Recent Developments in North Korea
48:47 Share

Next on The Impossible State, a discussion of recent happenings with North Korea with one of DC's top North Korea experts. North Korea is the impossible state. It's a place that stumped leaders and policymakers for more than three decades. It has a complex history and it has become the United States' top national security priority. Each week on this show, we'll talk with the people who know the most about North Korea.

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Impossible State podcast. My name is Victor Cha, Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair at CSIS, Professor at Georgetown. It's summer in Washington, D.C. Congress is not in session, but North Korea watchers are always working.

And we have one of the top North Korea experts with us today, a good friend of CSIS, good personal friend, Bruce Klinger from the Heritage Foundation, where he is a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia.

Longtime analyst of Korea, the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Northeast Asia, both inside and outside of the US government. Two decades of service in the US intelligence community. I would say a fixture at Congress in the sense that you have testified numerous times. We've testified together, in fact, a few times before House Foreign Affairs, Senate Select Committee,

a variety of different committees. He is a frequent commentator, as I think many of you have seen on U.S. and foreign media, prolific writer of commentary on the region. He spent half a decade as the CIA's deputy division chief for Korea and was also at one point chief of the CIA's Korea branch.

He is a graduate of the National War College with an M.A. He also has a master's degree in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College. And he did his undergraduate work in political science at Middlebury College in Vermont.

For those of you who know Bruce, he is a third degree black belt in Taekwondo. But any of you who follow him on social media also know that he is an avid, I would say professional scuba diver. And if you don't follow him on social media, he has incredible pictures of him doing all sorts of pretty dangerous things, I think. I thought you were going to mention the hidden entrance speakeasy hobby. Yeah.

There's that too, but this is a PG-rated podcast. But really, Bruce, we really appreciate you taking time out of usually a sleepy time in August to join us on the Impossible State podcast to talk about a number of issues.

to sort of catch us up on a number of issues that have been happening uh with north korea so really glad to have you on the on the podcast well thanks for having me when you mentioned the congressional testimony i'm always reminded of one time when i was still at cia and i was testifying i think with two others before the house permanent select committee on intelligence

and highly classified code word, etc. We're about 45 minutes into the briefing and the congressmen are getting all the Kims mixed up, Kim Yong-Som, Kim Dae-jung, but you kind of go with it. We're about 45 minutes into it, our congressman interrupts me, "Excuse me, son, which is the bad one, North or South Korea?" I was like, "Well, sir, that would be the North." "Okay, son, you can continue."

Well, I mean, I'm glad he asked, right? I mean, you know, at least he asked. It's better than trying to fake your way through the hearing and not knowing which one. But yes. Anyway, I mean, that is part of what you do is you inform both the elite, policy elite and the general public.

about this very difficult and challenging topic for U.S. national security and foreign policy. And so I thought there would be nothing better than to have somebody like you talk about a number of things that have been happening over the past few weeks and months with regard to North Korea. I think, you know, over the last two weeks, everybody's been watching the Olympics in Paris, but North Korea has been pretty busy during this time as well.

So I think one of the things we want to talk about and love to get your thoughts is the regime recently reported deployment of new missiles along the border with South Korea. And I thought maybe for some who aren't following this as closely, we could start by explaining to our listeners what this is, like why is it significant? And is it something that concerns you?

Actually, it's very significant and it does concern me greatly, but it's something that has just not been picked up at least by the U.S. media, whether it's the Olympics or not. But what I've noticed over the decades is sort of at first there was sort of threat denial. Oh, North Korea couldn't possibly have a plutonium program.

for nuclear weapons. Then the uranium program was just a figment of George Bush's imagination. And then the nuclear reactor that Israel bombed was just a Scud missile storage site. And now one of the current ones is, oh, they couldn't -- they haven't proven they have a reentry vehicle for an ICBM. But more recently, it just seems to be a complacency.

You know, I think all Korea watchers sort of look back on when North Korea would do a missile launch and we'd be on TV several times in a day. And now it's just sort of ignored. I remember one time coming into the office and just saying, well,

Well, last week North Korea launched their first solid fuel ICBM. That's a significant increase in the threat to the American homeland and no media interest. And then at the time, you know, yesterday an American private runs along the DMZ and, you know, this is the kind of crazy North Korea story that's going to get attention. And, you know, sure enough, it's like, hey, Bruce, is CNN online too, you know, asking if you could come in.

This missile is an increased threat not to the American homeland but to our allies, South Korea, as well as U.S. forces and citizens there.

They not only announced but showed 250 short-range missile systems, proving that they have them. Each of those systems carries four missiles, and each of them is nuclear capable or can be nuclear capable, in addition to high explosives, et cetera. So that potentially could be 1,000 tactical nuclear warheads,

facing South Korea as well as our forces and UN sending states there in a conflict.

That would overwhelm the missile defenses that South Korea and the U.S. have, even if it was just conventional weapons. So it's part of an ongoing significant expansion and improvement of the North Korean missile threat to the U.S. and its allies. And along with that, North Korea in the last few years has emphasized its production or intention to produce missiles

a new generation of tactical nuclear warheads that can fit on these kind of short-range missiles. Yeah. So that is quite concerning, and it shows that the North clearly is interested in, across the spectrum, creating capability, whether it's solid propellant ICBMs or it's these where they can overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.

whether we're talking about the homeland or on the peninsula. The other thing is, I would agree with you. I mean, I think if we think about at least the U.S. media, there really has been almost, they've almost become jaded to the tempo, the cadence of what North Korea is doing. Of course, there's a lot of other news to cover.

But this was seen very seriously for a while as a real national security threat. And I don't know if it's just because we have two wars going on, which clearly is newsworthy and needs to be covered. But in the meantime, North Korea is literally flying under the radar as they're showing more and more capability. I remember in the past, the response would always be,

You know, as you said, well, you know, they we don't know if they've done that really or they still have a long way to go in terms of other elements. It's not just your launch capability, but it's reentry, all these other things. And now, like, we don't even have that conversation anymore.

Yeah, I think it's several factors. I mean, in the last several years, it's been a number of big issues. The U.S. election, January 6th, COVID, China, Ukraine, et cetera. So there are sort of shinier baubles to focus on. Also, it's now North Korea doing so many launches or so many rollout of new missiles that

that it's become common, you know, a common occurrence. In the past, when it was like, ooh, a missile launch, that's unusual or not very frequent, so there would be a lot of focus on it. Now there are so many that it's almost like, which one is this? I can't keep all of them straight. Is this a new one or a different one? And it's just so frequent that we're just getting used to it.

And then it's also just, I think there's a,

a pessimism about achieving success with North Korea. In the past, the debate, as you well know, is, you know, it always, you know, devolved into a false binary, you know, sanctions versus diplomacy, when, of course, you need both, along with a lot of other instruments of national power. And then it kind of got to the point where it's like, well, nothing will work but

You know, my way would have worked. No, no, my way would have worked. Now there's almost a collective shrug of the shoulders, throwing your hands up in the air of, well, nothing's going to work. What can we do about it? Especially when they haven't had any kind of willingness to talk to us for close on five years now. Yeah.

And I mean, we should say that while we may feel like this is not getting as much coverage as it should in the media, I'm sure, you know, in your old stomping grounds within the IC, it's not like they're taking a day off. They're feverishly at work. Right, exactly. And sort of when sometimes particularly Korean friends would say, well, the U.S. doesn't care about Korea because you're you're.

North Korean negotiators only part-time or he or she is a lower rank than in previous years or administrations. And it's like, well, if North Korea ever said they were willing to talk, you know, it would get elevated very quickly. Or if they ask, you know, does the president, you know, any president sort of wake up thinking about North Korea? It's like, well, no, because, you

You know, he has a lot on his mind, but there are people in the intelligence community and the military at the Pentagon and Indo-PACOM and USFK, you know, who are living, breathing, you know, eating this stuff 24/7. So it certainly is not being ignored, but, you know, at the higher levels, it's not being focused on 'cause there's so many other things on their plate. But if North Korea were to do something good or bad, it would quickly get elevated to a presidential level.

And obviously, and that's where the real work is being done. But at the same time, we shouldn't discount the media exposure because, you know, administrations, White Houses react to what's in the media. They react to the op-eds. They react to what's in the media. So they're both important. So, I mean, if you were sort of thinking about how the U.S.-ROC alliance should respond to this new deployment,

Is there anything specific that you think makes sense? I mean, clearly the reaction has always been to strengthen bilateral, trilateral. But just your thoughts on what's the appropriate response to this? Well, unfortunately, there's no magic Rubik's Cube combination of if we did this, North Korea would give up the weapons or would feel that they couldn't possibly win a conflict.

So there's sort of that unsatisfying more of the same, maybe up the gain on sanctions or military deterrence. You know, on the military side, deterrence, the final decision is always in the hands or the mind of your opponent. You don't know what it takes to deter them and whether the things you've done was what deterred them or if they had no intention of doing something. And then there's also the danger of,

you know, if you go too far, either in your rhetoric or your actions, particularly actions very close to the demilitarized zone, does that trigger the response or the conflict that you didn't want? So, you know, I think it's good that we're not doing a, you know, military exercise in response to every single missile launch or action. You know, we want to get out of that, you know, tit for tat kind of response and instead just have a sustained, robust response

bilateral, trilateral military exercise program as we've had the last few years, not necessarily having to fly bombers every time North Korea does a short-range missile launch. So, you know, we're in a good place right now. It's kind of what I've often said is to sort of misquote Charles Dickens, it's the worst of times, but it's the best of times in responding to them.

in that the North Korean and Chinese threats have gotten a lot worse, but especially the trilateral cooperation and actions by each of the three countries

really has been superb in addressing those threats. So, you know, we need to keep the shield up, keep the sword sharpened, and experts can debate which gadgets or weapons or number of ammo stocks we need. But clearly we need to maintain very strong deterrence and defense capabilities to prevent North Korea from thinking that it could get away with conflict. - Right, right, absolutely.

So that's certainly one of the important issues, these new 250 short-range missiles. And North Korea, as you said, right now is deterred from not lobbing missiles into Seoul. But they are sending something else across the DMZ. So if we could pull up our graphic, Duane, we could pull up that graphic.

Thanks. So we have been sort of keeping track just as an exercise because we like to collect all sorts of data in the Korea chair of the balloon launches by North Korea. So they haven't been sending missiles, but a lot of balloons.

into North Korea. This covers the first through the 10th wave. And of course, we've just seen recently an 11th wave of these. I didn't want to point out that it's outdated already. We do our best to try to keep up, but Andy's on holiday right now. So we couldn't. But as you can see, I don't know how well our viewers can see this. So I'll zoom in. So you see in the immediate Seoul area, Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi, quite a number of these are falling really all over the place, right? All over the

all over the country and they're going here, you know as far down as Cholla at least North Cholla province, so Quite a number of these 11 11 launches thus far Right now up through the 10th there have been 778 locations nationwide that have been identified with these landings I'm sure that's much higher now given the given the latest launch

So I guess I want to ask you, Bruce, what is this all about? Like, why are they doing this? That would be one. And of course, the other is concern about escalation. So your thoughts on both of these. Right. Well, as you point out, they're balloons carrying trash, as well as at least some of the first waves even had excrement in them. So I didn't have flying feces in my North Korean, you know,

you know, lotto matrix at the beginning of the year. I think probably the initial

was responding to the periodic South Korean non-government organizations sending balloons to the North, which have information about North Korea and South Korea and the outside world on flash drives. Some of them have money or religious material. And the thumb drives aren't necessarily of, you know,

North Korea is a terrible nation propaganda. Some of them are just South Korean soap operas or movies or films, which actually North Korean escapees have often said that really sort of opened their mind to what the outside world was like and therefore how much the regime had been lying to them. So even things like

South Korean soap opera showing, you know, traffic jams where it's like, wow, people have cars. Right, right. Or a kitchen, right? Or a kitchen, yeah. Or rebellious teenagers where, you know, going against an authoritarian figure, which could be the great leader. So I think North Korea, especially their statements, were initially, like, pretty clear that it was a response to those and we will continue doing this and even more if you don't stop

those balloons. And just to be clear, so for our viewers, these balloon launches have, they were suspended for a while, right? And then they've restarted? Right. So the balloon launches have been going on for quite some time. But during the Moon Jae-in administration, the previous more progressive administration in South Korea, North Korea had basically said, stop it.

And the Moon administration said, "Yeah, okay, we'll, you know, accommodate your request. We'll appease you." And they even had legislation passed in the National Assembly which, you know, criminalized it. And so, you know, it impeded to some degree the NGOs, but then some were still like, "Well,

We're going to sneak around and try to launch these balloons when the winds are more northerly and evade the police enforcement. The South Korean Supreme Court or Constitutional Court ruled that that legislation was an unconstitutional impingement on freedom of speech and freedom of expression, so they rescinded it. And the Yoon administration, the current administration, is

is clearly more in favor of criticizing North Korea for its human rights violations, its isolating the citizenry off from the outside world. But I think initially Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's sister and others made it clear that they would hold off if the South Korean government agreed to do that, which the government said it can't.

Now, that said, there are residents in South Korea near where often the balloons are launched from that are fearful of some kind of North Korea military action shelling the area, as they have done in the past. So they may be more in favor of curtailing those balloons. But as the balloons have continued, it's clearly a far greater number than the South Korean balloons going north.

So, you know, we're kind of puzzled by is it just continuing in that same trend of trying to get the South Korean government to work against it? Or is it also trying to have a broader reach of getting the South Korean citizens to, you know, advocate to their own government for,

South Korea to stop the balloons to stop the North Korean balloons. Because they're not only inconvenienced by this trash and excrement raining down on them, but they also could be concerned that

maybe the next time they're not carrying trash, they're carrying biological or chemical warfare agents, maybe explosives. Would North Korea go to the next level? There have been some fires started by these North Korean balloons, not because they're explosives, but they just have small explosive charges to disperse the trash, just as sometimes they're explosive, small charges to disperse

propaganda pamphlets when they're going north. And if they land on the ground and then explode, then it can cause fires, not large ones so far. So maybe they're trying to not only send a message to the South Korean government, but also to the citizens to kind of band together to build a bow wave of, you know, resistance or advocacy for curtailing the South Korean balloons. And

How has the Yin government responded to this? I mean, so clearly you don't want to shoot these things down because you don't know what's inside of them. And like you said, there could be white powder. There could be something in there that you're just not, you don't feel comfortable sort of taking. But how have they responded thus far? Well, they've said that they can't impede the NGOs because of the constitutional court ruling. And they don't want to

do what they criticize the Moon administration for, which is accommodating North Korean demands. So they don't want to curtail the balloons going north, but they're also concerned about perhaps a military threat or if drones again come down with something stronger.

In a way, they're stymied. They don't want to look soft, but then they don't want to shoot these things down because you never know sort of the inadvertent risk of, you know, your own shells coming down on your own soil amongst your own citizenry.

But it does raise the specter of it. I mean, this is sort of the classic kind of gray zone, right? Coercive measure. But like you said, it does raise the specter of like, so these are balloons, but what if they send a whole bunch of small drones across? Even there, there's probably an important decision about whether you shoot those things down or try to neutralize them because you don't know.

what might happen if you did something like that. But it does sort of, I guess the question is, has this really raised in the minds of national security planners

you know, other ways that North Korea could disrupt the lives of South Koreans. I mean, apparently in some cases they had to stop some flights out of Incheon Airport because of these balloons. And we know that they're making lots of drones, right? They've sent some experimental ones in the past, but like imagine if they sent a fleet of drones across

or even just not all the way to like Cholla Province, but if they just hovered them around, I mean, that would...

I mean, that would create a really-- a real dilemma for the South Korean government. Right. Well, a year or maybe two ago, they did send drones even over the presidential complex in Seoul. And that caused a great concern in South Korea of what if they had been not just for reconnaissance, but with explosives. And even, you know, caused Seoul to create a cyber command or a drone command.

So, yeah, it does raise, you know, if you have a conflict, we all tend to think of artillery and tanks and missiles and nuclear weapons. But North Korea would likely do a lot of other things, particularly cyber. People tend to think of, well, if North Korea can't even keep the lights on at night, if you've seen the very famous nighttime satellite imagery where China, Japan and South Korea are ablaze with lights and North Korea is dark.

But North Korea is one of the top four nations with cyber capabilities. They've gotten into highly classified U.S. and South Korean systems. They've even gotten into infrastructure computer systems. And the South Korean intelligence service even warned that they had gotten into the system which controls the speed of trains in South Korea.

So in a conflict or the run-up to a conflict, if you were to do all these cyber things, not only gets military targets but infrastructure, water treatment, oil pipelines, electricity, et cetera, and also drones and even balloons. If you start putting BCW on them or explosives, the disruptive impact that would have on the citizenry, which could even draw away military forces away from

operations near the demilitarized zone back to dealing with potential threats, you know, in the rear area, or if you put little landmines on them, and then now you've got, you know, quite a danger to the populace. Yeah. So it's something we should be, I mean, it sounds kind of funny. And actually, these kinds of stories actually, as you said, make it in the news, because they're just

They're just so way out there. But it's something we should take seriously and watch closely because it could escalate. It could be this could be tiered, right? This could be a tiered strategy of some sort. So, you know, a potential military threat, not the trash itself, but what it could instead be carrying. Or if they continue to do it, could it lead the populace forward?

to push the Yon administration to do something that it wouldn't normally want to do. Especially if it was something that disrupted daily life. Right. Because in the end, that's what citizens care about most. They don't want their daily routines disrupted. Okay, third topic I wanted to talk about is the North Korean leadership. That's always something that gets good attention. And here, you know, we've seen Kim Jong-un sort of

allowing himself to be photographed in front of these huge ICBMs with his daughter, Jue. And, you know, some have interpreted those pictures as

not sort of dad taking his daughter, the North Korean equivalent of dad taking his daughter to the amusement park or something, but as... Take your daughter to work day. Take your daughter to work day, or a ball game, but as also a political message or signal that Kim Jong-un sees these weapons as part of the future and to protect future generations of North Koreans.

from the hostile external environment, which has been part of their myth-making and national narrative since the origins of the country. But there have been some stories lately about his health. He lost weight for a while, but now he seems to be grossly, grossly overweight. And even some reports of a succession plan

that may be in the making featuring this young daughter, Kim Joo Ae. Is that her name? No, no. We think it's Kim Joo Ae, but then others have said we're not even sure if that's correct. And we also don't know for sure if he has an older son who may be being kept in the shadows to eventually be revealed. Right, and distracting everybody by focusing on the daughter.

Anyway, we'd love to hear your thoughts on these news reports of some possible succession plan involving the daughter. Is there any truth to that? Is it conceivable that North Creek could have? It's certainly not inconceivable that there would be a dynastic succession.

because as you know well, succession in North Korea has always happened vertically, right? It's always gone from grandfather to father to son and perhaps the daughter. But a woman, right, a girl or a woman, that's another question. So how do you see all this in terms of the palace politics of North Korea? Well, every time there's an appearance of his daughter,

or she gets a new title of respected general or respected daughter, whatever. You know, I think all of us get a lot of phone calls from Korean media. To be flipped for a moment, it's like, I don't know and I don't care. What I mean by that is,

A few years ago, it was, would his sister, also obviously a woman, could she possibly be selected as in a very male-dominated society? And now it's sort of switched to the daughter. My flippancy is we deal with the leader in front of the curtain today.

So it could be the daughter. I think it may be a matter of timing. If Kim were to die tomorrow,

I would think his sister would take over either in her own name or as a regent for the daughter. Right. And, you know, in the time that it took the daughter to grow up, maybe she had a little bit of an accident. You know, I think succession in North Korea tends to be a blood sport. Like the Sopranos, right? Yeah. It is a game of thrones. A game of thrones, yeah. You know, so...

Whether it's the sister or the daughter, you know, there's no evidence that the North Korean regime would be any different than it is during the previous three administrations. And we went through the same speculation when not only Kim Jong-un was, you know, became the leader, but, you know, I was working in Korea in 1993, 94. When Kim Il-sung died. You know, when some...

including in the intelligence community, speculated that Kim Jong-il is a bold economic reformer and North Korea is on the cusp of implementing massive economic reform. Well, not so much. Right.

And when Kim Jong-un came in and, you know, he had been educated in Switzerland and, you know. Princeling. Everybody said princeling, right? Yeah. Yeah. And shortly after he, you know, was shown with his wife who had never, you know, a wife had never been shown and she's dressed in Western clothing. They're watching a show in Pyongyang with Disney characters cavorting on stage, copyright violation. You know, scenes from Rocky IV and just,

Frank Sinatra singing, "I Did It My Way." So this showed how he clearly was going to be quite different. Well, again, not so much. So whether it's Jue or Kim Yo Jong, at this point, we don't know. And I would put my money more on Kim Yo Jong, particularly if it's in the near term. Even with all the titles and a recent report saying that Kim Yo Jong apparently bowed to Kim Jue at an event,

I mean, those are all good indications that maybe she is the successor. But, you know, if the previous times there was a succession

Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un were always depicted in an almost godlike manner. I mean, Kim Jong-il shot 13 holes in one on his first round of golf, and he could shoot perfect bullseye with a pistol with each hand, et cetera. Kim Jong-un, I think, did his master's thesis on artillery and wowed the generals who didn't know as much as he did.

You know, kind of this cute little girl in her designer clothes hanging on daddy's arm doesn't seem to be the way they would normally do it. So I wonder if it is perhaps the older son, if he exists,

that is being sort of kept in reserve or in shadow until he is of a more intriguing age where he could wow everyone with his brilliance and his strength. But again, it's I don't know, and in a way, I don't care. It's just whoever the leader is today. I mean, that said, any time there is a succession of

in a nuclear-armed state, we get very nervous. I mean, so, you know, if it happened suddenly, there would-- certainly everyone's gonna go on red alert. They're gonna raise the watch con and the DEFCON. They're gonna be very nervous about who has control of nuclear weapons. And it very well could happen. I mean, we've-- you know, if you see some of the photos of Kim Jong-un going around the countryside to show his benevolent, you know, love for his people in response to the floods,

You know, you see him on the gunwale of a rubber-inflated boat. It took about four North Koreans sitting on the other gunwale to balance the boat because he's 350 pounds and he's 5'6". And his family and he, I think, have a history of diabetes and health conditions and heart conditions. I mean, he could just be one chocolate wafer away from a heart attack. Yeah, yeah. And...

And like you said, I mean, every transition in North Korea has been sudden, right? It's been through the sudden death of the leader. And so, yeah, I mean, it could happen suddenly again, and then we'd all be grasping in the dark to figure out, like, what comes next. So not a whole lot of transparency there. And fourth topic. So the one area in which arguably we've seen

From a North Korean perspective, a lot of success has been derivative of the war in Ukraine, and that has been this new relationship with Russia. I mean, if you think about it, Kim Jong-un was really in dire straits after he left Hanoi in 2019. Obviously, biggest diplomatic gambit in the history of the country failed miserably. And then right after that, months later, going into COVID. The COVID pandemic, for over three years,

And then coming out of it and having this new relationship with Russia, largely based on Putin's need for ammunition. We released a piece recently looking at the Tumangang-Kasan railroad crossing around the time of the summit meetings between Kim and Putin and the level of traffic on both sides.

lot based on the shape of the car we didn't bring I didn't bring the um slide with me but based on the shape of the car a lot of it looks like fuel of some sort um but this relationship really is in a completely different place than it was um you know even I don't know even five years ago so uh your thoughts on sort of the significance of this um how long lasting is it is this

tactical or is it strategic? And what does it mean for us, for the United States? Well, I think at first we thought it was very tactical and transitional. But as it's gone on for some time, as the Ukraine war has gone on, perhaps it's becoming more strategic. And it's clear that we know

pretty well what's going from North Korea to Russia. So, you know, I started in the Intel community as an imagery analyst, so I love the work you and Joe Bermudez and others have done, you know, documenting all of the shipments, both rail and by sea, that have been going, you know, from North Korea to Russia. And, you know, but also knowing from my imagery background, you can count the number of containers

and rail cars, but you don't know what they're filled with or how full they are. So there are a lot of estimates of, you know, this rail car could hold X number of 122 millimeter artillery shells or Y number of 152.

Or, you know, maybe they're not totally full. So we don't know. But I think some of the latest estimates coming from South Korea are, you know, I think we're up to 4 million shells or maybe 5 million or whatever. So it's just an ever-growing number, as well as dozens of missiles. Now, there have been reports that some of the artillery, as well as even the recently produced missiles, have failed. They didn't reach their target.

You know, that said, there's a lot of them, so it certainly has had an impact on Ukraine operations. But we're not sure of what North Korea is getting in response.

There have been a large number of delegations going from each country to the other, military and economic and financial. So, you know, it could be economic, it could be cash on the barrel head, it could be, you know, oil and gas and agricultural products.

or military, which is what we're most concerned about. And I think it's unlikely that Russia would send weapons because they need them so desperately in Ukraine. So it's probably technology or blueprints, which we're not going to see on satellite imagery. You could email them, you could carry them in a briefcase. Some experts have kind of jumped to, they could be the crown jewels, the nuclear warhead technology or blueprints, ICBM warheads.

reentry vehicles, I think a number of the rest of us think that's probably too high a price to pay for even a lot of very helpful to the Ukraine cause artillery and missiles. But what it could be is...

conventional weapon technology or production of conventional weaponry technology, you know, submarines, nuclear-powered submarines, aircraft, ground forces, the perhaps shorter-range missiles, all of which is also very concerning because any improvement of the North Korean threat to South Korea, Japan, or the U.S. is of great concern to us, as is the provision of all that ammo to Russia against Ukraine.

It is a big uncertainty as to what North Korea is getting, but it's not in our interests or our Asian or European allies' interests to have that relationship strengthening. So it is working against our interests, but there's really no way to interdict the shipments because obviously the ones going by rail you can't intercept. And even the ones going by ship,

We can't intercept both because it's such a short travel from the North Korean port to the Russian port. And also all of the U.N. resolutions which have been passed were passed with the authority. It was called Chapter 7, Article 41, which does not give you the authority to interdict on the high seas ships that you think are carrying prohibited items, whether it's fuel or gas.

or anything. So that's why in the past we've had sort of these very slow boat chases with a U.S. warship shadowing a North Korean freighter until it turned around and went home. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and like you're saying, it's,

It may. It's not likely that Putin's going to say, all right, give me some ammunition and I'll give you these nuclear warhead designs. But but it's possible. I mean, nuclear propelled submarine technology is not out of the question. Right. Right. And that would be quite significant, though. Right. If if all of a sudden we had North Korean nuclear powered submarines.

cruising around the East Sea or whoever knows where else. I mean, we could easily track them, but that requires resources and time that we need for other contingencies we have to worry about. Right, and Kim Jong-un in January 2021 kind of gave a laundry list of, you know, a to-do list to his scientists, including a nuclear-powered submarine. Now, North Korean subs are...

Right now, they only have one missile-carrying submarine. And they're old, they're slow, they're noisy. So people just kind of dismiss them. Now, either they could get better, or the South Korean naval vessel Chonan was sunk by a North Korean submarine. And also, there was one time in, I think it was 2015, when the North Korean fleet was out, and both U.S. and South Korean military said,

We don't know where 70% of the 70 submarines are. Now, in the run-up to a conflict, I think our shadowing would be more aggressive, and we would be keeping track particularly of any subs that could carry missiles. But it does show that submarines can still be dangerous, even if they're older. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Okay. Right. So a lot to worry about there and no, and certainly no easy solutions at all. It's not like we can get another UN Security Council resolution passed these days, given the position of China and Russia. Okay, so we have time for I think, let me ask you one more question. And of course, you can't, we can't escape any discussion today without talking about our elections here in the United States.

And so I think there are leaders all around the world who are watching our elections, and they may have personal preferences about who they'd like to see winning. I'm sure-- I'm not a Russia expert, but I'm sure that Putin would like to see one candidate win over the other. Where do you think Kim Jong-un is on our elections? Well, I think the question, in a way, boils down to, would President Trump, if he's reelected,

and North Korea be interested in reengaging with each other? I think you can make a good case both for yes and no. Both countries may feel that they tried it, it didn't work. North Korea may feel they don't need benefits

like they did back in 2017, 2018, because now they have Russia providing a lot of benefits. And they may feel humiliated by the collapse of Hanoi summit, et cetera. So they may be like, "We have better fish to fry." President Trump might see it as he tried it, it didn't work. He's gonna focus, like any president, on domestic issues and on foreign policy, which always intrudes. The priorities probably would be China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Middle East.

On the other hand, North Korea may see an opportunity to achieve some objectives if they reengage.

with President Trump if he's reelected. And a recent message or statement that they made after President Trump had said at the Republican National Convention, Kim misses me, we had a very good relationship. And North Korea said, we don't care who wins. Both candidates are representative of the U.S. hostile policy. However, comma, if you want to show us that your hostile policy is

is not, you know, persistent, if you were to cancel military exercises, cease the rotational deployment of strategic nuclear-capable assets, maybe then North Korea would come back to the table. And President Trump canceled both of those during his first term. So perhaps Pyongyang would see that President Trump might be more amenable to doing that.

And then if they were to go down that path and perhaps offer up, as they have in the past, a peace treaty or a peace declaration, that could be seen as or depicted as a great foreign policy achievement, perhaps worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

I'm always concerned that we sign a piece of paper before we actually reduce the actual military threat. And I think a peace treaty should come at the end of long, arduous negotiations, such as arms control negotiations we had with the Soviet Union. You know, you create...

the reduction of military threat, and then you sign the declaration as opposed to reversing it and putting the cart before the horse. So, you know, a good argument for both why neither leader would want to engage, but also I think in some circumstances why North Korea might want to reengage.

Yeah. And I mean, former President Trump, in the few times he's been asked about it on the campaign trail, still speaks very positively of Kim Jong-un and of a relationship that they had. And even, I mean, I don't think he said explicitly, but intimated that he'd be up for reengaging on some of these questions. It's hard for me to imagine that if Trump were to win, that Kim Jong-un could, that he could resist

writing another flowery letter to the president congratulating him on his reelection. And that could be the start of it right there, right? 'Cause of the letters flying back and forth between the two of them. Yeah, I think the catalyst would be coming from North Korea. I don't think reengaging Kim in a real negotiating or summit meeting would be high on President Trump's list if he came back. I think he's got a lot of other priorities.

Whereas if Kim saw that he might achieve benefits, I think the push would come from North Korea. So, you know, some have speculated they may do an October surprise, some kind of provocation in October and nuclear test, ICBM test over Japan.

as a way of kind of blaming the current administration for all that's wrong with U.S.-North Korean relations, and then accompanied by a letter to President Trump saying, "Only you and I can solve this dangerous situation." So perhaps a provocation or, you know,

even if they don't do that after the election, if you start seeing more positive statements or hints of positive statements coming from North Korea, which would always be, as they always have been, very conditional. We might be willing to do something if the US or its allies were to first do this. So demanding concessions just to buy their way back into the negotiating room.

Right. So October surprise, parting shot at the current administration, getting on the front burner of the next administration, and then this sort of conditional outreach.

And clearly, the purpose of this is not to denuclearize. It's to gain de facto U.S. acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, as our good friend Sid Seiler always likes to say. But yeah, so you heard it here, folks. This is where Bruce thinks that we're headed. Of course, I'm not holding you to that, but...

But it's certainly a very, it's a plausible scenario for sure. But, you know, what will happen? Well, you know, you give you what we used to call the CIA salute. I don't know. I can lay out a lot of possibilities. So for those of you who are not watching on YouTube and listening, that was the two hands up with the shoulder shrugged gesture is the salute. So anyway, Bruce, thanks again for spending some time with us to catch us up on North Korea.

To our viewers and listeners, thank you again for joining us for another episode. We'll be on summer break for the rest of August, but we'll be back with you in September with the next episode. So until then, enjoy the rest of the summer and we'll see you in the fall.