In this episode of the Stratfor Podcast, Stratfor Chief Security Officer Fred Burton sits down with Vice President of Strategic Analysis Rodger Baker to discuss the geopolitical realities behind North Korea’s nuclear standoff. From weapons development to alleged assassination plots and the constraints facing both the United States’ and China’s efforts to intervene, they look at where things stand right now and where they’re going in the near future.
Transcript
Ben Sheen [00:00:10] Hello and thank you for joining us for this edition of the Stratfor Podcast. Focused on geopolitics and world affairs from stratfor.com. I'm your host Ben Sheen. As the rhetoric heats up over North Korea and its nuclear program Stratfor Chief Security Officer Fred Burton sits down with Vice President of Strategic Analysis Rodger Baker to discuss where things really stand on what's ahead. They go in-depth on the geopolitical drivers behind the standoff. Alleged assassination plots and the constraints both the U.S. and China face when dealing with North Korea. Thanks again for joining us.
Fred Burton [00:00:48] Hi, I'm Fred Burton, the Chief Security Officer here at Stratfor. We're talking to Rodger Baker, the Vice President of Strategic Analysis at our company. And Rodger, you and I have been chatting a lot about North Korea lately. And we're coming out of the security talks between the U.S. and China and we have the summit with the South Korean president and President Trump. We just had the death of the American tourist Otto Warmbier. And you and I were chatting about where do you see going on now on the peninsula? Where do you see this going?
Rodger Baker [00:01:20] Well I think we have a couple of things in play right now. You certainly have added impetus on the United States side from a political perspective to appear tough and strong toward North Korea. And you see the way that this is being emphasized following the death of the American upon his return from North Korea. We have a United States president who has recently tweeted to the Chinese that effectively they've tried but they failed in resolving the North Korean issue.
Fred Burton [00:01:48] Do you think he was tortured by the way?
Rodger Baker [00:01:50] If you look at the reports from the doctors, it doesn't appear that he was tortured in the sense that we would think of with physical beatings and the like. Certainly he had mental abuse and he was not in a very good position where he was. But the North Koreans have been very careful about the way they treat American prisoners. This is not the 1960s, and this is not the crew of the Pueblo which was seen as a spy craft. These are tradable assets by North Korea and therefore well it's no Club Med, it really is a place where the North Koreans are cautious just how far they go with these Americans. From the North Korean perspective, I think that that they were just as distraught as the United States was. Maybe not to the same extent obviously, but their vision of this was their hope I think that he would just recover and they would never have to say anything about it. The North Koreans are struggling with this, in the U.S. though it does not matter whether he was beaten or tortured or not. It is an American citizen who was detained for something that here would just be seen as a college prank and he ended up dead. And that is what's resonating.
Fred Burton [00:03:05] When you were explaining to me in the office a short time ago about the geopolitics of what's taking place now between the United States, China, South Korea and North Korea, it'd be very good for our listeners to understand your view on that and on just as you forecast what's taking place here, and the fact that we could be coming to a very critical moment.
Rodger Baker [00:03:29] When we look at the the North Korean situation there's always been a concern from the United States. North Korea's nuclear development, its missile programs, things of that sort. But to a great degree over time it's been constrained to a regional threat. And we're moving closer and closer to the North Koreans having the capability of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States. And for the United States, that is a step too far, that's a risk too far. They can't trust that the North Koreans are entirely rational from the U.S. perspective of rationality, that the regime is entirely stable. And therefore allowing that country to have the ability to drop a nuke in the United States is too far. When you look at the South Koreans however, the South Koreans have been living with an extant North Korean threat for a very long time. This is nothing new for them. Their concern about the long-range nuclear capacity would be that it might reduce the likelihood of the U.S. intervening in case of a peninsular crisis. They don't want that to develop, but the South Koreans are very willing to pursue things like a moratorium on North Korean nuclear development, rather than having to push all the way for the complete cessation of the program or the rollback of the program. From the U.S. perspective where nearly 25 years from 1994 when the U.S. almost bombed North Korea over its early nuclear development. And there have been many instances of moratoria that in the end have not stopped the long-term progress of the North Korean program.
Rodger Baker [00:05:05] From the U.S. perspective there can't be a moratorium. Then when you add in the complexity of the Chinese, their view is that a destabilization of North Korea or a conflict in North Korea that leaves U.S. forces on their border is an untenable position. So the Chinese are doing the minimal steps necessary to demonstrate to the United States that they're cooperating. But they're not willing to take enough action to truly undermine or destabilize North Korea. And that leaves us in a position where nobody in many ways has an interest in altering their behavior, and we may be moving very rationally from each player's perspective toward war.
Ben Sheen [00:05:55] We'll return to our conversation with Stratfor Chief Security Officer Fred Burton and Vice President of Strategic Analysis Rodger Baker in just a moment. But if you're enjoying the conversation be sure to visit us at worldview.stratfor.com. We delve into the challenges coping with a nuclear-armed North Korea in extreme detail. Including a five-part series examining what's a potential military strike on the North's nuclear program would look like and how Pyongyang would respond. All of our North Korea analysis is also collected in a new theme page on Worldview. In addition to that, you can also see our archive pieces all together in one place. We'll include a link in the show notes. And if you're not already a Worldview member, consider subscribing if you want sober, unbiased analysis on this issue and broader world affairs. Individual, team and enterprise subscriptions are available at worldview.stratfor.com/subscribe. Now let's get back to our conversation with Stratfor's Fred Burton and Rodger Baker.
Fred Burton [00:07:01] Rodger, in early May we saw reports of the North Koreans accusing South Korea and the U.S., specifically the CIA of plotting to kill Kim. And what's your thoughts about that plot? And whether or not there was any credibility to those reports.
Rodger Baker [00:07:19] When we look at that case, there's a couple of aspects I think that are important to look at. Number one is that, the desire by the U.S., the South Koreans and the Chinese to not end up in war in Korea and the recognition by those three players that really the only way for true policy change in North Korea is probably through regime change. In other words, they removing Kim. The North Korean accusation that there was a plot to assassinate Kim may not be entirely accurate, but it certainly fits within the current set of reality, so it deserves a second look. And then when we look at the way in which they lay out their case, and they did it in state media, they did it in press conferences and friendly embassies, and they did it again in semi-state media and an entire video presentation that goes and actually interviews the alleged assassin. The information that they lay out... Again, it doesn't necessarily mean there was an active assassination plot, but many aspects of it ring true in terms at least of the way in which foreign intelligence is trying to access information out of North Korea.
Fred Burton [00:08:30] I know when that first surfaced, you and I chatted a lot about that, and the alleged assassination plot centered on perhaps even the use of targeting chem with biochemical agents. And as we dissected that video from an intelligence perspective, there's enough nuggets buried in that, that it's somewhat, although it reads and watches like a fiction novel, it appears that there could be a kernel of truth that's running through this in some capacity. Meaning that the North Koreans and
Rodger Baker [00:09:04] possibly did very good foreign counterintelligence work in identifying this alleged assassin and bringing him forth to confess to this plot. Do you think that's believable? Well again, it's hard to tell in the end if the full extent of the plot as it was laid out by the North Koreans is entirely accurate. But if you look at the follow up videos that the North Koreans have done, it does appear that they had already identified the individual.
Fred Burton [00:09:30] And was surveilling him.
Rodger Baker [00:09:32] And surveilling him even outside of North Korea.
Fred Burton [00:09:36] Which is really very interesting that they put a team on him as he traveled around. And that rings true to some degree if you had that kind of intelligence operation. I mean, state sponsors, state intelligence organs can do that.
Rodger Baker [00:09:49] As you look at it, one of the other aspects that initially, I think in the Western perception of the, the accusation of the plot was, "Oh, this is totally crazy. They're talking about radiological biochem weapons, as if it was all one thing." But if you think about assassination plots that are intended not to appear like assassinations, but they want it to appear like he dies of natural causes, so that it allows space for a collective leadership to step in rather than triggering conflict. Some of the things that they defined are there. In your past work, there has to have been experience with cases that have involved these types of unusual substances or what the North Koreans referred to as like micro toxins, or the idea of using radiological devices to bring on disease or death.
Fred Burton [00:10:41] Very similar to the allegations of the Israeli Mossad targeting Dr. Wadie Haddad back in the day. And certainly the suspicious deaths that we're dealing with the endless FSB mysterious agents passing away and the polonium-210 murder in London and so forth. These kinds of things do happen, and state intelligence agencies certainly have that kind of capability. One of the interesting parts that I find in thinking of this as an assassination plot of getting an operative into North Korea would be, how would he actually do it? How could he get access to Kim to carry this out? I guess we'll never know the answer to that. But from a intelligence perspective, this certainly has, I would think put the North Koreans and specifically Kim on notice that much like the allegations that Arafat never slept in the same bed twice. I would imagine that the foreign counterintelligence services of the North Koreans are on point looking for these kinds of continued plots as we look at the aftermath of the the summits between the U.S. and China and the pending one with South Korea. Let me digress into that for a second, Rodger. What do you see coming out of the summit with the South Koreans and the U.S.?
Rodger Baker [00:12:14] Well this gets into a complicated position. The South Koreans again are doing everything they can to delay the concept of war and to encourage dialogue with North Korea. The United States has taken a very hard line position that there needs to be increased isolation of North Korea rather than dialogue.
Fred Burton [00:12:30] We didn't send Dennis Rodman over?
Rodger Baker [00:12:33] He may have gone on his own accord. But when we look at this difference, this is a long-standing difference, but it's accentuated by the fact that we now have again one of the progressive candidates coming back into power in South Korea. He worked closely with former President Roh Moo-hyun. Roh Moo-hyun was on the far side of the progressives even. Roh Moo-hyun met with the former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il back, well 10 years ago this year. There is some thought that President Moon is going to be trying to come out with some large bargain package for the North Koreans. Mostly about the idea of a moratorium from the North Koreans not necessarily ending the program. Sometime around October, around the anniversary of the summit. And the United States doesn't right now appear to be endorsing these extra moves towards diplomatic relations and diplomatic discussions with North Korea. And in fact they're going around the countries around the world and asking them to shut down North Korean embassies or at least significantly reduce the amount of North Korean diplomatic staff around.
Fred Burton [00:13:40] When you think of this and your years of covering that region, and for the benefit of our listeners, you have actually been to North Korea which other than Jimmy Carter and Dennis Rodman, I don't know anybody else but you that have made that trip. I certainly would not want to go, I would be afraid that they would keep me in some sort of cell for a long period of time. But when you think about this in context and you're looking at North Korea getting a deliverable missile, one that potentially could strike the United States. I know you and I have also chatted about this in the office and in the coffee break room a lot. Do you actually see this administration letting that happen?
Rodger Baker [00:14:22] Since 1994 we are probably now moving into the highest likelihood of military conflict on the Korean Peninsula. I don't believe that this administration or in many ways any U.S. administration could allow, and that's kind of an awkward term there. But allow the North Koreans to develop a deliverable nuclear device to the continental United States in a reliable manner. The North Koreans with the perception of assassination plots, with the pressure rising on them, believe that there is no way that they can give up this program. In other words, a peace accord is no longer sufficient. They watched what happened in Libya, particularly the Kim family cannot believe that a peace accord with the United States would protect him as a person. It may protect the overall regime but it certainly wouldn't protect him. They have an incentive to accelerate the program and prove that they have the capacity as a true deterrence to the United States. The United States has an incentive to stop them moving towards that deterrent, not to simply give them a moratorium where they're working on it in the background. And that's why I think in the next 18 months, the next two years, we're pushing very close to a moment where the United States is going to be faced with a very real choice of military action, which is the thing that, quite frankly very few U.S. military planners even want, because it spreads very quickly. Or allowing the perceived rogue regime to be able to hold the United States hostage with a nuclear weapon.
Rodger Baker [00:15:52] And that means that the cost of military action suddenly becomes slightly lower than the risk of inaction.
Fred Burton [00:16:02] Well I guess in some cases, that's almost a lose-lose proposition for not only the United States but South Korea and China. Do you see any other outcomes as a result of that?
Rodger Baker [00:16:18] If we go into war, the outcomes can rapidly move to a very extreme set. You have the destabilization of an entire region. A region that's very economically active and important. You have a question of whether the Chinese get involved on the side of the North Koreans or on the side of the Americans that changes their foreign policy. Japan and how much that's disrupted or it accelerates Japan's developments of its military and it's physical activity in the region. There's a lot that ripples out of that. What would does mean though is we probably will see in particular the South Koreans over the next year, year and a half do everything they can to find a way to reduce the perceived imminence of the threat from North Korea. They're going to do that a lot though through dialogue and diplomatic action. And the North Koreans in many ways are counting on that difference between the U.S. and South Korea, between the U.S. and China to give them enough space to finish the development before the U.S. has the capacity to make the decision to act.
Fred Burton [00:17:21] Pretty sobering view to be blunt, Rodger. I appreciate you sharing that with us and for our listeners. Thank you very much.
Rodger Baker [00:17:30] Thank you.
Ben Sheen [00:17:37] That concludes this episode of the Stratfor Podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, you can read our latest analysis on North Korea's nuclear program and related topics at worldview.stratfor.com. We'll include a link to that, along with some related reading in the show notes. If you have a question or a comment about the podcast or even an idea for a future episode, let us know. You can call us at 1-512-744-4300 extension 3917. Or reach us by email at podcast@stratfor.com. And don't forget to leave us a review. We really appreciate your feedback, and your review also helps others discover the podcast. It just takes a few moments and you can leave a review on iTunes or wherever you subscribe to the podcast. And for more geopolitical intelligence, analysis and forecasting that brings global events into valuable perspective, follow us on Twitter @Stratfor. Thanks for listening.
