Hello and welcome to DEEPER LOOK.

I'm Del Irani, it's great to have your company.

Recently, North Korea commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice with a military parade.

The event featured missiles believed to have the range to strike anywhere within the U.S...

Also, in a stark contrast from previous years,

high-level Chinese and Russian officials stood shoulder to shoulder with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the parade.

So just how concerned should we be about the recent developments in North Korea's nuclear program?

And how will neighboring countries and global powers, such as the US, likely respond?

Well, joining me now to talk more about this is Jenny Town, Senior Fellow of the think tank Stimson Center.

She's also the director of Stimson's 38 North program, a website devoted to analysis about North Korea.

Jenny, welcome to the program. Great to have you with us.

Thanks, Del. It's great to be here.

So, Jenny, I know you're currently in South Korea right now.

First of all, just give us... what is the view from there?

I mean, how are South Koreans viewing, you know,

the kind of activity that's going on North Korea, I guess, the general looming threat?

You know, with North Korea's latest ICBM test, there was so little attention.

There are so many other things going on.

I think there's a lot of, kind of, missile fatigue when it comes to North Korea.

But it's, you know, it's concerning considering that North Korea's capabilities continue to grow,

they continue to advance, they continue to pose challenges to security in the region.

There's been lots of steps in the US-South Korea alliance lately to implement the Washington declaration,

to increase our cooperation on extended deterrence and nuclear consultation.

But you know, it doesn't solve the problem.

It is just part of trying to be ready in case something happens.

And I think there's still a lot of questions about what we can be doing, what we should be doing,

what more can be done to actually address the problem at hand, which is North Korea's nuclear program.

Let's talk a little bit about North Korea's nuclear program.

What do you think about it? I mean, what exactly are their capabilities?

And how concerned are you about this?

Well, they have been advancing rapidly over the past two years, especially.

We've seen, you know, so many new systems that have aligned with what North Korea's goals were stated in 2021.

At the Eighth Party Congress, they set a whole list of things that they wanted to accomplish over the next five years,

and they're knocking them down one by one.

So, we've seen, you know, new cruise missiles, we've seen hyper-sonics.

We've seen, you know, new ICBMs.

All of these add incrementally to North Korea's missile capabilities.

We've seen also North Korea's nuclear doctrine also evolve because of that.

And I think that's been the most concerning part for a lot of South Koreans,

because the new nuclear doctrine does lay out five conditions under which North Korea would consider nuclear use.

And three of those have preemptive conditions as well.

So, the idea of something, you know, an incident happening on the Korean peninsula,

turning into a nuclear conflict is higher than it was in the past.

And again, it's something that I think a lot of South Koreans are just worried that the rest of the world isn't paying enough attention to.

Well, I mean, recently, you know, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un put on quite a display with a military parade.

How significant is this? I mean, what type of message are these leaders sending to the world -

to see Russia, China and the North Korean leader standing side by side?

These were deliberate...

you know, it really does underscore what we've seen in deepening North Korea-Russia and North Korea-China relations.

And it does really reinforce the notion that, you know, as the US, South Korea, and Japan continue to deepen security cooperation.

You know, the Chinese are also watching this very closely and have great concerns of what to them is a US led security bloc in the region,

US led encirclement campaign in the region.

Like all of this feeds into Beijing's paranoia about encirclement, about containment campaigns.

Um, but it also feeds into the sort of reformation of ideological blocks as well.

And what we've seen is really in that process, China, Russia, North Korea cooperation growing to deeper levels,

beyond the political into the material, into the tactical, into the, you know, the tactical support that we haven't seen in recent years.

Jenny, what do you think Kim Jong Un actually stands to gain from his country's nuclear program?

I mean, what does he ultimately want? What's his end goal?

I think that's a good question.

And I'm not sure anyone knows the answer.

But certainly, the having nuclear weapons has given you know, the North Koreans, a cost-effective way to build their defenses.

They were never going to be able to build a conventional force that would match or

outmatch what South Korea and the US have in combined forces.

They are a small, poor country in the middle of political, economic and military giants.

And then the only country that, you know, doesn't have set alliances,

and did not have nuclear weapons when everyone else around them had nuclear weapons, either their own or by proxy.

So, there is a self-defense component to it.

And all of those factors, you know, really do play into how North Korea thinks about its nuclear ambitions.

And they'll continue to, you know, act in those interests.

Jenny, what's changed in the last two years?

You mentioned that since 2021, you know, they set out this manifesto and they've really aggressively gone after it,

achieving all these goals of building up their nuclear capabilities.

What's changed and why?

Well, I think part of this is a real missed opportunity in 2019... 2018-2019.

When North Korea did show a real willingness to take a different path and

to work towards reducing, at least limiting, its nuclear program.

There was still conditionality in how they thought about their nuclear program.

And even in the rhetoric, right, it was always posed as,

as long as the US maintains hostile policy, North Korea needed its nuclear weapons.

What you see now is a real...

and what you saw in 2019, after Hanoi, was a real disillusionment with the whole process.

You know, can the relationship actually change? What would it actually take?

How long would it take? How sustainable will it be?

When you're dealing with a democracy that, you know, in both South Korea and the US where the administrations can change every,

you know, four to five years, or eight years, depending on you know, how long they get elected.

And that the, you know, policies from administration to administration can vary widely.

So that disillusionments I think really solidified for Kim Jong Un;

how difficult the task was, and how results weren't guaranteed,

and that they really needed to be prepared to remain in this sort of hostile state.

But be smarter about it, learn to become more resilient to it.

You mentioned, you know, the changing of administrations.

I want you to ask you about the current administration and the US President Biden.

What do you make of the Biden administration's approach towards North Korea?

You know, the Biden administration, I'd like to think of it as it has a negotiation strategy.

If the North Koreans ever make the decision that they want to denuclearize, we're ready to negotiate terms.

We don't have a strategy for rebuilding diplomacy with North Korea, of getting them back to the table.

And this just relying on deterrence messaging like this doesn't create a very compelling argument for North Korea

to consider nuclear disarmament as its end goal.

I think we really need to rethink the messaging that we're putting forward,

given the goals that we have and what we want North Korea to be doing in the future.

In the meantime, one of the things the Biden administration has been doing, as you mentioned earlier,

is building a closer relationship with South Korea, particularly a stronger military alliance.

How effective do you think this renewed US-South Korea relationship is in further deterring North Korea?

It's a natural evolution of the Alliance.

I think, given the geopolitical conditions that exist today.

And but I think there's there needs to be greater balance between, you know,

increasing extended deterrence, increasing security cooperation, demonstrations of power, to the point where,

at what point did they become counterproductive to actually increasing security on the Korean peninsula?

And I think this is, what we're seeing now is we're kind of caught in this escalation spiral of, you know,

as we take moves to bolster defenses, the North Koreans see this as justification to take further moves in their defenses as well.

there's talk of a potential trilateral alliance between Japan, South Korea and the United States.

In fact, they're set for a summit on August 18, where among the many issues that are going to be discussed,

North Korea and the threat that North Korea poses is going to be one of them.

What do you think when you talk about this trilateral Alliance?

What are the expectations do you think for Japan moving forward?

I think it's useful when Japan and South Korea are on the same page as to what they want to do.

And you know, and are kind of telling the same messages also to Washington.

Where there is some consensus there.

And you can sort of talk about if we get back to the negotiation table.

Here's sort of a package deal that key different players are willing to do in order to move the agenda forward.

I think that's what was missing in 2018, when you had parallel bilateral negotiations going on with North Korea.

Where the South Koreans were way out in front, the US was sort of lagging behind, getting dragged along,

and the Japanese were sort of on the side waiting to see what was going to happen.

And it really limited the opportunities to, you know,

play on each other's strengths in negotiating with the North Koreans.

So, I think, you know, going forward, there is a lot of consultation that I think needs to be happening.

Not just on the defense side, but also on, you know, the preparing for diplomacy side.

What would we be willing to do together, both in terms of, you know,

security concessions, as well as you know, economic concessions, sanctions, lifting.

Like all of the kinds of things that we know that the North Koreans are interested in, and have, you know,

a shortlist of things that we've already decided as an alliance, suit our interests and would be willing to do quickly in a negotiation,

easily in a negotiation that wouldn't drag out over a longer period of time.

What would you be telling the US, Japan and South Korea to do, along with, along with other concerned nations?

What can... what are some of the steps they can take to further,

you know, prevent nuclear development by North Korea?

Well, I think preventing nuclear development right now is a very high bar, a high task.

I think the first is, you know, can we get to a point where we're seeing fewer tests,

fewer demonstrations, fewer drills going on.

And again, you know, as the US and Japan and South Korea are talking about trilateral defense planning,

I think there needs to be this parallel track going on about diplomacy,

and really thinking through a range of issues that aren't necessarily all nuclear either.

So, you know, if there's work that can be done on North Korea's energy sector, for instance.

What role would different people play, would different actors play in that, as a way to build confidence,

as a way to get back to negotiations and build a relationship that would might be more conducive to having discussions

about arms control, arms reduction, confidence building, that would get us back on a denuclearization track?

Some great tips and advice there.

Jenny Town, thank you so much for joining us on the program.

Thank you. It's a pleasure.

Though it's often difficult to gauge the motivations behind Kim Jong Un's regime...

His growing nuclear ambitions pose a serious threat.

And as long as there's no clear path to denuclearization,

North Korea will continue to remain a potential flashpoint for Asia and the rest of the world.

I'm Del Irani, thanks for your company.

I'll see you next time on DEEPER LOOK!