Can everyone hear me . Id like to go ahead and get started. Good morning and thank you all for coming. My name is george bebe, im the vicepresident and director of studies here at the center of the National Interest. I want to welcome you and thank you all for coming to this Conference Today on north korea. As we think about what might be coming down the road on the Korean Peninsula and the broader region, its very easy, i think, to succumb to the temptation to be pessimistic. In fact, as we sit here in washington today, it seems like theres all kinds of reasons to be pessimistic. We seem to be facing on the home front a variety of challenges. Were in the midst of a wrenching president ial impeachment process. The broader country seems to have some deep cleavages societally. We have a big problem with mutual distrust in the country. When we look abroad, internationally, the headlines were reading this morning suggest we might be on the brink of a very dangerous war with iran. We last week read about the development of Hypersonic Weapons in russia and coupled with the demise of arms control and the return of great power competition, it looks like the world is getting ever more dangerous. Even American Relations with some of our longstanding allies seem to be strained to the breaking point. And i need hardly tell you all, experts on korea, that the news out of the peninsula is hardly encouraging these days. But if theres one lesson that i think we can take from the past several decades, its that wise leaders and creative experts can manage and reduce the dangers that were facing internationally. Here in the United States we overcame the domestic vitriol and violence that we faced in the 1960s during the vietnam era. We managed to avoid catastrophe with the soviet union and end the cold war peacefully. We helped germany to pivot from being a potential Nuclear Battle ground into a united regional leader. We transformed our relations with vietnam, fundamentally. None of these problems at the time seemed any less daunting than the challenges we seem to face today in the world. So even though its tempting to stand aghast at the dangers that were facing, to marvel at the problems that confront us, we need to remind ourselves that its not our job to contemplate the problem just for the sake of being scared. Our challenge as experts is to think creatively about these problems and understand about the opportunities that are hidden amidst of the dangers that appear so obvious and to use other expertise, our understanding of these problems to identify and take advantage of opportunities that are there, even if theyre not evident on the surface. So i look forward to hearing your ideas today about these challenges. I want to thank harry, our senior director, for korean studies, for putting together such an impressive agenda today for discussion, and for gathering such an Impressive Group of experts today. I look forward to hearing your ideas and i want to introduce harry, who will talk more about the specifics of todays events. Harry, thank you. Good morning, everyone. [applause] thank you all for coming. Welcome back to d. C. If youre just coming back. I know everybody, this is the type of year where everybody takes extended break and come back and we have congress in session today so thank you for spending your morning and maybe your afternoon with us. Im going to keep my comments very brief. Im just getting over bronchitis. I promise im not contagious, but i do after speaking for about five minutes i lose my voice and i want to give these guys a great panel and moderate that. Im going to keep it very brief and very short. So welcome to all of you, welcome to all of those watching us now on cspan2 for our event, north korea in 2020, fiery and fury or path towards peace. Very important, this is response sorted by the Korea Foundation thanks to a generous grant by them and wish to thank them for their support and efforts in this area and somebody very great would work with and we appreciate that partnership. What we want to do today, i think, is very straight forward. Over the course of, i think, three different panels, a lot of different speakers, different perspectives, different ideas to get a sense where things are going to go with north korea in 2020. Its an open question where this is going to go. The International Arena moves forward with events outside of the Korean Peninsula, george indicated we have questions in the death of general soleimani. Those are factors that are going to be an issue with the peninsula. Talking about where things stand on the peninsula right now and i think that we can move forward into dr. Moons keynote address. At the moment we have a north korea that continues to build material, may have enough material from 35 to 36 nuclear warheads, and thats up for dispute. And we dont have a clear understanding where the Trump Administration wants to go in the next couple of weeks and months, as many of you obviously know, were under a situation where the president has been impeached of the theres going to be a trial in the senate. Its very hard to understand where trumps Foreign Policy is going to go because of this. Will it stay stagnant for the next month or two months . Tough to say. On the other hand we have to factor what will kim jongun do . Will he for the next six, eight, nine months hold back on missile testing, Nuclear Testing and try to gauge will trump be reelected . I dont know, these we have to factor in and other events in south korea, elections coming up. Does this limit president moons ability to try and engage more with north korea, does he pivot to more domestic issues with the south korean economy looking to grow more in the coming year. I think these are all open questions. With that let me just get to sort of the procedural things that are going to happen today. All of you are pretty much think tank experts and im going to lay these things out. Obviously with the amount of cameras in the room today we are on the record. Keep that in mind. As you can see by the conference itinerary, dr. Moon is going to open up everything and im going to introduce him in a second and we are going into our panels. We have three panelists and each panelist, starting off with jessica and lee, and a few minutes and then the classic q a. One thing i ask during live q a. While we may know each other, for cspan, your outlet, news outlet or whatever. We will have coffee breaks, a one hour lunch break and then move into the afternoon session. With that im going to introduce dr. Moon. Le of you know him and know him quite well. Over the last year, 18 months ive gotten a chance to know him quite well and great to call him my friend. And hes one of the architects of the sunshine policy and progressive and now in the golf of moon jaein, and hes a special advisor to moon jaein and hes speaking under his personal capacity or other capacity, im sure hell clarify that. Its great to have you here, dr. Moon, and we look forward to your remarks. Thank you. [applaus [applause] thank you, harry. I speak for the for myself, not for the government. Let me clarify on that one, too. And harry, you made the topic of my talk as president moon jaeins Peace Initiative and challenges and opportunities and try to sum up his policy and challenges his government is facing in less than 20 minutes, okay, and then maybe we can have open discussions. President moon was inaugurated on may 9th, 2017 first year, 2017 was nightmarish year. It was worst for him, but in 2018 he opened a new horizon of peace by holding three summit talks with chairman kim jongun and then 2019, hanoi, u. S. Talk. Now hes facing major stalemate, therefore its ups and downs. If you look at the korean history, it was a history of lower coast. One year good, the other bad, and were having constant living under the uncertainty. But in going through the ups and downs, president moon jaein made it very clear, his goal to make Nuclear Weapons peaceful and Prosecutor Press Korean Peninsula. The first principle is no war under korean no war at any cost. The peace has been the fundamental base of his property line. Its obvious because hes a refugee from north korea during the north korean war therefore, he himself witnessed the tragedy of war. He wanted to avoid war for whatever means. Second, no nukes. He wanted nuclear weaponfree Korean Peninsula. Nuclear energy, but protests, transfer, testing of Nuclear Weapons. He speak to 1991 joint declaration under denuclearization of Korean Peninsula. We have been abiding by that declarati declaration, north korea has not been abiding by that declaration, therefore, no nuke is his second principle. Third principle is that the no regime change in north korea. And he wanted to be constant with north korea. He wanted to have new ways of communicating with north korea. Therefore, i will say that no regime change. He made it very clear, that point when he give a speech at when the institute in berlin on july 6th, 2017. He still abides by that principle. Finally, he wanted to come in prosperity under Korean Peninsula. He believes that the future of south korean economy depends on the north korean economy. North korea depends on south korea, too. And he laid out four strategies, first is peacekeeping. Here peacekeeping means surpassing through military deterrents and strengthening. This idea of peacekeeping really arose out of the crisis in 2017. And there was a past dependence, the conservative government, but he strongly believed that one way of preventing war is having Strong Defense capability. And he believes in the utility of alliance with the United States. Second strategy is called the peace making strategy. He wanted to reduce tension with north korea. He wanted to build cons stance with north korea and end of war and end of korean war declaration and he wanted to transform armistice agreement into a Peace Agreement or treaty and he wanted to sustain viable peace regime into Korean Peninsula. In fact, that has been one of the most important strategies of the moon jaein government. Third, hes interested in peace building. Peace building refers to the elimination of structural war under Korean Peninsula. He strongly believes that the peace economy can lead to Peace Agreement. And lead to cooperation, okay, if they agree to come up with some kind of arrangement through which people and services can move freely across dmz, and if north and south korea can pursue common prosperity, president strongly believes that there wont be any war under Korean Peninsula. In a sense, its like an a Permanent Peace theory, particularly article one of the Permanent Peace theory, and trading states not fighting each other. And finally, he emphasized pro activity diplomacy. Career has been sandwiched between china and the u. S. , between dprk and the United States. He wants to pursue more proactive diplomacy. We want to be a mediator, facilitator, arbitrator or pacesetter of the Korean Peninsula destiny. Therefore, he doesnt want to be a passive to changing the changing environment. Okay. He did, he did it in 2018 when there was a complete pass between United States and pyong yang. And he was a mediator between washington and pyong yang. And this is the Peace Initiative. And what are the challenges and opportunities . You clearly saw and witnessed the new horizon peace, particularly on april 27th last year. I was there and i saw the great possibility of peace in the Korean Peninsula. North and south korea adopted military agreement on september 19th in pyong yang. There was article one of a pyong yang. Last year chairman kim jongun showed up on west coast and ordered test exercise of missiles. There was perhaps the only violation of the military agreement adopted in 2019 2018. And in a sense there has been progress, but overall, the government is facing several dilemmas and challenges. First is the dilemma of peacekeeping. As a way of enhanced peacekeeping capability, he was strengthening the capability and then our government has be been from the United States, we have secured the global hope, unmanned drone surveillance and device and we have been strengthening and well be spending almost 50 trillion. Slightly larger than the defense spending of japan in this year. North korea is very angry about it. North korea position is we agreed to build confidence and north korea saying that south korea not seek military buildup. But because of what happened in 2017 and also the decisions made by the previous government, he had to follow in this defense capability strengthening in the line. Therefore, the idea of peacekeeping is extremely selfdefensive, but north korea does not put in the way. North korea thinks its offensive which is where with the United States. Therefore peacekeeping has been sort of back firing, okay . Peace making, president moon proposed the approach, the nuclearization and peace making, but were not making any progress in denuclearization. The peacemakes has become stalled. Okay. Of course, were maintaining september 2019 military agreement to some extent, however, we are not able to adopt end of war declaration. They have no discussion about the transformation of agreement into some sort of peace treaty among major stakeholders, okay . We talked about peace regime, but we havent really touched peace regime. There fore, peace making an undergoing major difficulty. Peace building, in order to have peace building, weve got to have the peace economy working, in order to make the peace economy working, then theyve got to become with north korea, but International Sanctions prevent south korea from engaging with north korea. For example, president moon strongly desire to have connection, reconnected between the north and south and even had in a groundbreaking ceremony in january last year, but Nothing Happened afterwards. Okay. And he wanted to reopen complex and a project, again, because International Sanction regime, he couldnt do anything. North korea argued that south korea hasnt delivered anything to north korea. Therefore, hes having a hard time in pushing for the idea of peace building through peace economy. Diplomacy, in fact, contrary to what conservatives in south have been criticizing, we have been betting on the United States 100 . Since november of 2018, we have 100 coordinating with the United States. We have shown 100 transparency to the u. S. With regard to interkorean economy and cooperation. As a result of that, interkorean relations have become completely and now we have a dilemma what should we do if the United States cannot make a breakthrough in its talk with north korea . I do not know what action the president will take, but sentiment in south south korea, if the United States fails to come up with a settlement with north korea, then supporters are raising voice, south korea should take independent action, okay . I will say that we are now going through very critical period, okay . South korea is a democracy and moon jaein needs from his supporters. If he cannot deliver to his supporters then he faces a dilemma. And right now but even that hell be giving a speech, i think today or today, washington time, and i will is a that he will emphasize we will continue to rely on the United States in solving north Korea Nuclear problem, but i dont know to what extent he can really go along that line. In conclusion, i will say that his Korean Peninsula Peace Initiative has been bold, ambitious and timing, hes encountering almost challenges, hes facing numerous i am impediments. Can he overcome that . I do not know. What extent he can communicate with the United States and come up with a common strategy to solve the problem, okay . But i really hope that north korea will come back to the negotiation table. Having heard north korea grievances sufficiently and now its time for north korea to come back to the negotiation table and try to find some kind of a negotiated settlement. The United States needs to be more flexible and realistic, okay. You cannot really pursue the strategy of denuclearize first and well reward you. That wont work, okay . Thats why north korea has responded by saying that you permanently, okay, and irreversibly on the policy and then come back to the negotiation table. But an actual oppression approach to north korea. We might consider adopting Nuclear Arms Control, therefore, need to think about signing a peace treaty with north korea. U. S. Forces reduction in return for north koreas denuclearization. And also push for cooperative destruction fund, american fud or International Fund so that we can send a very clear signal to north korea that we are really seriously interested in denuclearization of north korea with set of incentives and also we have to think about snap back sanction relief. Also if we propose some kind of working group with north korea and snap back relief, maybe they can change north koreas behavior. What of course you may not agree with ben jacksons idea, but we must have to think about it. And also we got to think about china, russia, you know, sanction relief, resolution proposal. Of course it is very onesided, the resolution proposal talk about what kind of incentive we give north korea. It didnt talk about in return what kinds of north korea should take towards the denuclearization. It is flawed. However, the u. S. , United Kingdom and france can come with more creative idea and amend the proposal in such a way to open up new breakthrough to the stalemate. But we have a lot of things to think about, but what i want to emphasize is let us not be true rigid. Let us be flexible. But as not be driven by an mercia. Let us come up with some kind of Creative Ideas going beyond a distant past dependency. Thank you. [applause] thank you, doctor moon. I think its best now will move right into our panel discussion. I think first go to my left with doug, a featured columnist in our National Interest magazine. But if you know the center for the National Interest publishes the National Interest which is actually Largest International affairs publication website on the world. We get 25 25 main page views pr month. Actually are red. Interesting fact in north griffin time to time. Something to consider. So doug, just a quick introduction conducted many of you dont pick is a senior fellow at the cato institute. Interesting fact, hes been to north korea not once but twice. I suspect when harry and the center planned this they thought they had a hold of the hottest topic in washington. [laughing] that was the case to at least thursday afternoon, but at the moment as for some of our policymakers have other things on their mind. Nevertheless, korea is extremely important. Indeed, if one thinks about the potential dangers i think north korea is far more dangerous that i ran for lots of reasons. So its an issue we really do need to take on. There are a lot of what is as looking to 2020, what would would happen. One can imagine things going badly. One can imagine the north in quite ambitious and angry. One can imagine that present reactive or badly towards that and moving back towards fire in fury. And the middle of a a presidenl campaign, criticism from democrats, republicans, et cetera, they could become quite interesting and quite messy. But i think the challenge for us then is how to move forward, that you look at this and you think, you know, what is the impact of iran . This is one question, its very hard to know what that is but its added another level of complexity to the issue. One could imagine the president decides he has one crisis to many antes more willing to make a deal. For the president might decide its even more important to show that he is tough and establish credibility, which would make them less so, willing to do so. Does kim jongun view this as a moment to make it to because he perceives that trump is weaker or do you think you should push harder . Theres imponderables here that makes it a rather dangerous moment. Even if we had a president without peculiarities, the current occupant of the white house would be a challenging time. I think especially given this president its going to be quite challenging. I think that there are number of challenges to any kind of a Peace Process. The first is a number of us believe that kim jongun, whatever he says that whatever the statement from singapore, agreement has never really had a plan come has very little incentives and, frankly, very little reason to give up his Nuclear Weapons. I would argue indeed there are plenty of reasons why he probably wont, though one could imagine domestically in terms of domestic politics and family investment in the process. One could imagine the question of status. No one on earth can Pay Attention absent the fact it is, a tool of extortion but more important my favorite example which john bolton seemed to think would be helpful witches libya, presumed kim jongun has watched the video what happened to the said dictator who gave up his nukes and missiles and is rather difficult ending. The challenger is if you want to convince kim jongun to give up Nuclear Weapons does an awful lot to overcome. If its possible despite all of that its going to take time as far as we can tell the president thought this was going to be almost instantaneous. Im not sure if he thought it would show up and the nukes would be loaded in the holds of air force one and he replied them back. Nevertheless, if we take kim jongun at his word, theres a danger that of course but if we believe hes a negotiating partner we do it to listen to what he says. The singapore statement was structured and North Koreans told me they did it intentionally, which is that when it better domestic or bilateral relationship, a better peace regime in the peninsula and then theres denuclearization. That is a certain if you want proof that you wont end up out on your ear and another regime change operation once youve given up your nukes, then youd like to some evidence along the way and that evidence is likely to come over time with an improved relationship. As opposed to believe after a couple of meetings and a couple of promises from the van who throughout the agreement with iran, that you probably want a little more proof. Its hard to imagine this would happen quickly set aside the technical difficulties of trying to have disarmament of north korea which anyone knows would be extraordinary, difficult or i do think the president deserves credit. He has taken a step that many in the field think was did not one to take. The willingness to bring protocol and negotiate was extraordinary important. I think the idea of not talked with your adversaries is quite stupid. Imagine the cold war if weve not talked to the soviets. Imagine a cuban missile crisis if we did at embassies and people talking to one another. Indeed we went to that with china. One could argue one of the reasons with a long war in korea was the fact we didnt talk to china. China had concerns, security concerns and were trying to send us concerns to us to india and elsewhere. Perhaps if thered been direct communication some sort of Modus Vivendi mightve been worked out or we could have divided the peninsula, the u. S. Couldve stayed away, who knows what, theyre mightve an something leads to a stop that but a failure to communicate with adversaries especial potentially dangerous ones i think is a mistake. The way the president looks at this especial and personal terms is another problem. The president apparently views us as a matter of relationship he believes kim jongun has made promise, like a contract. He said at one point back so he went to law school have to say there was a very thin contract. I take to take the contract into court and try to get specific performance. I think you will lose that case. The president is looking at this in very personal terms as opposed to a much larger policy since come special in the notion of what would you do if you were running north korea. What are your interests and what are your countries interests but even if you happen to like the president , and ive no idea what kim jongun thinks of him but even if like the president , those sorts of interest will take control without a question having met somebody and got along with him. Another channel that was brought up in the talk is certain ways the relative impetus of south korea now. South korea of course has the most at state of what goes on. This should be repeated. When people like senator Lindsey Graham who says the world wouldnt be that bad because the war with the quote, over there, unquote or would not be quote, over here, unquote. That does not cause my friends insult to feel very secure. The point of south korea has no missed amount at stake but a special because of sanctions its very hard for the south to try to push ahead in the kind of cooperation that might help in dealing with north korea. It really is a dangerous moment. Set aside the middle east. Its very easy to see how this could go very badly. The president is almost alone in his initiative. Hawkish republicans like Lindsey Graham dont like it. People like john bolton think we should been bombed north korea years ago. So on the right hes got a problem, and democrats once were concerned the present would start a war on a horrified because youre afraid hes going to give everything away. Pure partisan politics but its very dangerous point in a president ial election one could imagine him facing potential humiliation of a new test by north korea intensified by democratic criticism of him. As being a wimp, giving away american interest, et cetera, et cetera. Again one could see him feeling political pressure to respond in rather dangerous ways. And that i think you will imagine fire and fury, back north korea worrying about preemptive attack. The question is whats the future relationship with north korea . I mean, i think the danger is that we dont move forward with some negotiating process. We go back to where we were or worse. Where we were with the Obama Administration essentially was kind of giving up on diplomacy, not getting anywhere with sanctions and continued north Korean Development of Nuclear Weapons. That was not very satisfying because the north proceeded ahead and bill of its arsenal and moved ahead on missiles. Were getting to a point where presumably we believe at some point the north will be able to accurately target the american homeland. I dont think theyre going to start a war. I dont think his in game is to end up dying in a radioactive funeral fire in pyongyang and we dealt with mao zedong with Nuclear Weapons, a twotime diplomatic unity, nuclear war would be a big deal. Even if half the International Population died in the world with the socialist and it would come back. China has a really big population, i dont care. He said things like that. We dealt with these people before. Nevertheless, none of us wants to be in that world. So then the alternative that presumably is a cold war intensified sanctions hoping that something might work but have to say that any reasonably more intensive sanctions will work. The civilization seem to think they are a fantasy and report looked they fail. Maduro is still about in venezuela. Raul castro is still living presumably in active retirement in cuba. The russians still occupied crania. Every needs have not given in a rather cause trouble. The sanctions dont seem to be working so the notion were going to get somewhere through this old path is a new cold war, or dangerous because the north what more Nuclear Weapons, more accurate missiles and probably view itself as giving up on diplomacy as opposed to looking forward and thats a possibility. At alternative is preventative war, areas written on this, others have as well to my mind thats madness. Hope you could launch limited strikes in the north just sit there and not assume youre trying to decapitate the regime and regime change was next i think would be an extraordinary game of chicken which people would be the highest cost would be the south koreans. A Great Success after the korean war is to prevent a new war. What we dont want to do is have that, to lose that. Which i think requires us to find way to move forward diplomatically with all sorts of skepticism. Im very skeptical about the ultimate outcome of denuclearization but that doesnt mean talking turkey doesnt mean moving forward is an helpful. And it doesnt strike me i think van jackson try, the papers very good, something im argued for longtime thatll only the nuclear station new quotation is a great thing but you could cae progress even if you dont get denuclearization. A north korea with a capped nuclear arsenal, with inspectors in, production gone is a very different creature than one the potential is unlimited production, unlimited ambitions in future. What we should be looking for our steps to move for to try to cap the program, maintain the ultimate objective of denuclearization. But nevertheless, look for more limited agreements. We should be taking steps to try to reduce the perception of threat and again what the North Koreans think, how much of this is a game to them, how much is real its hard to know. If i was living in pyeongchang i would have reason to fear the United States, the u. S. Lets be honest, the u. S. Bombs, invades and occupies any country that it desires, whether or not theres Congressional Authority or u. N. Authority. The u. S. Commits regime change when it feels like it. We can all argue with not those are good policies. We had president who are deducted pulses. I accept that but if you are a country on the axis of evil list or an uncle sams naughty list, you are not going to be very comfortable. In that world then john king went to take some steps to try to create assurances. I would suggest liaison offices should be a top priority. We should talk. I want channels of the medication. I would have asked that we should talk about human rights. If are going to talk we will talk about everything. That is something we should even think of peace declaration is something thats important, could be useful, ending the ban on travel which is mindless. There are lots of the places we americans might not want to go. We hope to be going to iraq. That trip is probably not going to happen anytime soon. The point is there are lots of places one should be cautious about when we want people going to north korea make you would like to North Koreans coming here. And and i think the notion of tg to formalize moratoriums on testing on their side, exercises on our side, we should be looking for mechanisms to move us forward and then longterm coming up with larger proposals in terms of decommissioning the production facilities, step back sanctions relief, et cetera. Finally, every should go on the table. I have been struck by people tell me theyre concerned about Nuclear Weapons, at the same time they say but, of course, we should never offered to take u. S. Troops away. That is a prefer to have a Nuclear Armed north korea with the u. S. Entangled than to get rid of u. S. Troops that gets as denuclearization. I consider that idea as being really very strange. That is the greatest danger to my mind is having weapons of mass distraction in the hands of north korea. Certainly that is worth something to get rid of and, frankly, its worth a lot to get rid of. We should be prepared to talk about anything on that. Ultimately, the famous chinese curse is that you live in interesting times. We today have that doubled and tripled dose. Look at domestic politics, look at the middle east, north east asia. As indicated at the start i think north korea is far more important than iran. In terms of the damage of any work, the potential catastrophic consequences if they goes bad, the impact on other nations, china, russia, japan, south korea all involved along with the United States. The risk to u. S. Territories even if they cant get the United States today presumably they could get whomp, American Forces on okinawa, et cetera. On guam. We have not had another war since 70 years. We not had a war. That is good if we want to keep it and that requires us to move it even in difficult to work with south korea and taking chances. I think doctor gmen was right, flexibility, a willingness to take chances, these are things that are necessary and hope the president do this and i like to see support both sides of the aisle for him doing it. Thank you. [applause] thank you, doctor appreciate the comments. That was great, thank you. [applause] next lets move to jessica. He may seen on tv recently. Shes been doing a lot of meeting with have been going on north korea pictures just on cnet what blitzer on fight if im not mistaken. Shes a Senior Research fellow at a new quincy is that it which may have heard up which is a new think tank and washed in the focus on realism and restraint. With that i will give it to jessica. Thank you very much. Good morning. Is this on . Perfect. Happy new year. Its great to be here. I thought i would start by giving you a quick intro what the Quincy Institute is and then lay out some of the key ideas for the day. The Quincy Institute was founded actually just a few months ago here in washington, but our philosophy actually stems from John Quincy Adams who said in 1821 almost 200 jessica that america should not go abroad seeking to destroy monsters pick i do think that sentiment is all the more appropriate and point it at this very moment when we are considering thank you when we a considering matters f world of peaceful in the middle east and in east asia. I wanted to start off not as you typically do in washington which is to talk about south korea last almost as as a footnote ao begin this conversation with south korea and what we can learn from the public sentiment in south korea with respect to the korea Peace Process and use north korea diplomacy. I think its extremely instructive for folks in washington. I had a chance to visit the dmz last september and for those who have been there or even been to north korea you know as well as i do how serious the situation in the Korean Peninsula really is. It doesnt hit you quite well here in washington. We live in a bubble of when you go out to the dmz and you see what has taken place 70 years ago, the fact that my korean father probably served in, you know, was patrolling and sort of worked along those ways to monitor potential north korea provocation in the 60s when he was 18. All of these thoughts came to o my mind as i want the trail that it opened a few months ago and so i do want to start off by saying that the situation as documented is so grave. I think it really be whose folks in washington who make Foreign Policy to understand that war is not a distant memory for people in the Korean Peninsula. Its something that could actually escalate quite rapidly and some estimate 300,000 folks could perish within a matter of days, even without the use of Nuclear Weapons and conventional weapons alone. This is a tremendous problem, and something that he think as a george mentioned record policymakers and experts to think more critically and outside the box in order to resolve. Some want to cite one survey that i read as an example of the type of lessons we can learn i think from the south korean public when it comes to thinking about the north korea issue Korea Institute for National Unification found two months after the hanoi summit broke out between u. S. And north korea, south korea people supported diplomacy and dialogue and compromise rather than confrontation and antagonism. I find that striking. And i think even when interkorea summit and relationships were at its low point, there was consistent support within the south korean public for there to be negotiation and diplomacy. I think this is an incredibly important point for again washington to take into account. I also think that framing the issue north korea really matters in this particular survey from last april they discussed how when you talk about kim jonguns a regime and whether south korean supported talking or trusting kim jonguns regime, the numbers were lower than when you talked about north koreas regime. Many, adding kim jongun has a negative factor in the Public Perception of the issue. Thats important because the way we talk about this issue could be unnecessarily antagonistic and unconstructive. I just want to point that out as well in terms of that survey. I highly recommend you read that. I want to now turn to some of the recent polling and the shift thats happening in washington because policymakers who talk about north korea tend to talk about it in very monolithic terms like everything is stacked it, and all these things are happening abroad and we react. It actually in america our Public Perception about our place in the world is changing as well and thats precisely what the Quincy Institute was founded. According to Brown University cost of war projection, project, United States is on track to spend 6. 4 trillion on war on terror by the end of this year, 2020. And unless u. S. Foreign policy and war on terrorism stop tomorrow, this projection is going to increase in the coming years. But interestingly, the public kind of perception and sentiment on Foreign Policy is definitely shifting towards more of a demilitarize less aggressive one. So data for progress can for example, in its recent survey found a majority of americans want demilitarize american Foreign Policy based on cooperation, peace building. What was most significant was this was particularly true among young people, people 30 and under. So what does this all mean . For a long time the Foreign Policy establishment in both the United States and south korea has been quite antidemocratic in the way it makes policy, the weight it explains the rationale for its policies. I think its time to change at that. I think american people, particularly after the afghanistan papers emergence, are seeing that our government has a role in explaining how our resources and our troops and all of these things that make america the primacy, its the primacy of america, you know, all of these things over time has gone unquestioned. And i think this opacity with which the Foreign Policy establishment functions is deeply problematic and should be changed. I want to now, id like to kind of talk about sort of the notion of the u. S. Kind of narrative on north korea more broadly. I do think that part of the challenge right now is that it is entirely driven by a threat, threat centered overly militarized posture that really doesnt yield for much flexibility, as doug mentioned. That has resulted in a policy stance that are out of sequence and has been extremely detrimental and counterproductive to our stated goal of ultimate denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. One of first papers i wrote for the quincy paper, Quincy Institute, was on the possibility of a shortterm deal. Can there be an agreement over 12 months were north korea begins dismantling some of its Nuclear Facilities in exchange for partial sanctions relief, opening up liaison offices and included a a formal end to the korean war that would take away some of north koreas power in blaming the United States and the world for all of its challenges. Thinking in smaller terms, in more kind of piecemeal phased approach makes perfect sense. Its logical and, frankly, is something that a think washington needs to pursue now. Just to end, as harry pointed out in the beginning, the recent events in iraq and the killing of the iranian top commander, general soleimani, really goes to show again that something sinful and post to get very long time, like diplomacy, but in some instances change happens very quickly and things are very volatile the 20 United States and north korea. So this is not an issue that deserves to be on the back burner issue be pursued with rigor and focus, especially now that the former special representative is number two diplomat in charge of the state department. So theres no reason for this issue to be languishing. This is something that both the government and singapore has already declared something that needs to happen. The question now becomes what is in a state willing to do to provide clarity on the kinds of concessions and inducements that it would provide in exchange for steps towards denuclearization which has us they will take about 15 years. This is that something that could happen overnight. We should not be naive as to think this problem of north Koreas Nuclear development will go away in a matter of days or months. Finally, i want to go back to this theme of opening the Foreign Policy kind of process by showing you, providing you this is example of how folks in the koreanamerican community and sort of the broader Expert Community has dealt with this issue of north Korea Nuclear threat. So from 20162019 i worked for a Korean American National organization and part of what i did at the council of koreanamericans was to educate koreanamericans, of which there are nearly 2,000,000 2 millions country, about what is at stake for our community and for the Korean Peninsula respect to north korea. This work emerged really 2017 during that time because there was this sense of eminence of some sort of a preventive attack against north korea could happen and there was a lot of curiosity in Mainstream Media about the koreanamerican community would respond to the attack. Fast for today, theres been a lot of work done by a number of think tanks, veterans groups, womens organizations, Community Leaders across the country and we see the kind of things at the rally around can for example, h raise 152 that congressman rochon has presented asking the president to declare the end of the korean war ro khanna. You think back and look at that and say, why is the public support for h1 raise 152 . What do people in the unites states want . Because it as people my age, im 36. If you ask folks but h. R. In the army or marine, do they want war with north korea . With it what a more sensible policy that will take us away from this dangerous path towards peace . And i think again as a democracy, the United States and south korea really, we should listen to the public on this issue. And the public is always going to support a sensible pragmatic approach rather than an open ended conflict. One of the first tweets i read this monaco this as a last thing i will say, one of the first tweets i read this one was by an emergency room doctor who served in iraq and he was recounting the types of people that came into his tent and iraq as he was in charge of American Service members who were serving their and fixing their injuries and so forth. And it was really again very sobering and eyeopening to see what war does. This particular er said look, its not about what happens out there and iraq. Its about what we carry back home. The fact that we cant ever see, experience joy again after the horrors of war. These are the kinds of problems and challenges that america is going to have to grapple with because of our middle east policy, and i fear in her east asia policy as well if we continue on this path. I will end there and answer any questions. Great, thank you jessica. Just to jump off her point, ive done a lot of wargaming when it comes to an actual conflict with north korea and had to tell you, if youre afraid of iraq or afraid of an iran war, let me tell you, just not too long ago maybe six months ago we read it this wargame and 20 Million People die. The United States did prevail but in that scenario tokyo, seoul, all over literate. I think this is the stakes are to think about and i think its great this panel has come up with a lot of Great Solutions polemically devils advocate for a minute. As moderate ongoing as the first questioner that ill throw it over to the audience. I want asked three interview this. We all have a lot of Creative Ideas to afford when it comes to north korea. They are all personified jonas panel. I want to look at this from kim jonguns perspective. Its important as someone who looks at policy thinks that policy. Where to put ourselves in issues when you think about these ideas. Let me ask the panel this year if you are kim doesnt make sense to wait until after u. S. President election ask because i think there is a motivations for donald trump to after impeachment maybe come out with some bold proposal when it comes to north korea, but consider the situation with iran, concerning the fact the United States people out of a jcpoa, that are quite a few treaties, otherwise over the last year or two, is there a trust issue in his or an election issue . I want to throw that out to the panel and get your thoughts on that and then we can jump to q a. Jessica if you want to start and we will move on down the line. I am under no illusion that these types of advice we are giving, at a very challenging time. The president as you noted harry has a lot of Political Considerations on his plate. As much as im the first to advocate such partisan considerations not be, not meddle with Foreign Policy deliberations, we also in washington, you know, unfortunately, more commonplace than before. So i think that theres definitely deathly a trust issue and i think harry, the way i would address that is by saying thats all the more reason and argue in the paper that the National Interest will publish shortly, that you did ask her. So could read my oped did but eventually harry, to your point, i argued that President Trump needs to address north korea and make it a prominent part of the state of Union Address to the joint session of congress. Because as you noted that are so many other things that make it very challenging for outside observers to believe that the United States is actual going to prioritize north korea. See using the platform in the joint session of congress to say look, heres what my administration has done. Heres what i expect to happen in the next 12 months. This is not about partisanship. This is not about impeachment if this is about doing something right for america and for the Korean Peninsula. I do think theres an opportunity but he needs to seize it. Penny for your thoughts. If youre trying to assess what the kim jongun really wants, i think its very difficult. I mean, as i was still people want to talk to them they are not insane but its a very strange political system with an awful lot of strange incentives. Trying to figure out what the Power Centers are and who has to placate is not easy. It doesnt strike me there is some good that we see about him, which is number one he doesnt care about economic develop it in a way that father and grandfather simply did not. If you read his speech to the plenary, the Planning Session they just held in party, its an important one. Its a big chunk of his talk and talk about the problems theyre facing, the things theyre trying to do, what they want to do and its clear he wants sanctions relief because he was Economic Health. The second i think is a fact hes good at diplomacy. Again, compare him to his father and grandfather. With nothing else, bring his wife along in six going early different from either father or grandfather. The role she plays with the north korean society. She seemed. The biggest change for me in this north korea between 1992 which was a long time ago and 2017 was a fact that women fashions come to the i mean, a lot of it is because of her. That the first lady actually is a fashion plate in many ways. This apparently has had these are Little Things that suggest to me that kim does see something more than just sitting around in pyongyang, that you see them in singapore walking along the waterfront and stuff. So i think theres a hope that he wants something more. I think thats advantageous. He might want to do with trump on the theory that if trump is a little desperate, i mean, lets face it, trump was everything has worked in Foreign Policy. My reaction is nothing is worth. If he wants to sell success to the american people, or he would be the obvious one, some kind of agreement highprofile signing the city. Kim might think youll get more. And the difference of the jcpoa at least would be this would be trumps deal, not obamas do we know everything that barack obama did is horrible and the worst thing in human history, presumably the president thinks rather better of his own efforts. And the interesting question, if you wait and a democrat wins, who knows what kim faces. Its not clear at all to me with the democrats would go with this. Site might be a little nervous, talk about uncertainty. They might decide to end up like trump, you have to undo everything trump did. Theres clearly a trust issue. The way you face the trust issue are small deals. You do something, you promise you a close up get some step back relief on sanctions. I mean, the point is if you dont get what you thought you going to get if trump tries to change, you stop what youre doing. It makes it much harder to do the all or nothing. If you dont really have trust he will not give up your nuclear program. If you have a process i which you can establish trust even with a trump, maybe you can. Im not overly optimistic but i think you can make progress that way the weekend all or nothing. Its not about how north korea utilize american president election and impeachment process in the United States. If you look at the north korean media talk and whatever, what North Koreans concern is how american political and status quo take advantage of north korea for domestic lyrical gain. North koreans think the United States has been politically abusing anything north korea further politicians personal gains. There is one fundamental difference. Present election and impeachment, no, process. Second, if you read written report of the Plenary Session of north korea working party you can clearly see to make major reasons why North Koreans angry about United States and trumpet vegetation. Number one,. [inaudible] chanting we want dialogue. At same time United States of the pushing for the maximum pressures. Therefore, North Koreans dialogue is nothing but fig leaf to isolate, contain and strangulate north korea. North koreans has shown criticism of their doubledealing by the United States. That is lack of trust. Second point which the report raised this issue of asymmetric reciprocity. The report says okay, we have done, we have suspended icbm test. We suspended Nuclear Testing your we demolished nuclear test site. What did we get . We get nothing. On the contrary, rok strengthened joint exercise and training. Also United States transferred weapons to south korea and United States and post more than 15 times individual sanctions against north korea. Therefore, we do not get anything. We do not get anything from what we have done. They have reciprocity part of United States. There are important reasons, therefore, if you carefully analyze what north korea sayings, the edges can be found in them. By avoiding double dipping, and second, come up with a more reciprocal treatment. Go back as i did in my talk. American initial report of the north korea needs to denuclearize in we were promised to brighten your economy. That was in hanoi, what happed in stockholm . After stockholm in the North Koreans are saying you Must Withdraw your hostile policy against us completely and irreversibly. Their hostile policy security of north korea and hampers north korean peoples right to development. Thats quite serious demand but weve not been paying attention to it. And then washington pundits say oh, hostile policy . Thats old business income. Statement by north korea but you have to analyze what is it inside the north korean demanded withdrawal of hostile policy on north korea. I think that is a problem because not like american saying we have [inaudible] no more third host. Did north korea sell . No, i dont think so. Saw think will open this up to q a. We are plenty of time, we have little ways to go. Like to ask the beginning just take your name and affiliation and ill try to get just many people as we can and we will get it done. Jim . [inaudible] actualized when asked that very question. I was going ask that my question. A lot of americans dont even completely ignore your after year after year after year but they keep saying hostile policy. We spent a lot of time saying oh, they dont understand what we mean by denuclearization. What do we mean by denuclearization, et cetera . What do they mean, what did you see how they view hostile policy . And i would like the other people to enter that, too. Specifically, because they keep saying it over and over again. What do they mean if we withdraw that hostile policy . What specifically are they talking about. Was very simple. Can i use this microphone . Okay. First, north korea has been very clear. First, illumination of sanctions the sanction is the most important indicator of hostile policy by the United States. And second, politics matter. Normalize to make ties. Setting up the liaison office, making diplomat [inaudible] north korea would think thats the most important indicator of ending the hostile relations. The military side consigning the nonaggression treaty and signing the bible and lasting peace treaty, okay . And obviously suspending joint exercise and training and not. Weapons around the Korean Peninsula. All those things would constitute military, you know, not hostile policy. And finally making north korea a normal country in International Economic system. Not only lifting sanctions but also allowing north korea to be member imf, member of world bank, member Asian Development bank. Let north korea engage in normal trade and allowing International Investment in north korea. I will say those what north korea want and very clear. Eric, please. Eric from canada. We can literally meet at the watercooler talk about it. But so im a big fan of van jacksons proposal about maintaining this longterm goal of the you know position having ethically arms control of north korea in the interim. However, recently i had a chance to speak with a few south korean academics about this idea and they were very resistant to it. Because they view this as essentially you would accept north korea as a Nuclear Power in order to have arms control with it. For the panel i want ask, what is apperception like in south korea . And also potential in japan of if the United States moves to this small agreement focus of what you can realistically get done which i think is sort of the only viable way forward, does that create certain problems with u. S. South korea relations and u. S. Japan relations if they fear that you are going to lock in an north Korean Nuclear capability at least for the time being in order to get it done and you might not ever get to north korea denuclearization . Thats a great question. Its certainly the case that having a maximum kind of ambiguity late in strategy has been intentional part of u. S. Foreign policy to north korea because of this very caution about potential Nuclear Arms Race or the question of what excepting north Koreas Nuclear state would do to regional actors including our allies. You know, i think its very hard to argue that north korea is not a Nuclear State. The challenge and resistance in washington to talk about arms control i think is real and i think in that sense what you point out from the south korean academics circle doesnt surprise me. I think there is apperception that needs to be taken into account that we cannot move on to talk sublime control yet because we are still debating over north korea is allowed to have Nuclear Weapons even though it possesses those Nuclear Weapons unlike in the case of aa rant when we began jcpoa talks. Its not a good answer to your question but i would just say that it is something ive also heard here in washington and i think it goes to whether the United States is willing to accept north korea as a Nuclear State and also accept some of the potential consequences of that, including armament of Nuclear Weapons by south korea and japan. Go ahead. I think the problem is the reality is north korea has Nuclear Weapons. Our choice is not sure they are not have, should they have or not have them . I have them, they do. We live in a world in which multiple u. S. President preside said north korea cannot have Nuclear Weapons okay, thank thu very much. They have them. The reality is the u. S. Adapts to reality, which is guess what, israel has been. It really was with the Nixon Administration wanted but we were not going to bomb them. And guess what, pakistan which is a far more dangerous place actual in many ways having them, and into having the period we tried sanctions for. Did work. The greatest proliferation was pakistan. There was sin in planeloads of stuff all over. We allowed to because what was the alternative . I think thats our challenge for if you look at north korea we can huff and puff and say you cant have them and they will build 100 or 200 or who knows how many warheads are we to try to try to come up with something that prevents that with at least a hope that maybe over time if theres greater trust, if the peninsula develops in certain ways, et cetera maybe you can convince them to get rid of them. Im not overly optimistic that that ultimate will ever happen but it do think the rail is a do have been so its silly to keep saying they cant have them. They do. The question is what dita and a world where they have been and probably the only way to get rid of them is war. And i just dont see that as being a good answer. I mean, i think the greatest achievement as a said before is that we havent had war since 1953. To risk starting a horrendous wrecking were to get rid of Nuclear Weapons i think would be far worse than accepting the its not a good answer but do think thats the reality were dealing with. They have them. This is not 1992. We have gone along 30 years in the process of what they are at. I think that world is gone. Making a distinction between disarmament paradigm, denuclearization paradigm and nuclear arms paradigm seems to be somewhat artificial and misleading, right . Because ultimate come for us we can have and peninsula and the process we can that of arms control and method. Therefore, it is quite misleading to make artificial distinction between disarmament denuclearization paradigm and arms control paradigm. If a look at van jacksons report, the ideas he suggested is integral part of denuclearization negotiation. But there is a fundamental, assume there is one. If we really recognize north Korea Nuclear power as the status quo, therefore, we have arms control negotiations for the sake of on the Korean Peninsula, that could be very dangerous for us. But for us all is very clear. We want to have Nuclear Weapons free Korean Peninsula. Towards that goal we can adopt Nuclear Arms Control techniques and methods. They can be complement or whether they are irreconcilable. George, i had you next. Thanks. George beebe, Vice President of the center for the National Interest. I want to ask about an episode from past history and ask to what degree it might provide some insights into how we might be creative and even with the problem in the Korean Peninsula today. And that is europe in the 1960s. There we had a situation where we had a divide continent. We had two hostile military blocks facing one another. Nuclear weapons, large conventional forces deployed against one another. And he had a soviet leadership at the time that wanted a couple of big things. One, it wanted recognition of soviet control over Eastern Europe by nato and the transatlantic community. And, two, it it wanted access to technology and trade that would provide economic benefits to the soviet union and the soviet bloc. Neither of those two things were things that the west wanted to grant to the kremlin. We in turn wanted to talk about things that the soviet leadership didnt want to talk about, including human rights and democratic governance, environmental issues. And we struck what was in effect a very artful bargain in creating what was then called the conference on security and cooperation in europe, which under a very broad umbrella allowed us to deliver some things in compromise to form the at only some of what the kremlin wanted, in agreeing to some principles which in effect recognized the fact of soviet borders in the east, but we also enabled a discussion about broader issues that critics are in the United States said were in effect im meaningful, that these were simply paper agreements that would have no effect on the human rights situation, freedom of the press, democratic governance in that part of the world. In retrospect, however, this had a transformative effect. It not only enabled talk of confidence building measures, arms control measures that had a big impact on the security situation in europe. It also begin processes that ultimately led to peaceful evolution there in the region. My question is, is the situation in the Korean Peninsula somewhat at least analogous to that problem today . And, two, are the things that we could apply in the Current Situation building on our experiences from that period that might have an impact on how we go for today and what might that look like . I think thats a very excellent point. [inaudible] most important benchmark for the 1992 beijing agreement on nonaggression, confiscation and engaging cooperation of the great potential. Therefore, south korea, still support the agreement because it contains [inaudible] economic and and it was in both human and social icbms. Therefore, particularly in liberal government in south korea, present kim jongun and present moon jaein all support the process and they been trying to handle it [inaudible] Korean Peninsula particularly 1992 base agreement is most classical example of how we learn from european process. I think thats an excellent question. I think one of the reasons why you want of a diplomatic dialogue with the north is a hope to get to Something Like that. The critical thing is we did talk to the soviets. A lot of times it was rather ugly conversation but it was an important conversation. I do think that process your talk about i think the discussion about human rights, out of. It turned out they were embarrassed that he sorts of things matter to them. Thats why, for example, you could imagine trying to say with the north on the ideas we want regular conversations, but everything is on the table. That is, we dont only talk about what you want, we talk about what we want and that will include human rights, emphasized that. Thats basically you get and we get, i think thats useful here anything we can do to try to open them up more i do think one of the differences of course is especially eastern bloc some of the countries more open than others. These germans most of them got west german tv. The Knowledge Base within east germany was radically more. To some degree with hungry. And other given temperatures within their access. In a way that north korea is much more isolated. We should do things and bethany is one reason the travel ban is to be. Its not saying tourism will transform north korea but we want more people, we should want to kind of try anyway began to kind of open things up to give more ideas and a contact. I think thats a useful model. Its a lot different with multiple states, a lot of complexity but thats right that the south has tried. I think with kim we have a better chance because i think hes more open to diplomacy so the idea of inviting him to things, bring them into things gives him something hes agreeing to some of these and i think, i hope for Economic Development we have leverage within in a way we didnt have with dad and granddad. They didnt care. There were not interested and much more willing to close down as opposed to try to open up some. I i mean, just to add to tha, i would say that something that came to my mind as you were talking to the degree in which the us department, we dont have senior officials and really an army of diplomats, right, whose only job is to come up with smart nuanced strategies for tackling issues like north korea and to do it with the joint diplomas and skills thats required to tackle this massive challenge. We just dont have that. We have instead a massive Defense Department that is being asked did all kinds of things related Foreign Policy that should be left to the state department. I do think whether its the example you provided in case of europe on the soviet union or perhaps vietnam and the normalization process between u. S. And vietnam in the 90s that were really led by smart, thoughtful people at the state department who said this is what that would look like. These of the steps we can take, and really push it forward. Thats the kind of expertise that we need and i wonder if we have that and were up to the challenge in the current configuration at state. We have a few more minutes for a few other questions. Please, sir. The mic is coming over to you thank you. George washington university. I think the washington consensus, if you will, is just trying to adopt a package the policy ranging from sanctions and deterrence and diplomacy. No illusion of denuclearization in the near future, but when it comes to the policy prescription, we have very diverse views, limited shortterm goal as we discussed today but also coercive diplomacy or maximum pressure or 2. 0. I think one of the reasons for that is different understanding of where kim jongun wants to lead his country, especially after completing socalled Nuclear Deterrence. We dont have a real window in the way we would if we had 70 years of diplomatic presence. I mean, its not one where you call up your local contact and they know what theyre talking about and the policy last week so i think its a very difficult one and i do think you try to attract change and theres clearly some reform process going on. You can argue about how serious is it, whats going on but we should have no illusions, kim is no humanitarian. This is a person whos murdered anybody in his weight including his uncle so we should approach this with a lot of skepticism but also the sense that there is an opportunity here and i would say we should have a lot of skepticism for past policy. Show me an example where maximum pressure has worked, i just dont see it and it strikes me as useful as part of a process if you give them options in getting rid of it which seems serious. Most your nukes and now will give you sanctions relief, id say youre absolutely not so come up with a process where the sanctions become useful as opposed to were going to force you to do what we want no matter what. So i think that our policy in the past doesnt strike me as being very hopeful and if theres anything thats failed, look at the last 20 or 30 years. Weve tried a lot of different things, none of those have worked and is there something we can do and were struggling with that. I dont claim what i propose will work, i just think its better than what weve tried in the past. Ido think the president has given us a moment. Despite the criticism of him i think theres an opportunity that we have not had and we dont want to lose it, we dont want to give it away without doing everything we can. Go ahead. Im going to vote in the washington debate but if you look at the recentreport from Plenary Session , central works party, one, we should expect execution with the United States and second, i understand we should come up with a breakthrough. And third, there will be major trade opportunities, selfreliance and the sanctions, sanctions will continue, sanctions will be intensified and we should be ready for selfreliance and self sufficiency. In order that we should make more investment in science and technology and human resources. Of course, even though i could clearly see no small attempt to strengthen economic ties with china and russia and i think that will be the most important part of north koreas economy and some kind of an appropriation with china and russia, i dont think that north korea has any chance for attribution based on selfreliance and selfsufficiency. It is much worse than those in the mid1990s and therefore let us see but what is sad is this. If you look at the speech 2018, he made it very clear that he is now shifting to an economy first from his pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Economic Health. But if you look at, obviously is going back to that in line, that is unconcerned. Weve got time for maybe one or two questions, you have about 10 minutes. right over. Emmanuel path right from theasian institute. In my discussions of my friends here in washington about security issues, there are two major topics that come up every day and i get emails every day. They are nuclear war and Climate Change. I noticed Climate Change was never mentioned in the discussion about the threats of rising oceans and flooding deserts could be claimed to be the primary threat both to north korea and south korea and it also offers a tremendous opportunity to the United States, shifted away from militarism and military budgets and invested that in a responsible mitigation and adaptation, it could transform both our concept of security and open up a window or dialog both with north korea but actually also a more important issue which is a Regional Peace regime architecture including japan and china which i guess from my personal feeling, the greatest concern is not the risk of a Nuclear North Korea but rather the risk of an arms race between japan and china which would dwarf anything north korea could possibly threaten but your thoughts on the question of Climate Change, thank you. Thank you for that question. One of my jobs at the Quincy Institute in the East Asia Program is to come up with concrete, actionable ways that we can address Climate Change, particularly with respect to cooperation with china which we believe is vital. This is all much easier said then done. And its going to require a lot of concerted effort and thoughtful leadership with beijing and washington start to make a real change and make a real difference on the issue of Climate Change. I do think that as i noted in my remarks earlier, there are data points and survey results that show that particularly younger folks in this country care a great deal about Climate Change. For the same reason why when young people here that we authorized 700 billion for the pentagon to impart and fund endless wars, there are paul and the reason is because were going to be living and paying off the debt and the borrowing of the money by our government to address these problems much longer than folks who are older than us so of course this is an issue that matters more to us, to me, my daughter, etc. So i think part of the way we talk about Climate Change is giving more of a platform to the folks you are in the earlier and midcareer stage. Give them a platform to come up with Creative Solutions on Climate Change because we feel it more urgently than anyone else so i think thats something thats missing. I think in general and we talk about Climate Change, you probably know this because you work here in washington but it is one of those functional issues that some of the regional organizations and bureaus in our federal agencies miss so theres not a lot of coordination and cross pollination in terms of expertise. Sharing of resources and attending conferences and really coordinating as a whole of government the issue of Climate Change and i think any serious conversation about Climate Change needs to include china and thats all the more reason to north korea issue also has to include china and some of the regional actors. This is not a problem the United States can swoop in, solve and get out. All these issues are far more complex than we imagine here in dc. I think its an important issue. Its one thats going to be hard to address with a country like north korea absent dealing with the military security issue. Ive never had a conversation in north korea where they brought this issue up and suggested it was something of major concern and in many ways regime preservation from the standpoint of kim is focused on military issues as opposed to environmental. Theyve given the States Development my perception is environmental policy is not high at the moment. He does care about science and technology so i think that is away in but it strikes me unless youre ready, this would be a good time to bring in if you start making progress on the others, youre talking about expanded cooperation. If we get to a point where we can get beyond debating sanctions and military deployments thisis the kind of thing that would come in and a regional cooperation. I presume it would possibly the one to be the pentagon but i think weve got to get there and were not there yet but its an useful idea to have in the back of ones mind. I agree, north koreas paying attention to Climate Change and ecological issues too. The example of six north Korean Energy and environment especially and will unbutton were in december which was mostly with the United Nations and theyre talking about micro grade which is a self sustaining sources. In the past they talk about the normal greed, linking the Nuclear Power plant and these kinds of things and north korea, thats a complete change and theyre talking about micro greens and true sustaining Energy Sufficiency and look, number one priority is conjunct life is frustration of north korea. Its socalled a number one project. Therefore therehave been an enormous effort but the problem is again sanctions. You do not have the kind of importation in north korea that sanction blocks the frustration, you can build the socalled plantation and whatever, then it got to the importation of etc. Again, blocked by sanctions. Therefore if they continue the sanction theres no hope for fighting Climate Change against Climate Change in north korea. They have to be a more flexible way of thinking about the sanctions. I think were just coming up on time and id like to thank doctor moon as well as jessica and we will see you back at our next panel at 11 30. [applause]. [inaudible]. [inaudible] taking a break in this conference on north korea,the next panel will deal with using International Sanctions to curb north Koreas Nuclear program. The conference hosted by the center for the National Interest. We willlook at the address from earlier given by the special advisor to south koreas president. Thank you harry. I speak for myself, not for the government. Let me clarify on that one too and harry, give me the topic of my talk has the Peace Initiative, challenges and opportunities and ill try to sum it up as policy and the challenges this government is facing in less than 20 minutes and then maybe we can have open discussion. Inaugurated on may 9 2017, first year 2017 was my very first year and the worst crisis for him was in 2019, he opened the new horizon of peace by holding three summit talks with chairman kim jongun and then 2019, the us dprk talks and he facing a major stalemate, ups and downs. If you look at korean history it is the history of lowered costs. One year good, the other bad and we have been constantly living under the uncertainty, but in going through theseups and downs , kim jongun made it clear, his goal is to make Nuclear Weapons free and for a prosperous Korean Peninsula and in that he set the four major principles, the first principle is no war on the Korean Peninsula, no war in any peninsula. The primacy of peace has been the fundamental basis of peace policy. Its quite obvious because hes a refugee from north korea during the korean war, therefore he himself witnessed the tragedy of war, if you wanted to board for whatever means. Second, no nukes. He wanted Nuclear Weapons for ukrainian peninsula. He supported peaceful use of Atomic Energy but he opposed transfer, testing of Nuclear Weapons. He sticks to 1991 joint declaration under the nuclear is a of the Korean Peninsula. We have been abiding by that declaration of north korea has not been abiding by that declaration, therefore no nuclear principles. Third principle is that the norwegian changing north korea and he wanted to build a confidence with north korea. He wanted to have new ways of communicating and coexisting with north korea. Therefore i would say theres no regime change. He made it clear at that point when he gave a speech on theinstitute , on july 6 2007, 2017. He still abides by that principle. Finally, he wants to come in prosperity on the Korean Peninsula. He believes the future of the south korean economy is dependent on the north korean economy. North korea is dependent on south korea too. If we cooperate we can see common prosperity. Those are the four principles and he has laid out the four main strategies. First strategy is the strategy of peacekeeping. Peacekeeping means that passing war through strengthening of their alliance. This idea of peacekeeping really arose out of the crisis in 2017. There was a kind of past dependence on the preceding conservative government but he strongly believed that one way of preventing war is having Strong Defense capability and he believes in the utility of alliance with the United States. Second, strategies called a peacemaking strategy. He wanted to reduce tensions with north korea, wanted to build confidence with north korea. He wanted to adopt an end of war and of korean war declaration and wanted to transform the peacekeeping agreement into some sort of Peace Agreement or treaty and he wanted to sustain viable peace regimes under the Korean Peninsula. In fact, that has been one of the most important policy strategies of the government. Third, hes interested in peace building. Peace building refers to the elimination of codes of war on the Korean Peninsula. He strongly believes that peace economy can lead to peace building. In north and south korea make Economic Cooperation , and they agreed to come up with some kind of arrangements through which people good and services can move freely across the dmz. And if north and south korea can pursue common prosperity , he strongly believes there will be any war on the Korean Peninsula. In a sense it is like a Permanent Peace theory, one Permanent Peace theory called capitalist peace or trading states to not fight each other. And finally, to emphasize proactivity diplomacy. Korea has been sandwiched between china and the us, between dprk and the United States. And they want to pursue more proactive diplomacy. We wantto be a mediator , facilitator , arbitrator or pacesetter of the Korean Peninsula destiny. Therefore, he doesnt want to be a passive dictator to changing external security involvement. He did, he did it in 2018. When there was a complete impasse between washington and pyongyang, he played the crucial role of facilitator and mediator. Those are the four major strategies of regime governments Peace Initiative. And one of the challenges and opportunities, you clearly saw and witnessed the new horizon of peace on april 27 of last year in pyongyang. I was there, i saw the great possibility of peace in the Korean Peninsula area of north and south korea adopted a military agreement on september 19 in pyongyang. Since then there was no conflict and caches along the demilitarized zone. Last year chairman kim jongun showed up and ordered an exercise of souk on missiles and there was perhaps the onlyviolation of military agreement adopted. In 2019, 2018. In a sensethere had been progress. But overall , the government is facing several dilemmas and challenges. First is the dilemma of peacekeeping. As a way of enhanced peacekeeping capabilities , they are strengthening capability and then our government has been purchasing fire from the United States. We have secured a global of. Unmanned drones, surveillance device and we have been strengthening and we will be spending almost 50 trillion one, there is a slight slightly larger spending of japan this year. North koreans are very angry about it. North korean position is that we agreed to do the confidence and north korea is saying south korea would not take in a military buildup, but because of what happened in 2017, and also decisions made by the previous government, he had to fold. In this defense capability strengthening. Therefore the idea of peacekeeping is extremely selfdefense is but north korea does not that in a positive way. It is well orchestrated with the United States. Therefore peacekeeping has been sort of backfiring. Peacemaking is a proposed parallel approach of nuclear is asian and peacemaking. But we are notmaking any progress in denuclearization, therefore peacemaking has become stopped. Of course, we are maintaining september 19 military agreement to some extent. However, we are not able to adopt and end the war declaration. We have no discussion about the transformation of armistice agreements into some peace treaty alongmajor stakeholders. We talked about the piece regime but we havent really touched piece regime. Therefore peacemaking is undergoing major difficulties. Peace building, weve got to have a piece economy working. To not make a piece economy work, theyve got to be transitioned with north korea but International Sanctions prevent south korea from engaging with north korea. For example, they strongly desired to have connections between north and south. He even had groundbreaking ceremonies in january last year. Nothing happened at those. And he wanted to reopen contracts and melt a grand project because International Sanction regimes, he couldnt doanything. The North Koreans argued south korea hasnt delivered anything to north korea. Therefore hes having a hard time in pushing for the idea of peace building through piece economy. Practical diplomacy in fact contrary to what conservatives in the south have been criticizing, we have beenbetting on the United States 100 percent. This is november 2018 we have been hundred percent coordinating with the United States. We have shown hundred percent transparency to the us with regard to interkorean economy exchanges. As a result, of that interkorean relations have becomecompletely frozen. Therefore now we have a dilemma. What should we do if the United States cannot make a breakthrough in its talk with north korea . I dont not know what actions we will take but on those sentiments is that if the us fails to reopen negotiations with north korea and come up with some kind of negotiating settlement withnorth korea , neither will gain supporters and south korea should take independent action. If i would say that we are now going through a very critical period. In a south korean democracy, when they need to continue to pull from his supporters if president mooney cannot deliver to his supporters, he will face a political dilemma. So in a sense hes completely defenseless right now but even he will be getting a new years speech i think tomorrow in the Washington Times and i say that he will continue to rely on the United States in solving those nuclear problems. But i dont know to what extent we can really go along with that line. In conclusion, i will say that the east Korean Peninsula Peace Institute has been bold and timely, but hes encountering in or missed challenges. Hes facing numerous impediments. Can he overcome them . I do not know but its all dependent on to what extent he can communicate with the United States and come up with a common strategy to solve the problem. But i really hope that north korea would come back to the negotiation table. North korean grievances i hope are sufficient, now it is time for north korea to come back to the negotiation table and try to find out some kind of negotiating settlement. The United States needs to move past and realistic. You can agree, you cannot pursue the strategy of the nuclear eyes, that wont work. It is why north korea says has responded by saying that irreversibly we should go off by policy, then often the negotiation table. There is a complete parallel between washington and pyongyang, both sides need to come up with some kind of compromised approach and the United States needs to be more bold. Van jackson came up with an interesting report under the name of risk realism and he was arguing that yes, we can set the goal of denuclearization but in actual operation or approach to north korea we might consider adopting Nuclear Arms Control paradigms, therefore we need to think about signing a piece treaty with north korea. Us forces reduction in return for north koreas denuclearization and also push for the perfect opportunity reduction fund, whether its American Fund or International Fund so we can send a clear signal that we are really seriously interested in denuclearization of north korea instead of the incentives and also weve got to think about snapback sanction relief and if we propose some kind of working group with north korea and the snap bracket sanction relief, maybe they can change north korean behavior but of course you may not agree with van jacksons idea, but we must have to think about it and obviously weve got to think about china, russian sanction relief, the regulation proposal. Of course it is very onesided. The proposed regulations talk about incentives with north korea and it didnt talk about in return what kinds of costcutting measures north korea should take towards denuclearization, therefore it is flawed but however the us, United Kingdom and those can come up with Creative Ideas and amend the proposal in such a way to open up a new breakthrough to the kind of stalemate but we have a lot of things to think about. What i want to emphasize is that let us be flexible, let us not be driven by inertia, let us come up with some kind of Creative Ideas going beyond the past dependency, thank you. [applause] more discussion on north korea continues live in just a moment. Affected back from break shortly but we will be discussing International Sanctions tocurb north Koreas Nuclear program. This is hosted by the center for the National Interest in washington dc. [inaudible]. [inaudible]. [inaudible] we are waiting for this discussion to get underway on north korea. Continuing from earlier, the next panel will discuss using International Sanctions to curb north Koreas Nuclear program, hosted by the center for the National Interest. Hi everybody, im jacob, editor of the National Interest and harry has magnanimously asked me to chair this discussion. Which looks like it will be a quarter. It is can sanctions bring about denuclearization or are they, and i will play editorial prerogative, able any waste of time . Our panelists today, first panelist to my immediate left is Lieutenant General Wallace Gregson who is retired former head of us marines in the pacific and a senior fellow here at the center for the nationalinterest. To my further left geographically but not politically is former Lieutenant Colonel danny davis who is a senior fellow at defense priorities and danny is also im pleased to say a regular contributor to the National Interest website and finally to my right henry farren, a senior fellow at the center for international policy. Im reckoning that with all the attention being the stowed upon tehran that pyongyang may be starting to feel a little lonely and so id like to ask chip, what are the prospects for a mother north korean icbm test and how effective have sanctions been in the past and how effective can they be in the future . In short, thank you jacob for the introduction and thank you all for coming and offering your time and attention and commentary and critique. Short answer to jacobs question is the chances for a new missile test, ballistic or otherwise would seem to be fairly high and what was the second part . How effective have sanctions been in the past, how effective can they be in the future . They have not been effective in the past and unless we are willing to puta lot more effort into it it will be effective in the future. The question at the top of the agenda is interesting and david already brought it up but the two parts of the question dont match. Denuclearization is impossible unless we get a big change in conditions but at the same time sanctions can be effective if and only if they contribute to the greater security of japan and the republic of korea. The security of japan and the republic of korea should be our objective in this whole thing, not necessarily denuclearization of north korea that gives all the cards to kim jongun. Effective sanctions are hard, weve proven that. Since the early 90s weve been in a cyclewith every new Administration North korea commit an atrocity or provocation, we get all muscular and pound are just status cant stand. Was recent episode was fire and fury and then cooler heads prevail and we go to negotiations. We go fromnegotiations to agreements. North korea breaks the agreement and we go to sanctions and we always say this time the sanctions will be effective and they havent been yet. Sanctions are hard because youre not dealing with an inanimate object. Youre dealing with putting, devious people and political interests and profit interests that are opposed to the sanctions so its a way to feel good, its a way to excuse not being able to solve the problem. Its a way to kickthe can down the road and sayjust wait , the sanctions will be effective. If effective means freezing north Koreas Nuclear program weve never had effective sanctions. Shared borders work against effective sanctions and our lack of any cooperative effort led by the us with many nations around the globe to shut down north korean organized Crime Networks works against effective sanctions. North korea is a Nuclear Power which like other Nuclear Powers can be deterred and contained and kim has no intention of changing the fact that they are a Nuclear Power. Consider the nature of the regime. Its a family dynasty. Its a hereditarycommunist family dictatorship. Core support is estimated to be 1 million strong. These core supporters for the regime must be kept in a standard of living is high enough to maintain their loyalty along with their coercion and no similar regard obviously extends to the rest of the north korean population. Its been alleged that that situation is more like a barricaded hostage situation in dealing with a member of the family of nations which is amenable to our usual instruments of diplomacy. Organized Crime Networks operate globally in support of the kim crime family. Narcotics, counterfeit currency and most importantly embargoed Weapons Technology among other things are a great source of profit. World powers and International Organizations including the un and eu have pursued economic and financial sanctions on north korea for more than a dozen years to pressure it can be nuclear i. These governments have also deployed sanctions to punish the regime for cyber attacks, Money Laundering and human rights violations. These sanctions may have affected the most disenfranchised of north korea but their effectiveness has been undercut by countries and private interests for politics and for profit. While these sanctions have been in effect north koreas missile and Nuclear Capabilities continue to grow but most recent north Korean Missile tests over the sea of japan demonstrated new maneuvering characteristics that havent been seen before so this is yet another advance and it demotes some of our antimissile capabilities. Last month was the time when all north Korean Nationals earning income abroad estimated to be over hundred thousand were to return home, a requirement levied by Un Resolution 2397 adopted unanimously on 22 december 2017. Very Little Movement occurred. Despite the fact that we said we had effective sanctions. North Koreas Nuclear ambitions are not new. They are thoroughly ingrained and historic and in the 1970s pakistani just abdul con went entrepreneurial with a legally proliferated Nuclear Weapons Technology Area con was originally driven by the need for pakistan to match indias newlyrevealed capabilities. He learned that his patriotic drive could also lead to handsome renumeration. In 2004, he publicly acknowledged illegally proliferating Nuclear Weapons Technology Originally stolen from Great Britain to miranda , libya and north korea over decades. Arms agreements dont last. Washington, as examples we can consider washington disarmamentconference in 1922 , Kellogg Briand pact 10 years later, the inf treaty which just passed into history and certainly north koreas various agreements and promises have not endured either. The Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty is challenged. North koreas ruthless, the better to intimidate adversaries for an and domestic. Past incidents include the murder of another soldier in the joint security area, the shootdown of the us reconnaissance aircraft, the capture of the uss below, the attack on the south korean cabinet of rangoon, attack on the south korean blue house, the execution of kims uncle, closest advisor and chinas man in pyongyang. North korea demonstrated skill and will in the deployment and employment of a weapon of massdestruction. And the assassination of kim jong nam occurred when he was attacked with nerve agent in the kuala lumpur lumber airport. It was the oldest son of the deceased leader kim jongil and the halfbrother of the current leader. The xis one of the most potent nerve agent weapons if not the most potent. The x is odorless and tasteless, and orderly liquid that is amber in colorand slow to evaporate. It evaporates as fast as motor oil and is even more difficult to clean up after. The x is the most potent of the nerve agents we know about. Compared with seven, the x is considered to be more toxic. It enters through the skinand its even more toxic by inhalation. Any visible the x liquid contacting the skin unless washed off immediately will be lethal. This was a sophisticated employment in the airport that they only killed kim jong nam and it didnt kill a crowd. It was a perfect crime. Four suspects left the airport and reached pyongyang without being arrested. Other North Koreans were arrested but released without charge. Having endured under agent attack in the biggest airport one may assume that malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia made calculations that they did not want to incur the wrath of the kim family. North korea is also active in cyberspace. In 2018 north korea was charged with cyber attack on Sony Pictures entertainment of the us and around somewhere attack described but there was no apparent wordplay intended as virtually unparalleled was another one of their gifts. But more importantly, to address directly the question of denuclearization, what could be a more effective survival and security guarantee that could be offered north korea then is Nuclear Weapons and sophisticated delivery means . Secondly, what have we gotten in return for the various concessionsweve made . Third, what can we say, the United States say thatwould be believed and trusted . Our record of fealty to agreements our government has made is not good. Are we willing to extend our Nuclear Deterrence or extend a deterrent to north korea . I submit unless we can get yes to all the answers we need to have another approach and the approach will be as was added in the first seminar, changing our approach, recognizing reality that the objective reality that north korea is a Nuclear Armed state and by pursuing that as our sole objective, pursuing personality diplomacy at the top of our government and this is not the First Administration to do that, or not going to succeed. We need to go to first order of business which is to protect the safety and security of the republic of korea and japan and ours and then work the problem from there. Thank you class thank you chip now ill turn to danny davis for his thoughts and remarks. Sanctions are a tool. Like a pin. A pen and write something brilliant, you can write something stupid. You can write something confusing but its what you do with the pen thats going to matter and at the same thing is with sanctions so sanctions can be an effective tool. They can also be completely pointless and even counterproductive and i think by any measure, any objective measure, we have been in the counterproductive fear for quite some time because the main power that sanctions can have is frankly in their removal. If i place sanctions on you and they are biting and they are painful but i offer you a genuine legitimate opportunity to withdraw those sanctions if whatever the agreedupon or desired outcome is and you do that and then i remove those sanctions i now set a standard that says this needs to happen, this is for our security, but we will follow through and do what we say we will do and demonstrate that and as long as you abide by these agreements, then the sanctions will be released and we will move on and i believe if our objective was the normalization of relations and if we wanted to say lets engage in just taking the emotion out of it, take the personalities out of it, but get into legitimate adult diplomacy, then theres no doubt in my mind that an agreement can be had here and peace is absolutely possible on the Korean Peninsula. I specified piece as opposed to denuclearization because i agree that in the current environment, the Current Situation that exists right now as it has for decades , theres no chance that kim is going to do nuclear rise and if anyone thinks that hes going to denuclearize before getting any sanctions relief, any kind of relief at all, its worse than a fantasy. If youre rational, its illogical and yet there are many in this town that pushed exactly that desire. Somehow we think that because we have a military thats a lot more powerful, that we can basically dictate terms and put pain on them until they do everything we want the problem is the sanctions almost never come off. Weve added sanctions and dullness not in north korea but across the board in many nations andthey almost never come off. What the other side does what we want them to or not, we say well they cheated so will put them back on or whatever and the net resultis nothing ever gets resolved. Nothing moves forward. Now, the primary objective of the United States department of defenses defense and security of the United States and our citizens and i can assure you that our military, our global power, our ability to projectpower is unmatched, unrivaled on the planet. We can reach out and defend ourselves if anyone watches an unprovoked attack with our existing force structure, without any additional deployment, certainly with our Nuclear Deterrence and our ability to move intentional power area that they are unrivaled and Everybody Knows that. Wedont need to send signals, we dont need to send a message, theyve got. Everybody on the planet understands , believe me that we will use force if we think our interests are threatened and we do it allthe time that we dont need any new messages there. But we do need is a recognition of what is reality. If we have successfully deterred stalin and his fourth in the soviet union with Nuclear Power and you talk about a blamer, kim is nothing, hes a neophyte compared to that or mouse a tongue and any of the other chinese leaders after that. They were murderous people, many of them. They had Nuclear Weapons and yet they were deterred because what underscores all of them is they want to live. They want their regime to continue to thrive and they want to operate in the confines of the country so you see now we have compared to what used to be good relations with russiaand with china , with our former director for partner vietnam, where not improving relations there and yet those governments havent changed, their relatively what they were before you just there existence is not a threat to the United States military power that kim jongun has is just a fraction of what we have and it can be deterred easily. He knows that. His Nuclear Deterrence is for self reservation so that he wants to communicate that if we ever tried to do something to him what happened with qaddafi and saddam and some of these others that he wants to communicate i have the ability that they didnt to take out millions of people, whether its on our soil or in the region, whatever. He wants to make sure thats the case to prevent that outcome but thats the intent. Its not to have this authentic capability that one day i will launch a missile that would be suicidal and if theres anything you can say about kim, he isbrutal, he is murderous , the general talked about what he did with his brother there. Kim jong nam. smorality is he doesnt care about this kind of stuff but he does want to live and he does want to continue to have power and maintain it and he doesnt want to commit suicide as if anything you can see hes wanting to expand the economy. Hes wanting to improve the quality of life for his country, all those things can work to our advantage because we can see this is not an irrational actor. Hes calculated that he understands the dynamic of power and understands hes way on the bottom and we are way on the top and if he goes too far he knows we can eliminate his regime and kill him and hes not going to do that area armed with that we can say lets start working more cooperatively with our south korean allies. I was in hanoi last february when there was a deal on the table and i had met with some south korean officials and other americans who have had some understandings and there was a deal on the table. The papers were in the process of being finalized and had already been written for what the agreement was. So the south korean side, people said they were disappointed and it wasnt a bigger deal but a full deal is fine because within weeks they told me they were already ready to launch in to the next summit to continue the process and continue the momentum because they want to improve interkorean relations, deepening economic ties, make more friendly stuff with relocation of family members that have been separated, all those things were positive and would have continued the process. North korea once a stepbystep operation, south korea is happy and still to this day advocates a parallel stepbystep movement. That makes sense and thats in our interest. Anything we do that moves towards peace that moves away from confrontation, that moves away from them shooting missiles and testingNuclear Weapons is a win for us. We dont have to trust kim, we dont have to trust our security to anything he may say or any promises because our military deterrent is that guaranteed. We guarantee our security like that. We dont need to use force. We dont need to threaten the military option. What we need to do is recognize they are a Nuclear Power. They are, not that they might be or we can try to prevent them, thats one of the biggest holes in the logic of john boltons comments of recent weeks because you cant stop them from what they already have so all you can do is potentially start a conflict and a war in which potentially hundreds of thousands or millions would die for no reason, no purpose and its definitely not something thats necessary. The opportunity for peace is on the table. If we are willing to recognize that reality and recognize our security is not threatened and move towards really working much more closely with our south korean allies as they have a better understanding of this than anyone , and we can work in parallel with that and say one of the things we have to be willing to do to make all this happen, let me clarify. We have to recognize we dont get to dictate and say here are the terms. Any negotiation of any size whether its something youre negotiating with your company or sometimes with your kids, as ive sometimes done, all right. Ill do this and then you do that and in the negotiation, each side has to come out with something that wants in order to have an agreement that all can live with. For me to get what i want youve got to be able to get a little bit of what you want and thats what we havent been willing to do on a broad number of things across our Foreign Policy. We just wanted to be all our way and it ran is a great example. We want them to do what we tell them to do and we dont give them the opportunity to even possibly have a success or else its called weakness and capitulation and all kinds of silly stuff that prevents a peaceful outcome area if we can get the point to where we are willing to say north korea whether i like your government style or not, whether i like your leader or not they are a valid independent nation and they have their own needs as they see it and if we can allow them to have something they want that doesnt threaten us and that we can get them to give something concrete that we want and that wont hurt them, then i think you got the possibility that over time they can move towards and we can get an action that maybe five, 10, 15 years down the road. While i agree with the sentiments, i i think they are totally unrealistic in the present context. Next up we have and i should say for the benefit of those watching on television that that was former Lieutenant Colonel danny davis, senior fellow at defense priorities. We are hosting at the center for National Interest a daylong seminar on the north korea conundrum. Our next and final panelist is a senior fellow at the center for international policy. Thank you for having me. Its an honor especially to speak on a panel with such illustrious speakers. So ive been asked to talk about sanctions, and to me its clear that any Serious Research on north korea has to fight a coherent explanation as to why despite decades of sanctions and pressure the country has neither surrendered nor collapsed. And, in fact, my very first paper on north korea many years ago was precisely on that question. It was on the north korean economy. The conclusion that has crystallized for me over the years is that sanctions, hower strong, simply do not represent an existential threat to the country. They cause damage but not merely on the scale of previous challenges the country has overcome. Such as postsoviet economic crisis and the horrendous dammann of the 1990s. And since sanctions to represent an existential threat they cannot force north korea to give what it sees as its ticket to survival, namely Nuclear Weapons. Administration after administration, thats on sanctions and into overestimating the ability of sanctions to subdue north korea. President trump just found this out the hard way. He believed so much in sanctions that he refused at the hanoi summit, a Nuclear Freeze deal that would have improved u. S. National security, thinking kim jongun could be pressed for more. Evidently that didnt happen. North Korean Leader kim jongun gestated in his de facto new years speech he would not discuss denuclearization and tullius agreed to peace, and called on north korea to call for protracted conflict in the meanwhile. The logic of sanctions may appear convincing when divorce from its history of failure. The Trump Administration has repeatedly stated in the past week that sanctions are designed to impose on north korea a choice, a choice between prosperity if it denuclearize is, and poverty if it doesnt. That seems easy enough but that is clearly not how kim sees the situation. In his speech he in fact, reiterated that Nuclear Weapons were north koreas ultimate guarantee us security. Against a u. S. Military intervention and that it was no use bartering them away to the rich today and dead tomorrow. Trumps maximum pressure did cause significant damage to north korea. As my coauthors and i found in an october 2019 report, assessing the impact of sanctions on the population. In effect he took what was supposed to be a socalled smart sanctions regime designed to target the military in the elite, and expanded it in 2017 in 2017 to a global an almost total ban on any north Korea Related trade, investment and financial transaction. Now, this has consequences of course to the population. It is interfered with the ability of both International Aid groups and the north korean government to address the humanitarian needs of the population we estimated the disruption to you and programs alone costs about 4000 deaths in 2018. These adverse consequences raise serious legal and moral concerns that should be further investigated. That said, if were going back to the question of what website and are effective i i didnt see any evidence the sanctions are successful in changing the Government Security policies. Kim in his speech called quote to foil the enemies sanctions and blockade by selfreliance, end quote. And called to return to military to dublin. That is precisely the opposite of what sanctions are supposed to achieve. He did acknowledge certain economic difficulties but visibly they were not enough to change his mind. If we want to try to have the picture of the north korean economy we have to work with very difficult very little reliable estimation. One often quoted figure of the gdp as of the south Korean National bank. Estimated the north korean gdp fell by 4 in 2017, at about the same in 2018. So it paints the picture of a recession because that is maximum pressure pyongyang itself painted a different picture. It doesnt was gdp estimates. The next best thing we have from pyongyang itself is reports on the state budgetary revenue every year. There it paints the picture of a slowing of growth. It went from 6 was 16 the 4 in plus 4 in 2017, and plus 4 in 2018. Which of the two are we supposed to believe . We can see otherwise that Foreign Exchange rates remain stable, that pump prices for oil and diesel appears to have stabilized. And there is no reports of significant unrest for what its worth in this country. One has also come when one talks about the impact of sanctions one also has to talk about china, north korea trade. Chinas north korean trade partner since accounts for fr 90 of its trade. And im going to give you some numbers to illustrate the impact of maximum pressure. At its peak in 2014 china north korea trade was about 7 billion. According to chinese officials. Four years later later in 22 basically the year after maximum pressure was adopted, it dropped to 2. 4, going from seven seven4 sounds like a scary drop but do you know what the number was in 1999 at the height of the famine . 0. 35. Basically theres been a skyrocketing of north koreachina trade in the past decades, and so what maximum pressure has done in practice is just set north koreachina trade back about ten years, and thats more or less at the time of the sunshine policy. That doesnt look like an existential threat. Moreover, chinas official reports understate how much Economic Health is actually undergoing. First, they dont include smuggling. They also dont include tourism, and is been reports that Chinese Tourists have been flooding north korea come so much so that north korea has had to refuse some because theres too many. The numbers also dont include chinese aid to north korea. Just a couple days ago there was a report that china was planning to send hundreds of thousands of food aid, hundreds of thousands of tons of food aid over the next few months to north korea. And the reason china is doing this is quite simple. It doesnt want a collapsed state with Nuclear Weapons adrift that extorts them. So what we have seen from 2017 to today is aging flip from agreeing with maximum pressure to being the primary force against it, not just on the ground but also at the human where it is pushing for sanctions relief. So we have sanctions in north korea and china is poking a bickle in maximum pressure. What do we do . I do not pollute doubling down on sanctions with a maximum pressure 2. 0 would succeed either. Theres little left to sanction at you and level not to mention chinese and russian opposition now. And the logic of maximum pressure 2. 0 proposal hinges instead on stronger use enforcement of sanctions which means mostly finding chinese entities implicit incented im highly dubious this can again to an exessential threat from north korea or its just a cherry on top of the cake. A report on the impact of sanctions found evidence thousands of deaths, not merely the hundreds of thousands of deaths of the famine. Then theres the question of how much resources the u. S. Wants to pour into this. Is it willing to escalate up to which point is willing to escalate . This was beijing. I will conclude with to change north koreas Security Policies and thereby to improve the security of the United States and its allies we have to address what ongoing actually considers an existential threat. The risk of military solution. Kim has stated throughout his speech that he will not denuclearize until quote, iws rolls back hostile policy and a lasting and durable peace mechanism is in place, end quote. Its clear to me we cannot convince north korea to lower its weapons without giving them adequate assurance that they will not be harmed afterwards. So the question now for the United States is, is a better to be faced with hostile Nuclear Power or are not hostile what if we cannot get rid of the nuclear part . Thank you. Excellent, thank you very much. So the issue of sanctions is actually been around for decades, proceeding even iran. One of the big issues with south africa, whether the United States should impose sanctions on the Apartheid Regime seems to be one of the distinctions, one of the reasons that sanctions worked on south africa but they wouldnt necessarily work on iran or north korea is because there was also the aspiration on the part of the south african regime to be part, perceived as part of the western democracies. Now, if your authoritarian or totalitarian regime and are simply indifferent or hostile to the notion of being a democracy or being perceived as a partner or outlet of the United States, then the symbolic impact of sanctions is totally nugatory. You are relying solely on the economic impact, which history does suggest these regimes can get it out, and thats what theyre doing right now. Id like to return to danny davis, a senior fellow a defense priorities earlier remarks about how we should be working more with north korea. Now, i agree with principal and i think hes right, trump couldve had a deal in hanoi, but the problem is President Trump for the most part doesnt accept deals. Its my way or the highway. Theres no compromise. So he actually hasnt made 30 many deals. So i would ask danny, and especially in the light of whats going on in iran now, we have trump breathing now fire and fury at iran, not north korea, and actually appearing to back it up and backing himself at least rhetorically into a corner, that it will be difficult for him to extricate himself from. So, danny, is it in fact, pieinthesky to hope that things will change in the u. S. Posture towards north korea . Or does it really depend on given how mercurial trump is, if you had a democratic president , maybe trump has broken enough ice that you could crack a deal, or if trump is reelected in the second term, does he perform another uturn and figured that he wants to keep the pressure on iran so needs to do with north korea . What i described was what is possible. Given the pieces that exist and history that exists and the capability on all sides that exist, this is what is possible. What i didnt even talk about was whether its probable, given the current political leader here in the United States. He would have to go through a major change, and i am very close ally to what youre saying in terms of trumps, you know, its my way or the highway, or its my way or the missiles, as hes been doing lately with the fire and fury. If trump comes to the position to wear, and he has, if anybody is able to do a pivot or uturn even and not think twice, it trump because hes done on some other issues domestically especially, and its conceivable he could do that. If he comes to the calculation in his own mind that this is something that can end up with a political win for me or it can help me electorally, and i can see what he could make that micah does, look at fast he went from fire and fury two hey come hes my best friend i do love them, you, with kim so he has done it before and so its at least theoretically possible he could do it again but it is much more difficult now because he started with fire and fury and is easier to start a a part and come back soft rather than to go backwards again. Of course what i think kim jongun has to be careful of is that he doesnt do anything that will make trump look stupid or embarrass him. Because now it will be much were difficult for trump to do anything else. One of the reasons why we had this whole switch in the first place is because kim jonguns willingness at the olympics in 2018 to soften himself a lot, a lot more accommodating and making it easy for trump to make his move in there. I dont know if kim can do that now either. It could be calm he may calculate kim, may calculate that its just, which is going to wait out the next year and see what happens with the election. Maybe a new person can come in from ground zero and we can start off on a new chapter and move forward, or he may say, maybe he throws another all of leaf out there to see if trump can maybe send another beautiful letter maybe even our gives him a base, who knows, Something Like that to break yes, and they can say hey, im willing to make a deal but something has to change on the current dynamic because i just dont see trump being the one to initiate a softening of anything because he is loath to appear weak. Well, with that i would like to solicit michael, fire away, as it were. Please, as it were. [laughing] [inaudible] you need the microphone, michael. Yes. [inaudible] yes, were on now. By its very nature given where we are, our discussions going to be at a a tactical level, so we all talking insider baseball. I understand that, but change continues and for the longerterm there is an embedded existential assumption that all americans share, that this is going to turn out eventually our way and we are basing that not just on the mythology of the outcome in the cold war and elsewhere, that generally our beliefs and cosmology. Were looking at a situation where we anticipate at some point north korea would become weaker and weaker and eventually something will happen. They will crack or they will cave or they will give up but they will see the light, but one of the things we havent done is take away the blinders. And for a moment look at a situation where it is north korea that south korea, the rok, that begins to dissent up with north korea in a situation longterm of advantage. Why would i say that . South korea has the lowest fertility in asia, and like japan, which is losing people at over i think at least half million if not more now every year, a career that is losing people and enters a phase of societal demoralization. Changes the dynamic in the relationship between the two koreas. So i would want to ask as a question, what would the dynamic have to be in the longerterm future for north korea, the pd rk, to be able to reunite the peninsula on its terms . The reason i ask such a strain sound question is that if indeed were beginning to see her will in future see a decline in the optimism of south korea, and this would be something similar say to what happen in the era of stagnation which was decisive in the last days of the soviet union. What would we need to do to prevent a north korea that was suddenly becoming stronger from being able to achieve the longterm strategic victory and to make the great vision of the way of the land . Michael from Johns Hopkins university is never at a loss for provocative question. Who wants to general gregson looks like he wants to take that first. Michael, thank you for the question. The extended question. One short answer might be we go back to the principles that we established at bretton woods, that democracy is a value, we are accused by various nations of establishing a global system. Youre damn right we did. We based it on free trade. We basted on democracy. We base it on free. We are campaigning against, imperialism, hegemon is him, all of these things, and we set up a system where we profited because our allies and friends profited. We decided somewhere around the collapse of the soviet union that we had nobody left to fight so we quit talking like that. If were going to get and consequently i would argue the number of functioning democracies around the world is in decline. If we want to prevent a north korea and absorption take over finland isolation of south cryptoware to start working much more productively with our allies and friends than we have here 24. I think it was henri mentioned kims what, seven our presentation to the plenum . How many times that he mentioned the republic of korea . Zero. This should be frightening to us. Us. While we engaged in a penny any dispute with the republic of korea over changing the amount of money they provide for host nation support as if us having forces for the put in korea is not in our interest also, then were missing the point. South korea is a functioning brilliant democracy we fought for once, we got it set up but it started off as military dictatorship famously transitioned to a gogo productive democracy and this is worth saving. But we are not going to get there by concentrating on having a relationship with kim jongun to the detriment of a relationship with japan and the republic of korea. Henri . So on north koreas intention regarding south korea, frankly it very hard to know what they really are. The official position of north korea is to have confederal reunification. It would basically be one country, two systems in a way that probably does that press not giving all the tablet in hong kong. That said, i find it difficult to believe that north korea could reunified by force because you cant if youre going to nuke a place down, thats really not much to live right after that. [inaudible] so what i have been seeing nationally from the Trump Administration in the past two years is originally south korea had been sort of the motor to keep the conversation on good terms basically. And starting towards the end of 2018, there started to be worry within the Trump Administration that south korea was going too fast, especially what seems to have been the elements that led to this worry was in the Korean Military agreement. The reason the Trump Administration reacted to this, i believe, is that it was still operating on the assumption that sanctions had brought north korea to the table, rather than the opportunity to actually reduce the military threat. I think the moon shone on administration was operating on the assumption that the crucial what north korea cared about was a reduction of military threat. So from trumps perspective interkorean reconciliation was not helpful because it would poke a hole in maximum pressure, whereas from the Moon Administration perspective, reconciliation was helpful because of reduced the threat level. And i think the fact that kim jongun now decide to go back to military development is what is the element that shows that ultimately the Moon Administration had a point there, that north korea doesnt care as much about the threat of sanctions as it does about the military threat. So there is a way now to just let interkorean reconciliation happen, and to see how it evolves in a controlled manner. So yeah, that would be my answer to your question. Thank you. Daniel davis. Especially if youre taking the potential by force, if the parties of the table i dont think the other part in the foreseeable future is even possible because i think the drink train has overlooked the station. South korea is used to powerful and every aspect, whether its modernity, certainly economic and military power, too. I think it is undervalued too often. I served on the Korean Peninsula and i was an american advisor to the second republic of korea army dent in the south, and gosh, that was back in the 90s and i can tell you that they have evolved and developed since then. Theyre quite a potent force on the own right and theres some debate as to whether they even need is there to defend themselves in or because their conventional power is substantially higher than that of north korea, acrosstheboard relief in any category you want to talk about. I think what can mitigate that having to be concerned about is, is if we can again kind of reshape the terms of the discussion, engagement with north korea and look more on say hey, lets put this back in the primarily in the diplomatic and Economic Development sphere because i do think President Trump has been right in his, to the what north korea could become. At any, we have seen that happen with china. We have seen it happen with vietnam and certainly with south korea. With the help and engagement from the International Community on an economic basis, theres plenty of opportunity. North korea is so much than as others, probably made in decades but its something that can be measured. We dont have to have kim jongun change anything else. S. B. Frank with the government we deal with on a regular basis in turkey and in saudi arabia. I mean, theres not a whole lot of happy and democracy of people not doing things we otherwise dont like their and yet we find a way to work with them especially when its mutually beneficial kinds of things but we dont turn them into an enemy because they dont do what we want. The same thing to be true with north korea as well and theres opportunity that can be had i can see them develop and, of course, the more youre developing the far less likely you have an interest in going to the military path. Do we have another zinger from wayne, american Foreign Policy council. I i wouldnt say a zinger in this case. You discussed sanctions as a policy rather than sanctions as enforcement. And i have long thought one of the most lucrative activity in the world must be sanctions busting. If i were young man and would want to make money quick, i would go into sanctions busting if i could get away with it. The u. S. Treasury does a phenomenal job of identifying and enforcing financial sanctions. I mean, they really are good at this sort of thing. But if your data with an economy that is not vulnerable to the kind of advance sanctions, you have a significant disadvantage. I used to watch north korean diplomats in east germany smuggling quite only from the diplomatic store across the street into their embassy from which they use the special status of west berlin to move this stuff, and i mean including narcotics, all over europe to find all the diplomatic activities in europe and the mediterranean, africa, and the near east out of their seoul diplomatic post in east berlin, which is hostile as it happens. It fits somehow. My point is that the dprk is now in the third, fourth, or even fifthgeneration of total shamelessness when it comes to sanctions busting, and experience and cleverness in knowing how to deal with, find and deal people are motivated by money. And since they do this at a level that falls below the financial radar screen with which we are most sophisticated, i come to my basic question, how do the two or three of you evaluate the level of practical enforcement with the dvr case two land border neighbors . Because if they aint enforcing it rigorously, i dont see that sanctions have much of a chance. So how would the two of you evaluate prc and Russian Federation practical enforcement of not the american sanctions but the internationally agreed u. N. Sanctions . General gregson . Were not effective at all, and your anecdote about east berlin and west berlin and the use of the diplomatic pouch and the channel and everything to smuggle i think supports that. Recall come i mention that you and resolution 2397 unanimous approval that all the nations that were hosting north korean laborers had to send them home. Zero. The episode in early 2000s when we sanctioned banko delta asia that went after the luxury goods, if you will, budget, the ruling kim then. China objected because it hurt some other interest so we back off it. There was a brief moment time maybe were effective with the target sanction in my opinion but politics would not allow that to go on. More broadly we have ample experience from our own shores during the revolution and during the civil war, and during world war ii with the access of the extreme difficulty in trying to sanction or Blockade Movement of goods and services, people and of the thing else. Is really hard. In my impression we boldly declare sanctions and this time it will be effective. We do in unp we do it nicely. We dont with other International Organizations and they we save my job here is done. Done. But as you point out with the postulating a bright ambitious person, Good Business to get into is sanction busting, we e dealing with cunning, sophisticated, very capable people that are going to react to what we do and find ways about it here and unless were willing to go to a lot of effort and expense to shut down the koreachina border and the korea russian border on land, as hard as that is, were not even doing it i dont think effectively at sea with all the heavy traffic that goes there. So sanctions are not an answer to their just a last resort we tried everything else. Everything north korea commits a provocation. The only way out of this, i i submit, is to go back to what is really important here, and its a Safety Security of the lights and values of our allies and friends, and work outward from there and what falls out of that might be negotiation. What false and that might be some otherwise targeted sanctions that what might fall out of that is on the military, science side, so more sophisticated deterrent so we can to deterrence i denial as well as deterrence by threat of punishment. All of these things, and if we are taking care of our allies and friends i submit the rest of it will work out in some sort of fashion or other. We did know how the cold war is going to end with the soviet union either. There were certain doubts along the way, and the ending kind of surprised us when it came up. You were probably there. But when it going to change the objective fact that kim has Nuclear Weapons and we need to craft policy to do with it. My point about kim not even considering mentioning the republic of korea, this indicates we have, in my opinion, a lot of work to do with one of our principal asian allies here to get our policies more in some sort of agreement even if we have differences in how to do it, but we personalized this with a kim potus dialogue that completely dismisses the concerns of her alice and france. I recall recent short range bother us. Japan is within range of shortrange missiles of the republic of korea as well as guam and parts of alaska, but its to tell japan that kims shortrange missiles dont bother us after japan come sorry, after north korea shot a missile over japan august 31, 1998, is not helpful to Building Alliance cohesion here. Go ahead. Thank you. We have one question here that i want to get to. I guess the irony of sanctions, u. N. Sanctions is that ended up just pushing north korea into the unsaturated. The only thing that, the dealings of other countries with north korea are heavily monitored and policed. The dealings that are going on between china and north korea, there is at this chinese saying that the mountains are high and the emperor is far away. Really beijing will say and will insist they are applying the letter of the sanctions even though they also insist that they are fundamentally opposed to u. S. Unilateral sanctions. And but the level of enforcement that goes on has fluctuated widely. And as was mentioned before, we have seen things going from strict enforcement just when the sanctions were adopted to now a situation where, i mean, we dont have the numbers of chinanorth korea trade in 2019, but the first half was saying was up 14 . And again, these are figures that dont include all the smuggling that might be going on. I would think the trend is toward more smuggling and now. We have a final question here. Could you please identify yourself . Connie kim from the away. I have two questions, one towards general gregson prick you mentioned the sanctions can be effective only if they contribute to the scared of koreajapan. I was wonder what kind of sanctions you would suggest in order to protect the security of these two allies . And then for lieutenant davis, i believe you suggested a stepbystep approach in terms of north korea sanctions release antinuke was a process is a practical way forward. In terms of the u. S. Even considering some kind of sanctions relief, what do we need to get from the north korea site in terms of their actions . Very quickly on your first one, i dont have any crystal ball on exactly what sanctions would look like that better protect the republic of korea and japan, but this is part of the issue i think that we should be working much more closely with our allies than we seem to be now. We have to be working with president moon and his government on what we can do that both nations support, rather than as dr. Moon said this morning, President Trump feels hes caught in a in a box between the United States and that dprk. I think in terms of some potentials that could be stepbystep at least to start the ball rolling in it, subsequently bigger and larger and more substantive chunks, but some of the things that of talked about already, north korea could potentially offer up the dismantlement of the nuclear facility. They could potentially provide a listing of their Nuclear Weapons capabilities. They could potentially move some forces back, some of sorry, the artillery forces, they could physically move them back out of range for seoul. That could all be talented and verified. Other side could offer up moving some of the American Forces back from some of the areas where they are. We could say hey, we will not just suspend the major jewels. We also spent all the drills as long as we get some sort of concrete something in response. Everything is conditioned on both sides, as as each side does with their say, you keep moving things for the back from conflict and to potentially build confidence to move to the more challenging the more difficult things later on. Another one is an actual Peace Agreement or maybe started off with the cessation of hostilities to formalize that because again everything that moves in the direction, some of the steps can be small, maybe some can be bigger but now we need to start with something just to get the ball rolling. It turns out we do have time for another question. Our respondents were so lucid and terse. Right here. Please identify yourself. [inaudible] wait one second. We have to get the tim with the nation magazine. I have been writing about to make a koreas since the 1970s. It looks like i been coming for a long, long time. I lived there and i have written very critically about the role of the u. S. Military in south korea, particularly 1980, 1979, 1980 were 1980 where i made i believe United States military made some critical, terrible mistakes in dealing with the south korean situation at the time. But i have also taught, the last time in korea with harry in 2018, at the summit with the pyongyang summit were recovered it from seoul. Ive also talked to a lot of military people and i have sort of activators of people on the left by saying that i dont think over the last two years, by saying i dont think the paragon come people in mr. Comey is military do not want war with korea. People automatic is a yes, u. S. Military, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, ive heard from loss of motor people ive spoken to both here and when i been in korea is about they know the lessons from they know north korea, the lessons of the korean war and im wondering what to make people here, especially general gregson from the marines, u. S. Marines suffered a terrible, terrible defeat in the chosin reservoir. Just unbelievable suffering. Surrounded by chinese military. How much does that play into how one currently serving American Military in south korea, that the experience of the korean war, how does that shape your views toward the potential for war and the real danger of war . Well, those conditions that you describe are abundantly evident, and history lives one small anecdote. The marine corps spent more hours teaching history in boot camp and we do on any of the subject. Of course it is history by our definition, designed for a certain purpose. But any conflict in korea is going to be terrifically brutal. Before we even i get to worrying about the people in uniform, youve got some korea expert helping you here either the Worlds Largest megacity or secondlargest, seoul come within range of uncounted numbers of two and rocket artillery up in the case on heights which by the way has not been subject to any one of the negotiations lately that i have heard. Were tight but nukes. But north korea has got the capability to create massive casualty affects very quickly with all the conventional artillery. I dont think youre going to find anybody in the pentagon or in uniform out of uniform that is been in uniform that is arguing much about in favor of a conflict in korea. Its not what were trying to do. Its also, back to the point i keep trying to stress here, that whats important here is the safety and security of the republic of korea and japan, whos also very, very much in range, and its not necessarily a one on one, us versus kim jongun. I could just tell you from my personal experience, everything from highintensity conflict in desert storm, tank on tank come to survey on the eastwest border during the cold war, active patrol with the second u. S. Calvary and counterinsurgency stuff both in afghanistan and iraq since that time come at the time i was in korea where he spent a lot of time studying history and going and wanting the battlefields looking at the actual combat plans we had, very sinners if this happen it would be the response and heres the contingencies and all that kind of separate the look of what north cree has on the other side. Anyone in uniform who just does the this most cursory understanding of what would be involved with even a relatively small scale engagement would quickly say thats thats something we want to do because visually nothing to win. Which side will have world war i type mentality victory . Once the thing is engaged its just bloody, whos going to outlast the other one. Because unlike come like in desert storm where the ability to have really take sleeping maneuvers and we could like these guys come come up behind come whatever and then see them and move them over here, or in the counterinsurgency stuff where its at Knight Ridder something that affect, small click here and at with helicopters inc. , 82nd, those kind of things, ive been involved with all those, done come here. Everyone recognizes the cost of conventional conflict would be just catastrophic on anyone who is involved with it. Quick interjection or one of the thing i might add with regard to that, we tend to think as result of our experience for making 509053 that any conflict in korea now would remain confined to the peninsula. Thats abundantly not true. The range and accuracy of weapons available to everybody now indicates a conflict in korea would be a conflict everywhere, japan, taiwan, south east asia. And thats armageddon. Well, i think this is a good segue center talk about the military. I would note that napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach, and is i believe time to break for lunch year. I would like to thank all three of our panelists for the insights and comments today. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] congress is backed is weak. The house i get to send the two articles of impeachment to the senate or decide on impeachment managers. Eventually the senate will sit as a twotier the cases against President Trump are we expect the senate to take up the u. S. Mexicocanada trade agreement which the house approved in december. Congress will do President Trump deliver the state of the Union Address february 4 the senate is in today at three eastern live here on cspan2. The house is back tomorrow on cspan. For 40 years cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. , up on cspan we are going to show you s