How the U.S. Election Will Affect the Economy
46:25 Share

On the talk to me direct podcast, public policy expert NaTasha communi speaks with policymakers, activists and change makers across africa about how storytelling, technology, social media, A I and Moore can help promote democracy and civil society in africa today. Join natacha as he explores various perspectives on the important questions with eight leading african voices. Listen to talk to me direct wherever you get your podcast.

Hi, and welcome to ones in tu fps economics podcast. Every week we take a couple data points, use them to try to explain the world. I'm camera body fp deputy editor with you in berlin, germany as always. Fp economic comment and collumpsion university professor adam tools with us in new york kye. Adam.

right.

So we're going to be talking in the first half of the show about the U. S. election.

And what exactly is at stake in that election in an economic sense, in the broadest sense. After that, we will talk about north korea because the world moves on even as the U. S.

Has its election. And we wanted to talk about north korea's involvement in the ukraine war to stick around to hear about that after we talk about the election. But before any of that, I wanted to repeat what I mentioned last week, which is that we are hoping to start a new membership for this podcast.

And in order to do that, we wanted to hear from you the idea of this membership is we wanted to offer a new content, additional content for our listeners ah and we wanted to know what kind of content that ought to be could be anything ranging from yeah extra segments. Q in is book club kind of thing? We've talked about all sorts of options, and then we realized we should ask you.

So please find the link to the survey for that membership in our show notes and respond because we'll really use that information as we plan this out. So look forward hearing from you there. But as I mentioned, our first segment is on the election in the united states, and the data point there is seven hundred seventy five thousand.

That is the number of manufacturing jobs that have been added to the U. S. Economy since the bind administration, biden Harris administration, perhaps I should put IT took office in january twenty twenty one.

Reports expect the combination of legislation that was past during the by administration, including the inflation reduction act, infrastructure law, chips act, IT estimated that all of that will create three hundred thirty six thousand manufacturer jobs a year until twenty thirty five, is because this could be an indication of a revival in this sector that has really been struggling. The biden administration has been used in some businesses through some policy like the chips act. In order to beef up.

we created over eight hundred thousand new manufacturing jobs. While I have been.

we have invested in clean energy to the point that we are opening up factories around the world. Donald truck said he was gone to create manufacturing jobs. He lost manufacturing.

These changes are often touted by the, by administration and by comella. Harris campaign is evidence of of a real shift in the U. S.

Economy in the past few years. And that usually frame is what's at stake in the coming election. In part, of course, we've all gotten used to hearing that this is the most important U.

S. Election in our lifetimes, perhaps even in U. S. History in total, that sometimes described in that way in some political, to see why that would apply here. And there's definitely a contrast in terms of the economic platforms of the communal Harris campaign and the platform of down trump's campaign. Yeah we thought we consider just what exactly is at stake.

You know, from the standpoint of economic history, just yeah what is what is at stake here and how would we even know when where the other um maybe another way putting that is how does economic history even change in the first place? Uh so yeah right of the precipice of this election. We want to stick a step back and try to consider this from some arms length.

So adam, to start with, you know, if we're talking about whether this election will change the country's economic trajectory to historical trajectory in some in micro sense, I figure we need to first figure out what is the current trajectory in the first place. You know, what defines the structure of the U. S.

Economy right now, in our current historical moment, I was thinking about this, and I I wondered, I mean, if we had to put our fingers on something, is that that the U. S. Economy structure around the dollar really is the world reserve currency.

Fifty eight point four percent is the share of global currency reserves that consist of the of U. S. dollar. I mean, is that the structural kind of fact that shaping all sorts of other policies, whether it's phenomenon like china's rise or climate policy, yeah is IT really all come down to that basic fact about the U.

S. Economy is a great question to oriental cells. And in relation to data point that you cited, its worth adding a little context there because it's pretty obvious that the main access of the american economies, not manufacturing and certainly not the bits stimulated by the bide administration, right? So there's one hundred and sixty two million people working as employees in the united states today and all of those just over twelve million to point seven million, maybe a little more working manufacturing.

So the impact these figures are retired by the P. R. Of the administration, really distort our understanding of what the american economy at this moment is about, is a vast economy, trillions and trillions of dollars.

The employment numbers are over one hundred and sixty million. The manufacturing share of that is eight nine percent roughly on the increment that y've added three policies of further fraction of a fraction, right? So that's not where the center is in where you're headed. With your question, I think is much more useful as way of thinking about what the center of gravity is at the mro level. The level of the economy is a whole.

I do think that something like the city of the dollar to the global economy and all street to the Operation of dollar finance remains in some ways, quite a good way of defining what makes the american economy special and different from other economies in terms of macroeconomic policy stance. In other words, how how government policies set up. The other thing, and i'll come back to this in the conversation several times, I think, is the fiscal policy stance, which is just very, very unusual.

And i'm, you know, size, not a not A T not a deficit hall, not a debt warrior. It's just, historically speaking, enormous to have america's government budget deficit running at between six and seven percent at full employment. And this also to makes amErica really rather special in other parts of the worlds in france, which have been talking about recently, I think in the last episode ate the one before, you know, that kind of deficit is the cause for a huge political crisis in the U.

S. people. Just struggle is barely the issue in the election. If you looked at the sexual level, if you had to tell a story about the U. S. Economy right now, I means be pretty hard to look past big tech in A I right, because the U. S.

Has really emerged as the platform for this technology, which really does look as though he has the potential to transform an awful lot of routine White collar work. And of course, in the meantime is making in clutter of american CoOperations fabulous the wealthy, driving stock markets so on. And then the four element, I think that has emerged in the succession of ama.

Trump denies his energy and its not Green energy, renewable energy, it's oil. It's the fact that the U. S.

Is emotion as the largest social produce of the world has ever seen, that has gone from being a net importer of energy to being a net exporter? And if you had to know, you had to define what makes the american economy different from other rich economies, or are the big economies in the world. IT would be some combination of those four things.

I think the distinguished do something rather quick, oic paradoxical almost about this willington less emphasis on manufacturing, which is in some bit, some ways the most ordinary, in many ways the successful. If you think about, you know, the electrical boing or intel right now, these no success stories of the U. S. economy.

And yet they are at the center of the narrative of dynamic. And that's an economic program that kala Harris essentially promising to continue. You know, by virtue of having this name IT suggests it's marking a new economic era by yd nomics with its focus on industrial policy, a return of manufacturing jobs. Again, this is in the the narrative.

You was bynes s really any kind of significant shift in the essence of the U. S. economy? Or is that really a continuation of the old with just some marginal tweak and adjustments?

I mean, first of vote, I mean, bad economics is at the level of policy, right? So it's policy talk over as well. It's the way of framing what's happening with the ultra complex process of economic policy legislation in the U.

S. I think we need distinguished that there's the actual american economy with actual american people working in IT and its relation to the wider world. There is the policy process of making legislation something like the inflation reduction act in congress, which is this hugely elaborate process that involves amount of lobbying and lawyers.

And you know, you can take a year, eighteen months to past a piece of legislation, which is then festo to the bunch of other things, which is about the framing of what you've just done and how IT relates to the world. That's the level of which bike economics or bike omics is Operated. And I think IT combines two things at the sort of cultural vibes level I know ended up saying really things like it's maga for thinking people, right? It's make amErica great again for smart types which consume super deflationary.

But the smart shouldn't be underestimated. They are very smart people making policy in the biden administration and also very good publicists. And they have they have really done an amazing job in wrapping the set of policies, which broadly speaking, our an intelligent continuation of the break that we saw with trump.

And the break is what will the break is really the definitive end of the globally oriented wall street LED brand of policy making, which emerged from the eighties under rigger and bush and was consolidated under clinton, which made in the bypass and thing with Robert rubin as treasury secretary, and Larry summers and all these sorts of people organized around the U. S. Treasury is the as the linchpin of the world economy in the unipolar moment.

That's that's where we were at. And that policy regime prevail. S through the twenty tens and even down to the fine details what will count as an argument in a committee meeting with the treasury, security or the undersecretary, whatever.

All of that has really quite dramatically changed. If you talk to inside us in washington right now, the break within the culture of democratic party over economic policy making is dramatic. And what has emerged instead is a focus on production, of focus on labor rather than consumers, a focus on the link between economics and national security, which seems to have been irreversibly hardened into N.

U. Consents in U. S. And in this respect, at this level, not at the level of the U. S. Economy per, say. Or necessarily even at the level of, you know the hard knows grey business of making policy bit, this level of discourse, of framing, of the cultural mores, of the policy blob, there really has been quite a significant shift.

And it's most notably the democratic party side, which was so uptight about economic policies pretty hard to believe in retrospect just how you know M I T. Harvard economic seminar style policy was. And we're really well be beyond that.

It's difficult to imagine those times coming back, to be honest. Those who knows in the Harris is coalition how that the cards will be reshuffled by and was usual picker of people in that respect. That's that of a lot, which I would see there is a real break.

interesting. okay. I mean, how about from the republican side? I mean, if in a lot of ways in the platform of the m trump campaign seems just like a lot of more of the same in some ways, they on what you're describing the U. S.

Economy as and you know bigger tax cuts, more spending, presumably a bigger debt as a result, spending precisely focused on on military investment and and again, tax cuts, especially across the board, but especially for the rich. You know that seems like a sort of quantitative shift. But I wonder, you know there are incoherences in that platform, and I wonder if there's a point at which the kind of quantitative tive shift becomes a quality of shift.

I mean, is there point at which know the incoherences are no longer sustainable? I mean, is this how incoherences change? I mean, when they're kind of pushed past at a particular breaking point? Is that what might be at stake here?

But I think there is a distinct difference between the two in that the class coalition and the interest that will be represented in the two administrations say we have a trump presidency. Number two, IT will simply be stacked by a bunch of gang hoo match o self confident business people.

I think that's the promise anyway and they're going to go do the radical, you know spending, cutting things because they imagine themselves masters of the universe and they are going to try and do that kind of thing. That's the promise and the boss will set the tone. And now IT, seems you on musk is going to be a major insider in the administration, which will certainly change things and IT will be that kind of style.

And in terms of the distributional bargain for american society, one should expect that to make a cause significant difference. I mean, after all, in the end, under the by administration IT, in part through good luck, in part through macro policy, but also through the consistent bias of the administration bias. I mean this in the positive sense.

They leaned into social equality very deliberately. It's shown IT has made a real difference. AmErica became more equal under the by administration quite dramatically, quite fast.

And though the trump people talk as though they are, you know, an inclusive blue collar coalition, no one I would need some serious convincing that are all of that is anything other than just hot air, to be honest. Somebody like Robert light higher er, I think actually seriously concerned about the condition of the american industry work in class. And you would expect him as a trade negotiated to driving an important part of policy.

But in the rest of the administration, I think you would expect a fairly hard nose probe, business deregulation, tax cutting agenda, which will have the reverse effect of distorting the income and wealth distribution massively towards Better of americans. So at that level, I think we're going to see if trump comes in quite a dramatic break back in the direction that he took amErica and the the republicans took amErica between, well, at least between seventeen and eighteen, right? Everything depends on congress.

In the end, what they can actually get done depends on how the congressional majorities break. But a clean republican sweep, I think, is a disaster for the bottom half of the american income and wealth distribution. I don't think there is any doubt about that disaster in the sense that they may be made worse off.

But certainly, what would we do that the prime principal majority of benefits will be distributed to the fox of the top of the income distribution. Because though it's true that I just saw some fascinating data this morning, though it's true that the republicans are currently polling well ahead of the democrats amongst americans without college education, which you might take covers a prime of facial indication of their status as working class. The crucial thing you had need to add to that is how that breaks depends on income. So that one of the group's most prone to vokins further, republicans are people without college education and higher incomes, where those folks without college education with low incomes, truly classic blue color americans, still tend to leading towards the democrats. So the fact of this will be, you know, if interface, this has a popular base, is that kind of coalition of, you know, present for folks with no college education who resent the liberal elite and wanted to regulatory and low tax agenda to match.

I mean, in some ways that sounds like what republican administrations that will have always offered, right? I mean, I mean, that was the case in the first trump administration, but also bush and administration, the regan administration.

before that, if you under regan, under reagan, still you had college educated americans were more likely very republican under reagan.

Really interesting. The policy offer was not clear.

Not that a similar yeah I mean.

unless unless one takes, i'd face value some of the more radical ideas coursing around in in the trump at four. I mean, sometimes he talks about eliminating the income tax entirely. That would obviously seem to be uh, uh, a bigger break, demanding bigger changes.

But sometimes that sort of obscured in the way he talks about economic policy, as we can make a bunch of changes in, most people won't notice. But but maybe to get to the part of the platform that he likes to emphasize the most, namely tariff s, which he always says, as his favorite, were he talks about in a potential administration, massive and comprehensive troops across the board. And i'm curious if we take that seriously, a pace value.

He does say this is something he could do unitarity without congressional involvement. What could come from a widespread increase in terms of the sort he's talking about? Could this lead to a real breakdown of the trading system, as we know, if you know, kind of legitimate trade war across the board that we have seen recently? I mean, what would that even even look like?

I I think the first thing to say is it's a real impression, danger to the standard of living of the lowest income americans, right, who are most vulnerable to indirect taxes for whom consumption is a large of share of income at an incredibly regressive move.

This entire discussion of replacing america's limited but highly progressive income tax system with indirect tax is just another word for saying, I want to increase in inequality because that's what that shift would do. So god d knows how folks cope. The Price of everything would go up because, or anything, everything imported anyway.

I mean, the short run, there would be no supply adjustment because, you know, the american economy doesn't have a huge amount of slack. You would expect, therefore, surges to happen given the post truth nature, the republican ty, right now, of course, they would deny that this was actually inflation, but they would insist, I presumably, that Prices are rather not going up or that in fact, they were going up. But he was to do with gusty foreigners who were Price gouging or ethnic minority bodegas or something they would find escape goats to label tag this on and the certainly then would be a full out globally.

Um the europeans have already made clear they did during the first truck ministration that the the U S. Comes with W T O. violating. They will retaliate and they will try and litigate. And when I was in mexico city over the summer, I heard very tough talk from them about the way in which they would respond. And of course, this will be ruined as for the mexican economy, but they're certainly not just going to accept a una american ruptures of trade relations.

IT is, after all, the most important trade relationship for both of the mexico s in a vne able position, but mexico s either the number one or number two trading partner, the united states. So this is crucial if light higher is running the show. He's tough, but he's not a manian xi would expect them to respond rationally, but who knows on the chinese side if they really go as hard as they're promising? I don't know where the beijing sits tight and just lets that happen.

And in which case, you would expect a variety of difference sanctions from the chinese side, either against american imports or or I would be more worried about the position of apple and tesler. And so then because they're the big f di from direct investment of from the american side, and those are both very prominent company and at least one of them is very well connected in the trump circle. So there could be some there could be some push back there from within the trump administration.

What shouldn't underestimate, in other words, how dramatic this would be if they really goes hard as they're talking and IT would produce waves, what effect IT would actually have on U. S. Overall macroeconomic baLance is really hard to tell because in the end, if you slap a tariff on an economy that has a huge government deficit, pumping excess demand into the economy, you know it's not certain that IT will necessary dramatically reduce the trade deficit because that in the end is determined by the overall like a good demand in baLance.

And that has to be absorb bed somewhere. I mean, I could be through domestic pricing reasons in the U. S.

But IT will also do a considerable extent, tends to the bigger deficit, the more you would expect the trade deficit to expand. Just you know, all things are being equal. So it's a thirdly, inconsistent policy package.

IT could very well also drive the value of the dollar up, which could cause corruption in the administration, which is determined to believe that the dollar is manipulated in the way to the advantage. Savannah america, I mean, it's really, this is firing the cubes into the pack of balls will have to see, know what what comes next. This too.

This would really mark a break him, even if amErica really did go to her. So far, it's inched up within the, you know long run, the historical tera reduction for all of the talk and all of the drama of the first trump administration. IT doesn't yet show up as a truly dream tic shift in america's tariff position, but if they head down the out they're talking about, you know this would be a reversal of trends that have prevailed since the one thousand nine thirties and one thousand nine forties.

yes. So to conclude, I guess in this conversion, maybe we could return to to where we we started in some ways. and.

You know, in some ways we have we've talked about the ways that the essence of the U. S. Economy hasn't changed in recent years, and also, in some ways, doesn't promise to change.

But what would IT mean then for the for the U. S. Economy to be entering a new era. I mean, and how would we we know if IT is?

I mean, what would an essential change consist of that would qualify them really as a as as a quality ative shift in the U. S. economy?

I mean, would be involved to directly addressing the role of the dollar in the global economy or its value in the ways that sometimes trump s talks about. I mean, is that the kind of shift that really would make the the most consequently U S. Election in economic terms in in recent history, IT would.

But it's really difficult to see how the trust administration by itself would do that and whether would really like IT, if I did IT like mean to death in the dollar as the reserve currency would take some up routing because IT isn't amErica that decides to make IT the global serve currency, is everyone else that the sides do. So you'd have to do something so dramatic as to cause everyone else to go looking for something Better than the dollar.

So you would have to really trash economic policy in the U. S. For folks to say, right, i'd rather do euros you, let alone when man be or dot your goal .

so you what I D like like crazy. I think .

you'd have to really kind of exact more for. But I mean, it's not. And right now, amErica is in a sense, already doing all of the stuff that caused the panic in the U.

K. And it's not causing a panic. So I mean, they could go down a kind of you know Michael Peters line of imposing capital account controls or sub sort of tax on the inflow of capital or something like that.

But mean, even that people would probably look at IT into what at the margin is probably worth paying the premium to hold dollar assets because in the end, the dollar assets worth hold. Now IT is really strike by your question, what does mark in epoch? And sure, we would probably say like a financial crisis, like two thousand and eight, mark and e poc IT certainly change the structure of U.

S. finance. IT changed the baLance sheet of the feed. We clearly not wishing for anything like that. I think you could say the tech phase, the dot com, internet, bone, social media, in the sense we are still in the continuation of that like A I.

So I think as I said at the beginning, I think that certainly a major element of U. S. Economic history that's playing out.

I mean, then you'd have to go back to the one thousand nine hundred and seventies and say, well, the oil Price shock of seventy three and then seventy nine and then walks interest rates. Are we expecting anything like that on the horizon? Not really.

So I end up coming you back. I mean, really, really puzzled by myself because it's not my inclined. But if I look at the big variables that define the position of the U. S. Economy today, despite the fact that I am as you you know, everyone who listens to the show will know and like a habitat, or review, the blackmail of worrying about debt and deficits.

But if you actually simply have to define what was radically unusual about the history of america's economic economic policy now, as compared to the entire history of the republic to date, you'd have to say that was the curve of debt to GDP. Now i'm not saying the sky will fall in the world. Well, that's not my point is just that we've never navigated a zone in which, you know, dt, increase as much as I did in two thousand and eight, and then IT stabilised ed a little bit as a share of GDP and then IT shot up again in twenty twenty.

And then instead of stabilizing or coming down and we're talking of levels of debt to GDP, which are comparable to the big wars of the past, in fact, is just steady going up at the rate of five, six, seven percent parana under conditions of full employment. And what's upon a time you would have said, well, this is the japan's scenario. This is the twenty tens and no secular stagnation, and we're just doing a japan.

But of course, secular stagnation is not really the story about the U. S. Economy right now.

So we're doing this despite the fact that the economy is actually growing quite, quite, quite quickly. So in a sense, you could say we are finally taking advantage of exorcists village. And just saying, shocks. We just really don't think any rules apply to us. We can do whatever we down well like.

And so to that extended that kind of experiment, I think it's a unique you know if you are asked to specify what's different about the twenty, twenty four years unless there is some sudden compulsive congressional agreement on the try and bring the budget deficit down, which I I not recommending necessarily, I think that's probably gna be the thing that picked out. And I say this, as I say, is like a vince left candian. Nothing in the economy right now that causes me to panic. But I do note that this deficit and the state is increasing in the way and never has before is interesting.

I mean, first of all, because the shifts in e poc that you're pointing to in the past, they were precisely not about elections. I mean, and they were changes that happened precisely. There were changes that no one's coming, right. I mean, they were shocks in some ways that people didn't anticipate.

Do I think this isn't about an election either though? I mean, this is something more about I cross party .

consents yeah I suggs I mean to say that support your point and IT sounds like you're saying you don't know how this story of of the the special role of the dollar and america's resulting you know distorted the economy. I don't know how that story comes to an end, but he has to come to an end somehow.

Every story, no, no, no, no, no, no, that, 而且 i told by the， well, this isn't a story. This is social economic reality. The story is the thing we put on top of IT.

Like the service economic reality will unfold. We just don't know in what direction is unfoaled next. That ends bit is the one which gives rise then to the sort of, well, at some point the sky is gna fool.

And look, the treasury market is saturated and that's what's going to bring IT down. We should resist that impulse. We just don't we haven't navigated this kind of space before.

We just genuinely happened. No one I love. I love that the direction you are going out like I I just don't think we know.

And to that extent, IT really is a new report. If that's presumably the sign of being in a new report, right, is that you don't you don't really understand what he is. It's not it's not really a new e pok when you fully understand the rules. It's an e book, but not new. Where is this does feel a little new.

I see. okay. So it's not the it's not the looming end of this that's people are .

going to put on this all the time. Weird new chapter really wear new chapter. Well.

that's one way to think about this. Um the election will happen on tuesday, but in the background, this economy is ticking along regardless in ways that we don't entirely understand. So yeah, we will be back next week, certainly talking about the election. But first we going to take a break here and come back to talk .

about north .

korea's military.

I'm coorse ble. And not how we survive. We've ebel ded on the front lines of a fight between the U.

S. Military and climate change. But that finds is not happening on traditional battle fids. Instead, it's a places like the edge of the article tion. Oh my god.

With a little on .

changing to rain and sevel rises, storms like that will will do more and more damage. And instead of the our military facilities where I became a laren.

we're going to drop out from one hundred and ten degrees fair high down the thirty four eight.

Discover how the U. S. Military might shape our climate future. Listen to how we survive wherever you get your podcasts.

Are we witnessing the twilight of american global dominance in the end of the american empire? Patrick wants, examines the shifting global landscape and asks, is amErica following in the footsteps of fAllen empires through a deep dive into historical precedence? This book uncovers what the U.

S. Can learn from past great powers to avoid repeating their mistakes. This book is not just a wake up call, is an opportunity to chart a new path for a Better, fair and more peaceful world.

Grab your copy on amazon today or had the W W W dot Patrick wants books dot com to find out more. Hi, welcome back. Our next data point is ten thousand, as in ten thousand troops, that is the number of troops that north korea has now sent to fight in the ongoing war between russia and ukraine.

IT is the first involvement, direct involvement, of another nation's military and its troops. Big turning point. And we thought we talk about, yeah what sort of light exactly the shed's on north korea.

So adam, to start off with how how big is the north korean military? I mean, how is IT structured? What military is a comparable with? I mean, how shall we be thinking about its its involvement here .

behind north korean military special? And really it's maybe the last of its kind of I thought it's the military of of a highly and battled isolated assist military states. So we think one point three, six million active military personnel and a reserve of five hundred and sixty thousand those numbers compared to to the active service roster of the united states military for a country of a population of twenty six million.

So it's less than one tenth of the size and has roughly the same number of men and women in uniform as the U. S. That's just for starters. We think its budget is four billion dollars, which are staging ly is, we think, a quarter of north korean GDP. I mean, that all of these sort of things have to be taken with a grain of salt.

But we are talking very, very unusual level of militarization bail accounts, large parts than north korean army spend most of their time in desperate efforts to bring in the harvest to ensure that mahadei subjectis are met. All north korean men are drafted into the military beginning at the age of seventeen. They are eight to ten years.

So it's one of those societies. Maybe it's not quite a trail, which I think maybe has an even more conscription system that this is this is a massive level of of incorporation. Basically, almost all men in north korean society have spent a large part of their at all life in the military.

But there's also really telling numbers. I mean, the, you know what? Any army which is relying on conscripts has to set minimum size and heighten weight limits to admit soldiers to the army.

And for, you know, it's so its economic. Historians use this as one of our gages for trying to assess exactly how malnourished ed populations were in the nineteen sixth century. We have pretty good records for conscription or press gangs, you know, creese on naval ships in the eighteen centuries, one of the ways we find out how well people are doing.

And in north korea, the numbers are staggering. The minimum height requirement for a conscript, the north korean army, is four, four, ten, one hundred and forty eight centimeters, and the minimum weight is ninety five pounds or forty three kilos, right? So we are talking about a society exhibiting very serious issues of nutrition to be applying those kind of criteria.

Now let's be absolutely to clear. American soldiers, great, big be fed dude, have been defeated repeatedly by very small asian people, right? So these can be very, very tough soldiers.

But this is just an indication of quite water, shoestring. North korea Operates this large military on, we think they are A A Y heavy soviet style army. I mean, that's the main influence on this fighting machine, is the communist st. Military tradition. So they're very, very heavy on utility, which of course, in ukraine is proved to be quite valuable.

But broadly speaking, was know the idea because sole capital of south korea, so close to the border that basically they're are going to line up an artery park of thousands and thousands barrels and rain down conventional telfy y and that's before they got going on this site program and then could and calculated they had enough falteringly barrels to kill ten thousand people on in south korean an hour just through one single. So they have serious, serious conventional military capacity. Of course, everyone has their favorite theories about how rubies h all of this is, but large quantities clearly have been supplied to the russians.

Most of IT is originally of either soviet or chinese design. So in principle, these are weapons that work. And I don't think there's any doubt that there is a rough and ready and obviously very highly motivated and incentives military force there that could do some pretty serious damage uh in the right setting and they be been ventures right for a while.

They were sending commando raids into south korea quite regularly. They haven't been afraid to clash at, see. So it's it's it's northern army that's actually been battle tested on any significant extent for a very long time. But its a very large force yeah when you .

mention those height and weight requirements, by the way, that's not far up from my eight year old sun.

It's very slight people and again, it's really important. Emphasize history tells us IT IT is an overall size and weight that makes you a high, highly grade fighter. But IT does tell you something about the poverty of the society that these people are coming out of.

So I wanted ask about the logistics involved in this north korean involvement in ukraine. I mean, obviously, you don't need to look at a map very long to realize north amErica is not exactly on the borders of this fight in ukraine. It's all the way on the other side, on the pacific, on the other side of russia. So yeah, what's involved in getting them to this battle in the first place? And yeah, what does that look like Operationally?

Well, I mean, you look really closely at that said map. You'll see that there is in fact a landward between north korea and russia. It's ten mile's wide. It's a russian tenez border. And IT reflects the fact that this is zone, after all, you go back one hundred years.

Hundred and twenty years was one of the most active zones of imperialist competition, with japan and russia fighting a savaged war in nineteen five for control of career as a principle, mode of access, or eight to material, and the unsettle territory of northeast in china, and then ultimately as a gateway to beijing. So, you know, this is a zone of geopolitical interest, and has been for the modern period for least a century. There's a river that devised the two, the two man river, and there is inevitably a bridge across this, inevitably called the friendship bridge.

And across the friendship bridge there is a railway line. And that's no doubt how in the first instance, the troops will be moved, will have been moved for all of the heavy equipment which we know that north korea has been supplying to russia. Its moving in containers.

We think they're shift about thirty thousands containers, presumably originally supplied by china, russia, who knows, just out of the general collective pool of containers. And they filled with political missiles, antitch rockets are tilly rounds, the whole works from the north korean arsenal, for which then the russians have been showing you considerable appreciation. So I think that's how they get there.

And then from there it's either plane or or the transit in railway. I mean, there is this extraordinary story from world for one right of of this group of check legends who are prisoners of war. And the in the russian prisoner war campaign world were one, have taken prisoner.

They are habsburg troops that deserted and enjoy and surrendered, and then were mobilized by the russian revolution to fight on the revolutionary side against the germans. And then when the bullet vics took over, where they started fighting the bullet vics, and then they fall their away from ukrainy, literally from ukraine, two vlad of all stock, down the same line. The koreans will go down.

And then we're evacuated by the allies to california, and then they do a way across california and then across the atlantic and returned home to prague and try. And when they went all the way around the world, that way around, so like, you know, you can do this. And the koreans will make their way to ukraine the other way around on that famous land route.

There's a now there's a railway connection that runs essentially along these lines to to jourdan's from from this corner of western china and you know northeast asia. So yeah, that's how that I get there. Yeah.

no, I don't think these days is possible to book a ticket from from burn to cut. Yeah, I think not so long ago, IT IT is finally to in this convention. In thinking about this north korean involvement, IT struck me that there must just be some massive battle field chAllenges involved.

you. This is a ten thousand troops now, who is going to be fighting in in terrain and climate that's very different from anything theyve encountered before working together with a russian military that they've probably, you know, never CoOperate within a battlefield before. I mean, how I should we think about the kind of battle field chAllenges that the north koreans are going to be facing here? Yeah.

when I started thinking about this, my stomach turn, to be honest, it's a henders proposition. They presumable don't be fluent in russian, and they haven't been involving active combat. And we know that this is a meat grinder of a war, and we know that it's being voted and intensity and with a range of technologies which entirely novel.

I mean, you would be concerned about putting nature combat brigades into this battle field at this point, because they just wouldn't be up to speed with the extent to which in the speed with which drone driven artillery fire and suicide drone and so on strike in this zone, you simply can't move. I can't be seen without being killed. And so putting a group of troops at a relatively low technological level with no means of effective communication into this battle field, I mean, it's just a recipe for getting a lot of very brave men killed very, very, very quickly, for no, for no good purpose.

I think IT seemed like a night total nightmare. So I think you could read IT as a cynical symbolist. On the one hand, the north koreans are just sending some people to slaughter for the sake of gaining ground.

I have to say, in this spirit and this season, because of any sympathy for the north korean or the russian cause, but just because you. You know, you can't help but appreciate the nightmare. It's something of a relief to discover from the pentagon brief ing that they are not going straight the front right.

Despite all of the news about this, they're actually going to the russia's far eastern and federal district to engage in intensive training with their russian counterparts. So they know they all headed immediately to ukraine because even the russians must understand that that would just be an embarrassing waste of, you know, value. But I mean, these are supposed to be the crack groups of the north korean army.

There are some sort of shock unit, presumably originally designed for the invasion of south korea, and they would suffered just, you know, near one hundred percent casualties, were not expecting the current battle fuel conditions without adequate emotion and training. And presumably the idea if IT is done through adequate training would be the same thing that western army's would no doubt love to have the chance to do, which actually is to engage in this combat terrain and learn what the ukrainians and the russians have learned, because no other military in the world at this point know what this kind of modern battle field looks like. I mean, literally no one else has any experience.

And experience is the key to this, mean, you need to be on the ground learning by doing. And yeah, that, I mean, from that point of view, that's what the career day is. Then this should be extremely worrying because that's what they're going to do.

And they will synthesize and learn the lessons and then come up with appropriate low tech, cheap technological solutions. They will then know you imagine deploying, no doubt, against south korea, but if they are not sent without adequate preparation, you would just simply say their prospects were incredibly grim. This number of guys can get killed very, very quickly in that wall to virtually no effect.

If you watch the, you know, people will no doubt seen. If you haven't is really worth checking out, go online and watch one of the youtube videos of a ukrainian drone Operator doing his daily job. It's mindful ing they turn up literally with several pilots with the suicide joins and spend all day just hunting russians with the drones. And if you are, you know, not equipped and not prepare for that battle field, you just gonna killed very.

very quickly. yeah. I mean, you have me wondering whether they're precisely lack of familiarity of the north korean troops from the ukrainian perspective will itself be confusing, like almost of there are techniques that the north korea s may be using that are themselves .

so super blue. But I mean, the basics of this are really clear. Do they expose themselves? How fast do they move? And then that's IT really. I mean, because it's all about, you know, how you control your visibility because whatever the ukrainians .

can see can pretty much kill. But I imagine human wave technical with that.

though they had a lot of experience with precisely that kind of assault. And it's conceivable, I guess, that the koreans would have some sort of absolutely iron disciplining, know what, doesn't want to engage an ethnic rea typing. But i'm in american troops, encountering chinese and korean forces in the in the korean war is a terrifying impression of us.

Wave s soldiers. That just wouldn't be stopped. But ten thousands is presumed mably.

Not going to change the baLance here. Well, we shall see just as we shall see what the outcome of the election is. Um we will be back next week trying to weigh in if we know the results of that left a persons, we won't know the result of this north korea north korean involvement.

But yeah, do join us again next week and don't forget to let us know what exactly you'd like from a membership of the podcast. Check out that survey indie showed te. Ones and tools is written and edited by me.

Cameron, a body along with adam tooth is produced by cauda tty, lower rosberg team, rob sex and down f. This show is made possible through the support of foreign policy readers. If you're interested in news and analysis from around the world, consider subscribing listeners to ones and who's even get a fifty and percent discount.

Just go to foreign policy that com slash subscribe and use the promo code tools and check out that's T O O Z E and listeners. As always, we love getting your feedback. You can leave voice messages on the ones and to the home page on foreign icy dot com or email us podcast of foreign policy dot com, or you can tweet us that at once and tools part. Thanks very much for your listening and will be back in .

your feet next week.