How has this relationship between North Korea and Russia affected North Korea's view of on things in terms of its willingness to engage in diplomacy with the US, inter-Korean relations, how has this all been affected?

So it's had a dramatic effect.

I mean, I think the big I mean, if we think about what is the biggest change, as Susan said, there's a lot that stays constant around the geopolitics of the Korean peninsula and its neighbors.

But there's some things that have changed.

And the biggest change by far has been this relationship since, you know, 2022 between North Korea and Russia, now a full blown military alliance situation.

And for the United States, it means that if the two were to re-engage, it's on very different terms.

In the first Trump administration, as Susan said, North Korea was under heavy, heavy sanctioning.

So over to you for any thoughts about this.

But what are the implications for that region? Is this a signal to Kim that Trump is not happy with South Korea? And if so, what could North Korea do with that interpretation?

Well, certainly in that Oval Office room briefing, he did say a lot of bad things about South Korea and about the alliance with South Korea.

In the past, South Korea has worked with the United States out of region.

They have the third largest ground contingent in Iraq.

They had peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan.

So the president's clearly upset that he's not getting help on a I mean, I think what it means for the region more broadly is that the president clearly wants to try to shift the focus of both the headlines and the diplomacy away from Iran, which is a bit of a quagmire to a new issue, and that is with Kim Jong-un.

For the South Koreans, while they did get dissed in that press briefing, overall, if there is dialogue between the United States and North Korea, that's something the South Korean president wants.

Do you think, Victor, that that type of message will make Iran more resolute in pursuing its nuclear ambitions no matter the damage from this war?

So I mean, is there any reason to be, is there a thaw that you see that, you know, maybe this is di- directed toward?

It's an interesting question.

I would say there are two things that have changed from the general situation with North Korea.

Uh, the first and probably the most, uh, significant is this relationship that Kim Jong Un has created with Vladimir Putin.

They are basically allies in the war in Ukraine.

This is something that started in about 2022, um, and has really flourished.

So that's a major, major development.

How has it managed to do this?

How should we read that?

So the North Korean volley of missiles, these short range missiles, I think were largely in response to these annual exercises that the U.S. and South Korea hold.

They do this virtually every time.

For President Trump, I think that's just water off his back because he's never really cared about the short range ballistic missiles.

He's always focused on the intercontinental ballistic missiles that could theoretically reach North.

the United States.

So again, I think, you know, they're both positioning to try to set up some sort of dialogue when they talk about the fall or the end of the year.

Help my audience see that logic.

How transformative has that relationship really been?

I don't think one can overestimate how transformative it has been.

The war in Ukraine and Russia's need for ammunition coincided with North Korea coming out of its three-and-a-half-year lockdown, no trade with China for three and a half years.

They were utterly destitute economically.

And it was actually Kim Jong Un who proposed the idea to Vladimir Putin of, you know, "We can send you ammunition, we can send you troops." And Putin initially demurred, but then later, you know, he, he needed ammunition, and the only country in the world that was willing to provide him ammunition was the North Koreans.

It wasn't very good ammunition in the beginning, but it got better and better as they got their, uh, ammunition factories up and running again.

And we estimate at CSIS the value of what Russia has given in return is probably somewhere on the order of eight to $10 billion worth of everything from medicine to food to energy to weapons has been provided to, to the North Korean leader.

So- How serious is this now, and where would you put them in terms of technology and their competitiveness?

What was, uh, President Truman's reasoning for really getting involved in this?

Well, I certainly don't think it was a war that he initially planned or wanted to get involved in.

As I said, standard US strategy at the time defined a defense perimeter that did not include Formosa and that did not include Korea.

There were many other things to worry about.

You know, the United States was winding down from a wartime economy during World War II.

They had to create jobs.

They had to reduce defense spending in order to create jobs and to build housing and all of these sorts of things.

What, what reason is that?

Mm

... uh, match at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, um, where the USSR was playing against, uh, Hungary.

Uh, and this was in the aftermath of the Soviet intervention in Hungary.

And so this was much more than just about a water polo match, and there was a lot of headbutting and other things taking place.

Hungary eventually won 4-0 and eventually won, uh, actually won the gold medal.

Um, but there are many other cases.

I mean, for American hockey fans out here, the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, the so-called Miracle on Ice, that's been, movies have been made about this, where an amateur at that time, an amateur US Olympic team, uh, beat the heavily favored Soviet team.

[laughs]

And then I want to talk about your ideas for how we might, as you said, attenuate that relationship.

Sure, sure.

So, I mean, it's not the nicest way of putting it, but I think in many ways, the Ukraine war was like Christmas morning for North Korea.

And the reason I say that is when Putin invaded Ukraine, that was just as North Korea was coming out of its three and a half year COVID lockdown.

They locked down a year longer than everybody else, a year and a half longer than South Korea, just because they're very vulnerable at home.

Again, they devoted all their national resources to building their weapons program.

And for that reason, their health infrastructure, their population is malnourished, everything.

Shouldn't we be having a discussion about what's in it for America?

And talking a little bit about what we might expect from a Trump-Kim meeting, do you think that would be, I guess, where would the location of that be? Would it be Singapore again? Would it be on the Korean Peninsula? And then you had mentioned you have very low expectations of that meeting, right? But is there anything? So I guess if you have low expectations of the meeting, how can it in many ways dilute the Russian influence? Like what would China need to come out of the Trump-Kim meeting in order to dilute the Russian influence? Like, is there any possibility that a Trump-Kim meeting could lead to rollback of sanctions on North Korea? Or do you think that's still very far into the future?

I think it's far into the future.

I mean, the main thing, again, my guess is just to increase the levels of mistrust between Kim and Putin.

would be very useful, I think, for the Chinese.

It would be useful for the United States, too, frankly, to see more mistrust or Putin's concerns about, like, what are they talking about? What are they agreeing on? I mean, I imagine in a meeting that Trump would say something about the support that North Korea has been giving to Russia, even though he doesn't seem very committed to Ukraine.

The president doesn't.

I still think that they want to see something.

allies and partners? Beyond trying to talk to Eiji.

Yeah

... his strong leadership and, and of course, the agreement is to be, the one and a half pages is to be initialed, um, uh, later, later this week in Geneva.

Um, on Ukraine and Russia, you know, uh, I think as, as, um, Phil said, you know, uh, very important statements with regard to unity on, uh, sanctions on Russia with regard to, in particular, oil exports, unwavering support, in quotation marks, for territorial integrity and freedom of Ukraine.

Um, uh, Macron invited Zelensky to come to Evian and to help set up a meeting with Trump.

Um, so it's all very positive.

I, I think the, the one thing to me that was interesting is the, the... there's an inherent dilemma in the sense that all the G7 members were in favor of harsher sanctions on Russia now that the Strait of Hormuz is open.

Uh, but at the same time, even though the Strait of Hormuz is open, every country is going to be trying to reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz, you know, potentially with oil supplies through other parts of, of the area, like Central Asia, which still then involves Russian equity.

Um, does that indicate that the G7 format doesn't make sense, but it does when it's expanded? Like how, how, how do you view the bigger picture question about the future of the G7 and whether or not it's still fit for purpose?

Right

... one of them you already mentioned in terms of sort of the aggregate effect.

One of them you already mentioned, which is China and Russia are working together in the Security Council.

As you said, they've just, uh, vetoed a resolution about Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, but that's not the only case.

There have been, I think, um, at least fifteen to twenty different resolutions or draft resolutions that were considered by the UN Security Council that have a- all not materialized because of China and Russia opposition.

So they've effectively emasculated the UN Security Council as an institution of global governance, full stop.

And this was even admitted to by the Se- UN Secretary General a couple of years ago when he said the UN Security Cou- he ca- they cannot act on the most important issues of the day.

So now that it has happened, what's your assessment? How do you think it, it went and, and what really came out of it?

So what's going on?

Yeah, so to me, this was the most interesting part of the summit, uh, outcome, was the lack of any mention of n- nuclear weapons or denuclearization, which contrasts directly with the White House readout of the meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping, where at least the White House said they explicitly discussed and agreed on denuclearization of North Korea.

So from a North Korean perspective, this unsaid, this unsaid deliverable, if you will, was probably for them the, uh, the objective of the visit.

In addition to the material things, improving trade, opening civil aviation again, railway transport, um, the fact that the North Koreans were able to sit with the Chinese and not talk about denuclearization achieves the objective of de facto international acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapon state.

And as if to accentuate the point, in the run-up to President Xi's arrival in North Korea, uh, we have, as you see, these pictures that were released of Kim Jong Un in- inspecting the newest, uh, centrifuge facility used for spinning, um, aluminum tubes to make weapons-grade uranium for nuclear weapons.

And then Kim Jong Un's younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, made a statement about the irreversibility of North Korea's nuclear path.

All of this within 48 to 72 hours of Xi Jinping arriving, kind of putting China in a box on this particular issue.

Uh, Victor Cha, looking at those images, uh, how isolated is Kim today, and how much contact does he have with the outside world?

We have so many other headaches from Ukraine to Iran and the South China Sea dispute, not to mention Taiwan.

Um, so, well, again, thanks for a chance to be on the show.

So I, I would answer your question first in a historical context, which is every time historically the United States has ignored or pushed North-- uh, the Korean Peninsula to the side for other more proximate, uh, urgent issues, it has come up and, uh, bitten us in the rear end.

Um, at the turn of the 20th century, um, we were very focused on holding our position or establishing a position in the Philippines, um, and therefore were, uh, uh, de-deprior-deprioritized Korea.

It's, this, uh, uh, eventually led to the Japanese Empire taking over the Korean Peninsula as the first step to taking over the entire region and eventually leading to the, the Pacific War.

Um, in, uh, 1950, uh, we made a decision not to include Korea in our defense perimeter, the famous speech by Dean Acheson in 1950, um, and then that became the signal for North Korea with the tacit support of the Soviet Union and eventually the active support of China to try to take over the Korean Peninsula in the Korean War.

So, um, to me, like every time we ignore or push the North Korean problem to the back burner, the Korea problem to the back burner, it, it can come up and bite us, uh, really badly.

Again, I know we don't wanna predict, and this is a hazardous, but are we cautiously more optimistic this time that paradoxically a more emboldened North Korea may feel more comfortable to make some, uh, important, not concessions, but find some sort of a potential détente or cold peace with the US?

It's a great question.

Well, I mean...

Yeah, I mean, it, it would certainly be a big deal in the sense that Trump will do something dramatic, uh, you know, meet him on an aircraft carrier or, you know, go, go into the heart of Pyongyang as opposed to just stepping into North Korea.

Um, I mean, I think from a US perspectiveGiven the fact that we are pretty busy now and we have a lot of enemies, uh, around the world that we're at war with, in conflict with, either directly or indirectly, um, it doesn't hurt for him to keep a tab on this particular issue.

Um, I mean, it is, um...

So, you know, we have this data that shows correlation between periods of US-DPRK diplomacy and a reduction in North Korean missile demonstrations and nuclear tests and military provocations.

Um, what is interesting about the Trump-- So Trump is an outlier to that because, um, we have seen, you know, no dialogue between the two.

Um-

But what are the most important shifts in that strategic landscape in your mind, Victor, in recent years?

Um, [clears throat] so one way of looking at it is there is a, a railway crossing between North Korea and Russia called the Tumangan Kasen Railway, Railway Crossing.

And in a project we did on, uh, over ten years ago on unification, we looked at the three Chinese railway crossings and the two Russian railway crossings, uh, uh, with, with, uh, uh, with North Korea.

And of course, there's a lot of activity on the Chinese ones, particularly, um, the Sinuiju-Dandong corridor.

But in this Tumangan Kasen, it looked like it was unchanged from the end of the Korean War.

If you look at it today, there are new buildings being built, uh, new structures, new monuments.

Um, I just did a call with a Bloomberg reporter who was looking at satellite imagery of this area and wondering why it's being built up so much.

So can you, uh, explain what you meant by that and what you argued?

I'm curious what you made of that experience, how that changed your sense of, of the problem and the, and, and the country that you'd been studying from afar for so long.

Well, it's an interesting question.

I mean, I would say, um, the first is that, uh, I became fully aware because I was on the inside of the extent to which the United States government was committed to diplomacy and trying to get rid of these weapons in a peaceful way.

I know that President Bush had the reputation of, um, wanting to carry out regime change, uh, because of the actions in Iraq, also because he put North Korea in the axis of evil in the State of the Union speech.

But in spite of this, um, it was always my view that we were fully committed to the diplomacy and had come up with a framework that was puttingThe country that we thought had the most leverage on North Korea, that is China, putting them in the driver's seat, actually having them chair and host the meetings, um, which means that they have the pen when we're writing the documents, which is very important in any negotiation.

So we were actually conceding that to China, not because, um, we thought we couldn't do it, but we thought that was the most effective way.

So I think...

Is that, that fair to say?

Can you give us a story or two or an example of what they've done to individual companies? What has the company done that merits the attention of Xi Jinping, for example?

So it's a wide range of things.

And basically, we have a list of 470 companies that basically cover every continent on the globe except Antarctica.

And there are things that you would expect to see.

So there's been lots of sanctions and coercion against U.S. defense companies that are involved in arms sales to Taiwan.

I guess the level of discrimination that they will go to in terms of writing what they see as an offense, I really did not appreciate until we pulled together this dataset.

So one example was a campaign that they took out against airlines.

So how do you think this will play out?

What do you think the president's strategy is now?

now?I think at, at the core, the basic strategy is to continue the use of threat of tariffs to try to stave off China using critical minerals, you know, trying to weaponize critical minerals.

Um, and this is kind of a holding pattern because the idea is eventually that the United States and like-minded countries will be able to develop to the best they can independent critical mineral supply chains, um, so that they're no longer, uh, prone to, uh, Chinese threats of economic coercion.

I think that's sort of the game plan right now, and so when we go into this summit, uh, this spring, um, there'll probably be a similar sort of ratcheting up of threats on both sides in the run-up to the meeting and then some sort of, um, uh, interim agreement that might last for another year or so.

But the last meeting basically bought a year, uh, where China said, we said we would not raise tariffs further, and they said that they would not hit on, um, critical minerals.

Uh, but this is only a temporary solution.

In the long term, we've gotta, you know, shore up these mineral, critical mineral supply chains.

And number two, they seem obsessed with taking it, and that would certainly hurt our na- that, that certainly not be in our national interests.

What do you think the president's strategy is now?

I think at, at the core, the basic strategy is to continue the use of threat of tariffs to try to stave off China using critical minerals, you know, trying to weaponize critical minerals.

Um, and this is kind of a holding pattern because the idea is eventually that the United States and like-minded countries will be able to develop, to the best they can, independent critical mineral supply chains, um, so that they're no longer, uh, prone to, uh, Chinese threats of economic coercion.

I think that's sort of the game plan right now, and so when we go into this summit, uh, this spring, um, there'll probably be a similar sort of ratcheting up of threats on both sides in the run-up to the meeting, and then some sort of, um, uh, interim agreement that might last for another year or so.

But the last meeting basically bought a year, uh, where China said-- we said we would not raise tariffs further, and they said that they would not hit on, um, critical minerals.

Uh, but this is only a temporary solution.

In the long term, we've got to, you know, shore up these mineral- critical mineral supply chains.

Number one, their claim isn't authentic, they've never had the island, and number two, they seem obsessed with taking it, and that would certainly hurt our na- that, that certainly not be in our national interests.