U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Frank Aum. He is the senior expert on Northeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He oversees the Institute's work on Northeast Asia and focuses on ways to strengthen diplomacy to reduce tensions and enhance peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. He also has worked with the Department of Defense, including a special counsel to the Army General Counsel, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, and Senior Advisor on North Korea and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Frank Aum joins us now. Welcome and good morning. How are you?

Frank Aum: Good, Laura. Thanks for having me.

Laura Coates: You know, just this past Thursday, July 27, was the 70th anniversary of the Korean Armistice. I know that many were marking that particular day and reflecting on the 70-year span since. You also have an op-ed out in the Washington Post where you say the West has the power to restart dialogue with North Korea. Can you tell us a little bit about why you think that power is there? And of course, it's hard to look at this in a vacuum knowing that there is at least one American member of the military who, who crossed over and tried to run it seems into North Korea. Where do things start right now?

Frank Aum: Right. Well, the reason I wrote the op-ed was first that again, like you said, we're celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. And a lot of the celebrations in the United States and South Korea focus on the military accomplishments of the war. So, for example, the establishment of the U.S.-South Korea alliance, the sacrifices of the veterans from the war, and that's all well and good but what we should remember from the war, the main takeaway should be the fact that we used diplomacy during the war, to end bloodshed. And so, the focus should be on the armistice, the use of diplomacy rather than trying to celebrate, or more so than celebrating the Alliance. So, the reason I said that the West had the power is because right now we are currently in a stalemate. Both sides are using deterrence right now, and deterrence is basically a D.C. jargon. It means that we're trying to impose costs on the other side so that they don't take hostile actions against us. So, from the U.S.-South Korea perspective, we are building up our military exercises, we are demonstrating the superiority of U.S.-South Korean military airpower, our nuclear triad, all of this to try to contain North Korea, right. But there's got to be more than just deterrence. Deterrence is not an end. The idea of deterrence is that we're supposed to buy time, prevent hostility, and then we use that time diplomatically, to resolve the differences that required deterrence in the first place. And the only way to do that is to start in engaging with North Korea.

Laura Coates: You know, the idea of deterrence over diplomacy, it seems, it must feel disingenuous to think you're really being diplomatic with someone, we're just trying to fend them off. And it doesn't bode well in terms of either side, trusting if the only goal and policy is to stop the other. On the other hand, I mean, it's not as if we have a relationship with North Korea, similar to an ally by any means, where you do have some foundational trust, or even a geopolitical enemy where there might be some common interest. It seems with North Korea; it is very unique and very specific. How does that factor into the ability to do more than just deterrence?

Frank Aum: You're absolutely right. I mean, there is an absolute deficit of trust on both sides. Both North Korea and the United States don't trust each other. We feel there's a lot of hostility coming from the other side. But again, it doesn't do us any good to be in this mutual deterrence mode. North Korea is trying to deter us by developing nuclear weapons and enhancing the capabilities of its long-range missiles. We're doing the same by bringing over US bombers to the Korean peninsula, nuclear armed submarines to South Korea. But what this does is it creates an arms race. It's a cycle where one side tries to one up the other because they both fear each other. You're right. You know, we don't have a good foundation to build diplomacy off of. Somebody needs to take first move and we've seen in the past that there's precedent for the United States and North Korea engaging and that leading to better behavior, especially a lower level of provocations from North Korea. It's not easy, but someone needs to start.

Laura Coates: So, who, is there another nation that might be of assistance, I mean, is the United States going at this alone?

Frank Aum: Sometimes third parties can be helpful. So, for example, in 2017-2018, when President Trump met with Kim Jong Un, there was an intermediary, the South Korean President Moon Jae-in, he was a left leaning president who was very much interested in engaging North Korea and so he sent his envoys over to North Korea. Kim Jong Un expressed an interest in meeting with President Trump and South Korea relayed that back to Trump and then you had the summit that happened in Singapore in 2018. Currently, the South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol, is a hardliner. He is less interested in engaging with North Korea. So, you don't have South Korea now as a natural intermediary. Perhaps China, but because of U.S.-China relations being not good right now, they may not be able to serve as an intermediary as well. So, we're in a difficult situation where we can't find a third party who can help out. That being said, we shouldn't have to rely on third parties. We should be able to take the first move, the U.S. is a stronger country, we should have the confidence to say, hey, let's talk.

Laura Coates: You know, you mentioned your piece for The Washington Post that, you know, to reiterate the point you've raised earlier, that rather than these perfunctory attempts at talks, you wanted to demonstrate greater sincerity for negotiations by the US unilaterally offering concessions to North Korea. And there is some academic research to support that a conciliatory gesture, made first by a stronger country could maybe induce reciprocity. But then there's a political reality where we know we are what, 462 days away from a presidential election and we are always cognizant of our international standing and global positioning, even without a presidential election looming. How do you convince a politician to be the one to unilaterally offer a concession and appear conciliatory without appearing politically weak to the eventual demise of that candidacy?

Frank Aum: Well, let me first say that when you tell the current administration, the Biden administration that it needs to engage more, the way they respond is to say we have already reached out multiple times through the diplomatic channels in New York, and North Korea has not responded. Right. So, they claim that they reached out multiple times, there's nothing else that they can do if North Korea is not interested in talking. But what I would say there is that when Biden went to South Korea for a summit with President Yoon last year, a South Korean journalist asked President Biden, do you have a message for Kim Jong Un. And the way that President Biden responded was 'Hello. Period.' And of course, this terse response was meant to demonstrate toughness. But I think the way Kim Jong Un took that message was that President Biden is not interested in talking, right? So, it doesn't matter if the State Department reaches out to North Korea 100 times when there doesn't seem to be real sincerity at the leader level. Now, you're absolutely right, that it may be politically unrealistic at the moment to try these sorts of conciliatory gestures, but it can be done, again, in a hush hush manner. You know, for example, confidential letters to Kim Jong Un that expressed some of the types of conciliatory behaviors or gestures that we're interested in taking if North Korea comes back to talks. And these don't have to be made public. But you're right, it's going to be a tough sell in the current political environment.

Laura Coates: Really fascinating to talk to you say and hear about this. I do wonder what will happen in the long run. Thank you for joining us and giving your take. I encourage everyone to read your full opinion piece as well. It is available right now. If you go to the Washington Post, our guest is Frank Aum, A U M. Thank you for joining us have a great rest of your day.

Frank Aum: Thanks for having me.