mind how serious the consequences Of the current dynamics are without being overwhelmed or overawed I think all of us are in wild agreement with your conclusions tonight And would agree very much with you that the challenges ahead Lie in convincing some of our political leaders of the logic of what you've laid out before us So ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking professor scott sagan for Delivering the 10th john g memorial lecture