Focus 580; Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies

This morning in the first hour of the show we will review the continuing conflict between the United States and North Korea. The U.S. for some time now has been arguing that North Korea's nuclear ambitions pose a threat both to its neighbors and to the United States. The Pyongyang government for its part says that it feels threatened by the United States and wants both normal relations and economic assistance. This morning in this part of the show we will be talking with two guests who approach the subject of engagement with North Korea in different ways. Our guests are Victor Cha from Georgetown University. He is the Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies and professor of government in the Edmund Walsh School of Government at Georgetown. Our other guest is David Kang He's professor of government at Dartmouth College and he's also adjunct associate professor at the Tuck School of Business there at Dartmouth. Together they have authored a book laying out their different points of view on the subject. The book is titled nuclear North Korea a debate on engagement strategies and it's published

by the Columbia University Press. It is in bookstores. If you'd like to read up on the subject. And of course as we talk questions and comments are welcome. We do ask callers to be brief so that we can get in as many as possible and keep the program moving. Anyone however who is listening is welcome to call here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line. And that's good. Anywhere that you can hear us around Illinois and Indiana if you're listening over the air or if you're listening on the internet as long as you're in the United States you may use the toll free line. That's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 wy yellow and toll free 800 1:58 WLM Professor Cha Good morning good morning and Professor Kang Hello. Hi there. Thanks very much to both of you for being with us. I think the may be the place we might start is this. I think that particularly for people here in the United States they have a difficult time thinking about how we should approach North Korea

because of the difficulty of understanding what it is that motivates the government of North Korea. And often I think the when we are in a situation like that the Fed back position is to simply dismiss. The leadership and say well they're not rational so there's no way we can really understand what it is they're trying to do or what where they're coming from. And maybe both of us do. I guess we can go in alphabetical order at least to start. Maybe I'll start with Professor Cha. Maybe both of you can talk a little bit about To the extent that we do understand it. What what it is that the government of North Korea wants. Well thanks. David I mean the first thing that I would say is in response your question is that's exactly why we wrote the book. This tends to be an issue that gets sort of left way in the face of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the stakes are very high here. We're talking about potential nuclear weapon

ration of missiles you know possibly war. And there's very little that's not about the country you know for two reasons one because the regime itself is so opaque. And two because the level of interest generally tends to be much lower with regard to this issue than it does with regard to Iraq or the events in Afghanistan. So this is why we wrote this book. My first cut at your question which is in terms of the regimes intentions I've always been concerned that North Korea in its current drive for nuclear weapons really seeks to become a nuclear weapon state. That is not simply seeking to give up these weapons or help from the outside world but it really wants to become a nuclear weapon. And a proposed new sounds as if you're to take the other point of view that says that perhaps what the North Koreans are using the nuclear weapons for as a chip as a bargaining chip and that their concern is they would like to be brought into the

world community have normal relations with the West and certainly one thing we do know is that they do desperately need help from outside. I mean I wouldn't even say that they're using it as a chip which implies more of a calculated gamble will start this program up just in order to get rid of it. Well I think North Korea wants a diplomatic solution to the 50 year war that we have had with North Korea and a resolution to that kind of a conflict. To me the key question is whether North Korea has genuine security concerns or not if they don't then they are trying to just blackmail or extort if they do have security concerns. And unless we do unless we address those They're not going to disarm. And it would be very surprising if they did. And so I think they're willing to trade those nuclear weapons for a diplomatic solution with the United States and the one thing I would say about a sort of relentless drive towards nuclear weapons is if they really wanted nuclear weapons they would have done it 10 years ago on this question of

whether or not North Korea has genuine security concerns now what the government has said in response to the kind of comments that President Bush has made. They make it sound as if that is that the government North Korea makes it sound as if they feel genuinely threatened by the United States now we could say from our point of view that we're not going to start a war with North Korea. But that's just saying that is probably not going to make them feel any better about the threat that we constitute if indeed they think that we do. And then then that's not than that sets aside the issue of any potential threat coming from any place else. Is there indeed a genuine security threat. To. To the to the north. Sure. I mean what we have is we have in our midst of the Korean War has never been formally ended. We have no peace treaty with North Korea so we are still formally at war with North Korea. Remember all the stuff that had to happen last summer when

not Bush wanted to get approval from Congress to start a war in Iraq. He didn't have to do that with North Korea because we're still at war right now. We can attack quote unquote at any time. We have them targeted in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review. We have a pretty big drop in troops on the ground. This is a this is a situation in which there is not a whole lot of friendship between the two countries. This is Victor. Yeah again you see it differently. Yeah I see it differently and again this is why this is why we wrote the book I mean in the sense that for your listeners out there readers of the book get an opportunity to hear two opposing arguments on North Korean intentions and how to deal with North Korea and the problem with a lot of the stuff up there on North Korea the little it there is tends to be very one sided either you know a super hawkish attitude or super dovish attitude and what we try to do in the book is say Here are the two best arguments from a more skeptical and more optimistic perspective you decide for yourself which makes more sense. But you know I tend to disagree with with Dave on

this notion of the United States hosting an imminent threat to the north. The North Koreans certainly have seen the United States on the peninsula for 50 years but the U.S. position on the Peninsula has been entirely defensive. United States has no intention to invade or attack North Korea without provocation. The basis of the US alliance relationship with North Korea formed in 1000 53 and 54 was one in which the United States would. Come to the aid of Korea. If it ever were attacked by the North on the few occasions that you had three leaders that wanted to do something to the north without provocation United States explicitly said absolutely not that we have we harbor no aggressive intentions. Some people I think would argue that this whole relationship has been complicated by the fact that. Well that we were at this point once before in the Clinton administration and that the Clinton administration had the same concerns that the Bush administration does

about the possibility that North Korea would develop nuclear weapons and entered into an agreement with the North to try to help them with the things that they needed most and made agreements to help them with supplying energy in the short term to supply them with oil and then in the long term to build some nuclear power plants that could be that were specifically for generating energy for that as opposed to making material that you could make bombs out of and then in exchange with the North Koreans were supposed to agree to as that they were then going to stop their nuclear program now. There are again two sides to this but again looking at the side of the United States in the West I think some people would argue that we failed to fulfill the commitment we made to North Korea and that that only made things more difficult between the two sides. Well this is Victor I mean the notion that the United States failed to live up to the agreed framework I think is an and I know my father day's going to

disagree with me very vigorous. It is I think a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the events. There was an agreement in which the United States would provide interim sources of fuel oil and in conjunction with Japan and South Korea to build more political action resistant light water reactors in North Korea. They did fall behind in the schedule of implementing that. But in the end the United States up until the current nuclear crisis fulfilled every commitment down to the dollar that it made in terms of giving us well shipments to North Korea and moving forward with a light water reactor project so they fell behind schedule there's no denying that. But they fulfilled what they were going to do. At the same time when the North Korean side they did things that were in violation of the agreement they were not completely innocent in this matter. They were taking steps that were clearly in violation of the agreement. The most egregious of which was the idea of starting a second covert nuclear weapons program which

clearly violated the spirit of the 1994 agreement an agreement. I have to admit was which was a very good agreement one negotiated by my current boss George family in a tourist village. Well let's hear Let me turn to David Kang beak and have you respond to both but specifically that last point because someone is some people indeed will argue well that may be. We have not been as as diligent in fulfilling the agreements as we said we would but at the same time what we've found out in this was that when things have gotten particularly tense over the last year or so we found out that in fact the government of North Korea had a secret program to develop weapons and that they were in fact doing what they promised they would not do in secret. The North Koreans said in the summer of 1998 you guys are not fulfilling your side of the bargain. And if you continue to not fulfill the Five-Year bargain we may start up another program. So it really was really no surprise. And this is absolutely where Victor and I disagree because

it is one thing to say OK we basic. Want to do this but we're just having some troubles and it's another to have a genuine grudging problems with fulfilling our side which is what happens to the agreed framework was designed to create trust between two countries that really don't trust each other. Neither side began it from the beginning neither side was really fulfilling their side. So as a result it's no surprise that they that the agreement framework fell apart. And let me give you an example. Two weeks after we signed agreed framework U.S. nuclear scientists and government officials went to Young beyond the nuclear facility to figure out how to start canning the spent fuel rods. That was part of the agreement that they were going to store those and make it clear they couldn't make bombs out of them. At that time the U.S. official said OK we'll be back in six weeks to start doing X Y and Z. They got back to America. Remember this is two weeks after the agreed framework has signed and the government had not. That a Congress is actually not funded the agreed framework so they couldn't go back they couldn't do anything.

It was six months before they could even call the North Koreans and say OK we may be back at this time. So from the very beginning we didn't hold up our side of the bargain. And it's true that yeah maybe at some point we might have been able to. But we still we said that we would provide written assurances against nuclear first use and we haven't. They're still targeted. We said that we would provide a light water reactor four to five years behind schedule not because of technical difficulties because we don't want it. And so the North Koreans I don't see any reason why they would trust us to actually fulfill our side. I don't see why we would trust them either and so the Agreed Framework fell apart. I want to ask a question particularly to Victor Cha and ask whether you think that it was a mistake for President Bush and the Bush administration to take such an aggressive rhetorical stand on North Korea. But you're referring to the axis of evil statement yes. Well I mean I think we have to take that in the context of you know the

situation we were facing I mean that statement came only a few months after September 11. It came at a time when prior to which the United States had done under the Bush administration an initial policy review of what should be done with North Korea in June of 2001 reached the conclusion to the policy review where the United States said they'd be willing to engage with North Korea on any issue any place any time. And so a more comprehensive agreement or deal with North Korea. The North Koreans responded to that by saying this notion of any place any time anywhere anything on the agenda is a unilateral demand by the United States and we will not meet because the United States is making unilateral demands. So the question of who really was not interested in meeting in the first place I think is really called into question there. I think the popular view is to sort of blame it on the United States but I don't think it I don't think that's accurate. The other thing is. There's no denying that the axis of evil statement certainly heated things up between the

United States and North Korea but I would make two points or one that the regime is evil. I mean it allows people to die and I'm sure it's something we'll talk about within within the hour but this is a regime that has allowed nearly 2.2 million of its own citizens to die of starvation. Why would devote 33 percent of its national resources to building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Secondly the axis of evil statement may have heated things up but if you process trace what was happening both in north south relations and in U.S. North Korean relations prior to the Bush administration ever coming into office. In other words the latter half of 2000 things were already going bad between the north and the south between the United States and North Korea. So the notion that all this administration's fault I think is is a highly inaccurate statement. Professor can you want to respond same question. Yeah I mean this the root of the problem have much more to do with long term U.S. attitudes towards North Korea than any individual administration the Clinton administration didn't

want to engage at first either. And as I said before they were grudging and how much they actually held by the agreed framework. So there's no doubt that both sides of the aisle Democrats Republicans have not carried the ball. On the other hand I would say that Bush appen to make it a little more intense. But all right well we have two guests with us this morning let me introduce them again for anybody who has just tuned in in the last five or 10 minutes Victor Cha teaches at Georgetown University David Kang is at Dartmouth and together they have authored a book titled A nuclear North Korea a debate on engagement strategies and as you have heard they take two different positions on the issue of North Korea and how we should be dealing with that country. Their book is published by the Columbia University Press it's out in bookstores now and we are welcoming people who are listening. And if you'd like to ask questions the number here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we do also have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear

us. 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. And we'll start. Paying county line number one. I know I've heard that it was actually the election Gingrich revolution. Supposedly I don't want to be an apologist for the Clinton administration because I think it's true what was just said that there's a continuity of policy here but that the the Agreed Framework was was undercut by the the loss of the house the funding was not possible it couldn't they couldn't get it through I don't think that's true or not and that's what I didn't want to I didn't quickly want to call about that but I will turn to what's going on in South Korea. It seems to me and we've heard comment about the pulling back of the troops from the DMZ. And one would think that that was a Pacific sort of thing to do but given the fact that the U.S. is considering decapitation attacks actually pulling troops back from

the border and supposedly Ciena are making way for that kind of a kind of attacking. Obviously you can't pull back from the border but. Anyway but I've heard. Something else and I have I've been researching and trying to find about it which is it. Maybe in the process of reorganizing the troop deployments pulling out of the middle of soul and all that. But actually the US has moved from short range missiles closer to the border so this is a I mean you don't have to be a paranoid state to regard that of them. It's provocative so and we want but I don't see any comment on it anywhere I can find it on any of the military websites I heard it on Voice of America just as a throwaway line that the US was had actually moved missiles closer to the DMZ as well as moving troops back. I just think that. One that doesn't but isn't very kind conducive to any kind of negotiation

it seems to me. Multilateral bilateral or whatever. I don't know if you have any response directly. Let's do that and again I will. I guess we're going off about a quarter of a professor. You go first. Yeah I mean the caller's got a good question. Obviously someone who looks at the issue fairly carefully. First point I would make is he's absolutely right. The Agreed Framework was negotiated and signed in October of 1994 and following that congressional election gave the majority to the Republicans and made it very difficult it difficult to implement the agreed framework. The Clinton administration having said that the question then becomes you blame the United States for that in terms of violating the Agreed Framework or not. And I would argue that you don't because the North Koreans went into the Greek framework you know they're not stupid. They went in the Agreed Framework knowing that they were dealing with a democracy and knowing that you know the implementation of the agreed framework would be subject to the vagaries of domestic politics in congressional elections. It's not as

simple as it is in North Korea where where the North Korean leadership just negotiates an agreement they say that that this is the way it's going to be. And in fact there was a there was a private minute between the United States and North Korea that in many ways acknowledged the possible. The second point on the pullback of forces the pulling back of forces you know I think is interpreted by some incorrectly as the United States preparing for a preemptive attack against North Korea. The fact that they may move missiles closer to the north I can't verify that I don't know that is to me not a symbol that they're trying to attack North Korea but if they rebalance and realign their forces on the Korean peninsula and in East Asia part of maintaining the deterrent just to be able to maintain your military capabilities as you move back your forces I think that that's the spirit in which these sorts of things if they are indeed happening would be would be made. The second thing we have to read.

That it's not easy for the United States to contemplate attack against North Korea. I mean the North Koreans if you like states were ever to do that are able to fire thousands and thousands of rounds of artillery on the capital city of Seoul killing hundreds of thousands potentially not just Koreans but American ex-pats. You know there's a 100000 American ex-pat community in South Korea. Not to mention what they could also do to Japan with ballistic missiles. Now the North Koreans can do all this without nuclear weapons. They can do this with a conventional deterrent. So why do they need nuclear weapons for security purposes. It's not clear. Fessor King you want to again respond and same sort of. Absolutely and that's the thing. We're talking about is you know we signed the agreed framework and then there's no money for it so all the things we said we would do we didn't even think the framer worth more than that though because there were things that weren't necessarily funded which were written assurances

against targeting them with nukes for example which we also have not done lifting of sanctions which we still have some in place. So the agreed framework has you know served in some ways a very good purpose because they could have a lot more nukes right now if we had not come to that agreement. I'd make one point which is when we think about North Korean actions our intentions we really have to keep in mind an interactive effect between what we do and how they respond and then what they do and how we respond. And you can go back and back and back to you did this and I did that and you did this and we're both locked in this very very mistrustful dangerous situation. Regarding the troops pulling them back I think on the whole this is probably a good step if we didn't have the crisis going on right now. There's a lot of just good reasons why we would pull the troops out of this downtown military base when the base is in Youngstown in Seoul was originally built in the 50s. The city was nowhere near it. It was built

outside of Seoul. And of course the city has grown up all around it. It leaved any. Number of just problems the inevitable just that incredibly valuable real estate. You've got a bunch of troops right there with a bunch of civilians so it makes sense to pull them out. The timing of course is not a suspicious because it does leave everyone in South Korea North Korea to think this is getting ready for a preemptive strike. But as Victor said nobody wants to start a war on the peninsula. We've had 50 years of successful deterrents. We have no reason to think that it would break down now. Well we're contemplating two issues here it seems to me if I'm on pulling you know really positioning troops out of the center of a you know vibrant city is one thing but pulling them back from the DMZ you know we knowing that you know North Korea is is is going to interpret it you know at least in several ways. You know I don't think it is just the troops in Seoul that are pulled back it was troops also along you know further

forward deployed along the line. So I mean it seems to me that it does. I think it was calculated to do that actually too and it's just frustrating to me that I can't find documentation about troop movements and these missile deployments that I actually I'm absolutely positive on. I wrote about it and there's no comment on it at least ought to be analyzed. So thanks a lot. We are again at our midpoint here we certainly welcome other callers if you'd like to talk with our guest Victor Cha and David Kang 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Welcome back here for a moment to something that Professor Joss a little while ago talking about the kind of threat that the North poses to the south and the fact that nuclear weapons aside they have a lot of conventional weapons and could inflict a great deal of damage. The question though in my mind would

be this. We are saying that they have that ability. But my question would be why would they why would they do that what why would they launch a war against the South. Should I start. Yes I was sort of intending that for Victor first and then later dave. OK. Why would why. Why would they attack. What reason would the North have for launching an attack against South Korea. Well I mean the first point is that the key thing here is we're trying to figure out what North Korean intentions are right. And we you know we know that they hold this tremendous conventional turned I mean United States is the most powerful military in the history of the world. North Korea is this puny little country yet we say the United States really can't contemplate preemptive attack because the North Koreans have what the what's known as the tyranny of proximity. They hope the city of Seoul hostage. They can do this with conventional weapons. If the United States where ever can you consider attacking they could hold hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people hostage in Seoul and that would

you know to the extent the United States the values those lives that would deter the United States. My point is if they have that conventional deterrent if they have a very secure deter. And that has worked for them for 50 years. And why is it all of a sudden now that they say they need nuclear weapons for security. I my main point is I don't think they need nuclear weapons for security because they have this conventional deterrent. Their desire for nuclear weapons actually goes back to Kim Il-Sung the first leader of North Korea goes back to the 1950s and 60s part is part of a long term national project for North Korea to become a nuclear weapons state. They see that they're a country that cares very much about they and that is they believe in being a rich nation strong army they're not the rich nation part but they're certainly the strong army part and in many ways achieving that nuclear weapons capability. This is a long term goal for the regime. They were given though that what we said we talked about the fact that even though

their war never officially ended it had there we have gone fifty years now without further conflict. We also would say where we think that pre-lit nuclear proliferation is not a good thing. But does it really make things any more dangerous if the government North Korea had a hand full of nuclear weapons given the fact that they had they also have this this large conventional force. And does that indeed give bringen bring us any closer to the brink of war then than we were two years ago. Right. Well you know it's a good question. And in terms of the the balance of forces on the peninsula and conventional deterrence edition of nuclear weapons North there probably does not significantly alter the prospects for one of the peninsula. But again we have to think about the outcome you were talking about the most opaque state in the world with a bankrupt economy that now is producing nuclear weapons and fissile material. And as the New York Times reported just this week or last week the North Koreans you

know are willing to sell this stuff if they have it. They were willing they were they defaulted on a deal in fact which they were supposed to apply supplied Iraq with a whole line of an assembly line a short range ballistic missiles which they had developed in the 1970s 80s and 90s but this is a country that does not have much the only thing in-house that it can sell on the open market. Are these missiles and the nuclear materials in the top particularly in a post-September 11th environment of a country like North Korea having this stuff and peddling it. I don't think it's something that's very comforting. You know that's here. Well I mean turn again to Professor Kang that's something we really hadn't quite touched on yet that is one thing to think about what North Korea might do with whatever weaponry it could produce. It's yet another to think about who it is they might provide weaponry to. Yeah. Let me go back first though to. Deterrence sure no question that trying to help for 50 years. And that's why neither North Korea nor the United States

despite all the blustery rhetoric really goes too far down that path of starting a war. North Korea might if we actually have a preemptive strike and that's why we don't think about a preemptive strike on the young nuclear facility because then you are rolling the dice in terms of the conventional capabilities and then why would they need nuclear weapons. There are two things when you think about it. The first one is we didn't do that. The United States when we were to turn the Soviet Union didn't say well we've got 40 nuclear weapons that's enough. What we said was If 40 is good maybe 400 is better and maybe 10000 is better. Way beyond what we thought was necessary to deter. So this is you know not surprising that countries want to try and defend themselves especially when conventionally it's true that they have artillery tubes. But we also know how badly trained and how outgunned their conventional forces are. The United States is the most powerful military in the history of the world. It's not at all surprising that they view nuclear weapons as an addition to their

deterrent on their side as the balance begins to tip towards you know. State So if they really wanted them they would have built them and deployed them under Kim Il-Sung and they haven't because I think what they wanted the resolution to you know million men that are staring at each other on the DMZ at the export Absolutely that is a that is a concern. North Korea has sold its missiles. It is sold other technologies. And that's something where again since it's a concern we need to deal with the problem. And I think that a course of strategy that just increases pressure is highly unlikely to get North Korea to actually back down from its nuclear program. That's a concern we have to take it seriously. Well let's we been talking a lot about the problem and perhaps not so much about potential solutions and obviously all parties concerned with this seem in Asia the Chinese the Japanese the South Koreans In addition the United States just one everyone would like to see a diplomatic resolution

to this and I think anybody seem doesn't seem to be anybody is really interested in there being a war and would like to prevent that. There are however again different ideas about how it is we go about that. Let's stay with the king in the middle go back to Victor Cha and ask each of you to talk a little bit about what you think would be the appropriate path to take to try to resolve this. Well. The basic thing we can either choose a course of strategy or we can choose a more engaging strategy toward that end. Pressure is only met with pressure by the North Koreans. That's pretty obvious. An engagement strategy that genuinely attempts to provide for their concerns security in particular is probably the best way to go. Which would mean more then the occasional rhetorical statement by President Bush. This is the thing where when Victor was talking about democracy and how things can change in United States that's precisely why the North Koreans are really mistrustful the United States because somebody saying something is

very different than a genuine policy that is you know sort of moving the whole ship in a new direction that said OK we're going to try and find a way to alleviate your concerns over the long run. I think here's something I would like the listeners to think about. We are totally focused on this current crisis. And we were totally focused 10 years ago and then we kicked the can down the road five five 10 years. We have another crisis. We need to think about the fact that North Korea may survive for another two or three decades. No sign of it is going to collapse right away. And so what is a long term U.S. policy going to be even if we resolve this crisis and toward that end I think promoting capitalism and encouraging that open up is a way to go. Well yeah I'll respond Oh yeah. You know I think. I agree with David that you know no one wants military solution in large part because a military solution would require that you'd expect through a military strike that you could

actually take out an end North Korea's nuclear program and I don't think there's enough intelligence that tells us we know where everything is so it wouldn't even be successful. And so what you're left with I mean I think what you're left with is continuing some form of dialogue with the North. But you have to have pressure. I mean you have to have some sort of pressure on this regime because it I mean David I disagree historically. I think this is what they respond to in a positive way. If they understand that every country in the region is on the same side in 1994 in June of 1994 as some of your listeners know we almost went to war with North Korea. And what happened at that particular time was that former President Jimmy Carter went to North Korea was able to broker a deal. The general popular perception of that particular moment in history was that it was Carter's engagement that led to the deal. I don't think that's true. I mean what led to the deal was the fact that President Carter was in North Korea at a time when the North Koreans knew that the United

States was beginning to send reinforcements and bulb allies for a possible conflict on the peninsula. And if they. Not no not they wouldn't have been they wouldn't have been so flexible in terms of seeking out a deal. So I don't think Dave and I agree that much on the engagement part what we really disagree on is how much pressure should be applied. If you pursue dialogue with the regime we have time for Certainly other questions and comments we're moving into about our last 10 15 minutes. If people like call in 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Again our guest Victor Cha. He's a professor of Government at Georgetown University and David Kang He's professor at Dartmouth and the two of them together have written a book they lay out their ideas in the book it's titled nuclear North Korea a debate on engagement strategies and it is published by the Columbia University Press. What what if you could talk a little bit about how the government of South Korea thinks about all

of this and what people in the South think about the long term potential for the relationship between North and South and whether people are are you thinking seriously or talking seriously about the possibility of Korea becoming one country again in in in this lifetime. I'll let Dave go first and see she's just written something on it. OK well those are those are you know really good good questions I mean one of the things just in terms of when we look at unification is my family is actually originally from North Korea. I left in 1970 and my great grandfather when he left said in my lifetime and in my son's lifetime we'll never be unified. Now if you want a four generations that have not seen unification and we could easily be another one or two more. And so we really do need to start thinking about what might happen over the long run in terms of actually South Korea. Right now there aren't

there's not a whole lot of desire for unification because people are worried that the cost would be very high and absorbing and bringing the North Korean economy back up to sort of decent world standards would be a huge drain on the South Korean economy. That being said I don't think anyone in South Korea is desirous would would oppose unification right now. Yeah I mean I would I don't deceive. David here I mean I think generally if you talk to you know if you talk to South Koreans and you can do they want unification of course they say of course we want unification is part of how they define themselves. But at the same time what they say and what they really want are two different things. I mean I think ideally they want unification but practically speaking you know they learned a lot from the German example and the difficulties encountered by the two Germany is unifying. They also understood that the costs for South Korea both socially and economically are going to be much higher

in a Korean case than the German case because the income gaps are wider across every sort of macro indicator. It shows that the South Korean job of zorbing the North would be infinitely more difficult than West Germany had with the East. And then finally you did a saying in Korea that it's sort of it's Eamonn bolshie day which means the 20000 era and South Koreans you know they're only CD country right now. They came from virtually nothing in the 19th literally nothing in the 1950s becoming you know the CD country the eleventh largest economy in the world. They don't want the North Koreans upset that party they don't want the absorption costs of trying to unify with North Korea to prevent them from getting to that goal of 20000 the 20000 there are 20000 per capita income era. So it's a very pragmatic attitude towards unification.

Well let's talk with someone else we have a caller here in Chicago on our line number one. Hello. Some 20 or more years ago our military came to the conclusion finally of a strategy on atomic weapons would be suicidal because of the release of radioactivity but never a bomb instruction that sort of thing and the Russians off ok came around to that point of view when this eventually was permitted us to start a policy that is free. Finally something very strong love flying. Well one of the water well before you I guess can comment if you feel that you can press or job you want to go for. Well I mean I think he you know clearly during the Cold War what

deterred the United States and the Soviet Union was a common understanding and internalization of the norms of stable turns you know basically this notion of mutually assured destruction. And part of that and other things were enabled them to enter into certain arms limitation talks. How that applies to the Korean Peninsula. It's difficult to say I mean the deterrence part certainly applies to the Korean Peninsula. The notion that North Korea is trying to seek a counter deterrent to the United States nuclear capability it seems to me is is is not what we're talking about here. You know I think what we're talking about is a country that wants to. You know it may be interested eventually in giving away some of its nuclear weapons or trade away parts of its program to get another agreed framework to get another agreement like 1994 where they can try to get security fuel and other things. But in the end I don't think they're going to give up their nuclear weapons

really to countries who make the decision the national decision to cross the nuclear threshold. Rarely do they make that decision and then simply bargain it away once they've made that made that choice. You've had a few cases a few exceptions of nuclear rollback in that sense but those exceptions more prove the rule. But but to trust anyone in our government to understand that radioactivity uses a suicidal strategy to partner. Which to base our policy which the president so called. You know if you accept that I don't bomb another bomb it's just another weapon on you. Now the clusters and all this sort of thing and you start not only by those in the courtroom the small Karoon to the extent that there is it's important to keep differences in rhetoric versus action in mind and you can't keep.

You can keep the rhetoric out of it because those are the facts. You know. Yeah well I don't think that was David Kang was going to continue. Yeah we happened to actually use nuclear weapons since 1945 precisely because I think nobody really wants to go down that path unless it's a last case scenario. But a lot of discussion about it but again just to be clear about the rhetoric George Bush has not been threatening to nuke North Korea. Even the nuclear posture review it does reserve the right but we do it we don't say that we're planning on nuking North Korea. One thing we're sort of short on details on what's going on in North Korea but we do know from the the small number of journalists that do get to visit that life in North Korea is very hard. And I'm thinking about not very long ago there was an article in The New Yorker magazine I think it was by Philip gray vigin. It was accompanied by a photograph and this was a photograph taken from us from space which showed at the end it was taken at night time from space and in the south

you can see it's a blaze of light in the north. It's dark. There's no there's not a light on it. And so we only know what the life in the north is very hard and we also know that people in the north don't know a great deal about what's going on in the outside world. If such a thing was possible what do you think would happen if indeed it was possible for people in the north to get a better idea about what was going on outside of their country. That is Victor I mean. Well I mean I think we've already seen some evidence of that and that is you know we're seeing more and more people are people trying to defect from North Korea. They can't really do anything to change the system within North Korea so they're basically voting with their feet by trying to leave the country you know. Despite great threat to their life and if they're caught and to people they leave behind as they go. If more and more people in North Korea are aware of the situation in their country Veasey the rest of the

world I'm sure you'd see a lot more people trying to defect in the North Korean government because of the rash of defections that have been increasing since about two years ago. They're about two years ago has been clamping down. I mean particularly on people trying to escape through the land border to China. As in thank you. Cracking down doing sweeps to try to bring back all of these illegal migrants into China. Yeah. Let me let me jump in as well a couple things. The first one is the more that the North Korean citizens know about the outside world and their own country the better it will be for everyone and the more likely that we will find them actually trying to get some kind of change in North Korea which is one reason I think we should encourage trade and exchange of people. The second thing and your listeners should should be aware of this. There has been change in North Korea. It hasn't been nearly as dramatic as some people would like but. North Korea is far more

open now than it was 10 years ago. It's been over a hundred thousand South Koreans who have gone to visit North Korea. You can drive through the DMZ now on a repaved highway that goes through as well the railroad and most importantly in July of 2000 into North Korea abandon the centrally planned economy so prices are now set by supply and demand. There are private markets in existence and they suspect there are about 1 billion U.S. dollars in circulation in North Korea that are used to buy foreign goods and things. So there is real change that's going on and that can only bode well and I think that again that we should encourage this kind of economic openness. We're just about out of time out in the return to Victor is just that so the last thought you'd like to leave with folks who are listening. Well I don't disagree with with Dave's point about the North doing some things in terms of economic reform. The only thing that I would add to that is you know you can be a country like North Korea's dictatorial

regime that's seeking economic reform because you're trying to get the economy going again in trying to make some money basically But at the same time you can do that and still want to have. Nuclear weapons. I think there's a tendency to conflate these two and to assume that just because they're trying to make steps to reform economically This means that there's an automatic link to their giving up nuclear weapons because they want economic reform they could want both they could want nuclear weapons and economic reform because they probably feel that that's the formula for success. And again Professor Kang last last thought if this is a reprehensible brutal repressive dictatorship in North Korea and nobody wants to see them survive very long I think Victor and I also both agree that what we both want is an end to the regime and economic change up there and no nuclear weapons on that I mean for the real place

where we disagree is on tactics as to how best to achieve it. But both of us agree on the ultimate goal. The other thing I'd point out is that our quarrel is not with the citizens. They're the victims of the regime as much as anyone else. And so I hope that we can find a policy that will be successful. Well I want to thank you both very much. Victor Cha from Georgetown thank you. Sure my pleasure. And David Kang from Dartmouth thank you very much. You're welcome. And if you're interested in reading on the subject again I mentioned the book that our guests have coauthored It's titled nuclear North Korea a debate on engagement strategies by our guest Victor Cha. The book is published by the Columbia University Press.