First of all, just how important are these exercises? And kind of with that in mind, if you reduce them, what are you losing here?

here?Yeah.

So it was the reduction of joint military exercises that precipitated this whole, you know, question about North Korea and, and re-engagement between Kim and Trump.

But one thing that's important to understand for those that may not be familiar with the US, South Korea alliance is that it's an unusually integrated military.

The two countries maintain a binational combined forces command, which would coordinate US and South Korean forces in an event of a conflict with North Korea.

So exercises like the Ulchi Freedom Shield, uh, so that's held every, every August, uh, annually.

It's not just about thousands of troops practicing maneuvers.

Is there a fear or concern that South Korea has that you feel is not sufficiently appreciated in Washington circles?

When he specifically says that North Korea is unthreatening, he seems to be suggesting that they're benign.

Yeah.

Well, it's hard to call a country not non-threatening when you're building nuclear weapons, and even President Trump himself said that they had fifty-seven nuclear warheads, when you're repeatedly firing missiles, and not just short-range ballistic missiles, but long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, and when you're constantly saying that you wanna destroy-- uh, you're, you're threatening South Korea, um, you know, and you're, you're criticizing US allies.

Those seem pretty threatening to me.

I think for Trump, though, you know, he takes...

Uh, everything is personal to him, and he feels that Kim Jong Un has not criticized him personally, and he also feels that compared to the Biden adminis- under the Biden administration, when North Korea fired a record number of missile tests in twenty twenty-two, North Korea has been relatively calm.

So he feels that Kim has withheld his punches.

But on that note, um, in terms of folks who feel threatened, South Korea, how has all of this been going over there?

breaking news? We're hearing it for the first time on our podcast.

Yeah, I think it's the first time I'm mentioning it publicly on any sort of outlet that the book is coming out.

But to your question about South Korea's grand strategy, I want to just start with an anecdote because I remember I was at a security conference and I was talking about the topic of South Korean grand strategy.

And someone came up to me and said, does South Korea even have a grand strategy? Because no one ever talks about it in South Korea.

But I want to quote the strategist Edward Luttwak, because he says that all states have a grand strategy, whether they know it or not.

And if grand strategy is roughly translated as the ways and means to some kind of end, whether that end be security or survival, South Korea has a grand strategy.

And it's, I guess, the most pithy way I could... phrase it is that they they want autonomy, but they also want the U.S. South Korea lines.

But do you see a potential breaking point there? And what else needs to be done in order to try to sustain that relationship?

What role could the Pope play in diplomacy and in this part of the world?

Historically, the Vatican approaches geopolitics and diplomacy differently from states.

Often they separate people from politics, prioritizing humanitarian assistance.

So in the Korean Peninsula, this would mean issues like reuniting families that have been divided.

It also means talking about denuclearization.

The Vatican likes to leverage its moral standing.

It's a global pulpit to influence public opinion.

Well, why do you think President Lee made that request? How likely do you think it is that the Pope will visit North Korea? What issues are at stake? I know that you mentioned some of them, but could you tell us more?