North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Bruce Bennett: Why the US needs a new strategy to deter North Korean nuclear use

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Bruce Bennet, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, joins the podcast to discuss just how ironclad the U.S.-South Korea alliance really is, the growing plausibility of limited nuclear use by Pyongyang and the risks of miscalculation in a changing security environment. He also delves into what North Korea military is learning from the war […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the Private Podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NK News website at nknews.org slash private dash feed. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's Wetsuit and today we're recording this in the NK News studio. It is Monday, the 21st of April 2025. I'm joined here in the studio by a first time guest, Dr. Bruce Bennett and he is a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation and a specialist in

Northeast Asian security, military strategy, and asymmetric threats, particularly weapons of mass destruction. He's conducted extensive research on deterrence, Korean Peninsula conflict scenarios, and regime collapse planning for North Korea. And we're going to talk through some of those issues here today. So welcome on the show, Dr. Bruce Bennett. Thank you very much. My pleasure. So let's start, I guess, with the alliance, the state of the alliance. We'll start with a simple question, something that's often said,

but not often enough interrogated. How ironclad is the US ROC alliance today? Do you see any cracks forming, whether strategic, political or perceptual? There are always cracks in any alliance. I mean, that's a fact of life. Are there potentials for disagreements between the US and South Korea? Of course, our interests are different. They're not always the same.

Now, in many places, they are the same, which is what facilitates an alliance. But we do have some differences in interest and There are different political parties in South Korea who have different interests So but those things have always been true for the last 80 years They have always been true is seem to be at a place though where they're more true Than they've been in the past in both the US and in South Korea So we just have to wait and see what happens as we go forward in the next little while. Okay, do you expect anything major, dramatic to happen? Well, I think that one of the most dramatic things

will come with the US-South Korea negotiations on tariffs and that sort of thing. And there, I think it's extraordinarily unfortunate that you have not had a coherent South Korean government that could attempt to preempt those negotiations. You know, there are many things that the South Korean government could have done to tone down those negotiations, but it didn't happen because you didn't have a coherent government to really do it.

So that's unfortunate. Is it a natural given that military issues would be drawn into a negotiation on trade and tariffs? Given the nature of the alliance, probably yes. You know, it's a matter of, you go back to the administration of Park Geun-hye. She promised that South Korea would provide a defense budget of 3% of GDP. You have never gotten close to that. Well, that's a huge issue for this administration in the US about allies not bearing their fair share.

So that's an issue which you could have addressed in January or February and taken some action to try and balance that out didn't happen and that's almost necessarily going to thrust it into the economic discussions. Do you happen to know off the top of your head what the percentage of the South Korean GDP is that's currently spent on defense? About two and a half percent. It's been pretty constant for the last oh eight or ten years. Okay so that's more than a lot of NATO partners. Oh oh yeah yeah yeah it's more than NATO partners but it isn't

close to what Korea promised. Which is 3%. 3%. We're really just haggling over half a percent. Okay so half a percent is what it's it's about 10 trillion won. Okay. It's a trivial amount of money, right? In terms of the overall size of the Korean economy, yeah, it's not massive. Now, is there any serious discussion in Washington about downsizing the US commitment to Korea? There are all kinds of discussions going on in Washington, but most of the discussions have been focused on Europe and then a little bit on the Middle East, on the Gaza situation and so forth. Not so far a lot on Korea. You know, we've had the discussions with the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Bridge Colby, when he testified to Congress and said that the US should be paying

more attention to China than to the North Korean threat. Mm-hmm Well, I hate to say it but where's the best place to position US forces to deal with China? Where in the area can they be closer to China than in Korea? So to talk about them focus more on China. That's an anomaly in the US system US forces Korea has almost always been prohibited from dealing with China. That's an issue controlled by the US Pacific Command. And so they haven't worked on it. That's going to change, I think, pretty clearly in this administration.

But it doesn't mean that that's going to hurt Korea. That could still be the very best place to put US forces to be near to China and to be able to deal with it. Now, it's not the nearest to Taiwan, but you don't put everything in one basket. You want to spread them around the periphery of China. But wouldn't that automatically draw South Korea into any conflict with between the US and China? Well, so let's go back to 2016. Okay. US is putting THAAD into Korea. Yes. What does China say? China says, oh, those weapons, they're terrible. They could intercept anything we fire at Japan or anything we fire at the US. No, THAAD doesn't reach high enough to reach missiles going from

China to Japan. But it's the radar, the X radar, is that what I'm talking about, that reaches into northern China? The over or the horizon radar can see, but China's got two over-the-horizon radars pointed at the Korean Peninsula. So come on China, that's not the reason. The only missiles that the THAAD can defend against where it's positioned in South Korea are Chinese missiles fired at South Korea. Right, okay, but if we, if the US Pacific Command changes the rules of engagement to allow US troops stationed in Korea to engage with China in case of any contingency, wouldn't that automatically make Korea a target for China?

Oh, I think you've got to assume that Korea is automatically a target for China regardless. You got F-35 aircraft here that are Korean aircraft. You've got all kinds of resources here that are not just purely U.S. And China is going to be very concerned about it. So yes, would China be more concerned if the US keeps building up capabilities here in Korea? Certainly they would. That's only natural to expect that. But South Korea is not off the hot seat. No matter what, as long as there are even no forces, US forces in Korea. Korea is still a target because it's got substantial military capability and China is going to want to

dominate. What's your sense of how Seoul is reading the alliance with the US these days? Is confidence holding or do you detect growing anxiety under the surface? Oh I think there's considerable anxiety growing under the surface. Is that bipartisan in Korea? Oh, yes, yes, yes. So go back even before the election in November, in the US election in November. You know, when I was here last year before the election,

everybody was concerned about what happens if Trump gets elected. It didn't matter whether they were conservatives or or progressives. It was a concern because they just weren't sure how to read him and what he would do, how he would try to work with North Korea. Now Kim Jong-un has been really good to South Korea and the US because it's made it very clear that he really isn't going to work with the U.S. except under some very restrictive conditions. So in some senses, situation is actually better now than it was before the election because there's less uncertainty.

Kim isn't just going to wake up some morning and say, sure, let's go do a negotiation. Remember how badly he was hurt in 2019 by the failed Hanoi summit. I mean, he purged lots of people, hurt lots of people in North Korea. He's not going to negotiate again with Donald Trump and let Donald Trump embarrass him in front of his elites, especially given the level of instability in North Korea. What's your sense of that percentage of progressive politicians in South Korea who would welcome the end of the U.S.-Korea alliance and the disappearance of USFK forces from Korea? Oh, I think even your leadership, E.J. Myung, he doesn't want to see the alliance ended. No, he doesn't.

Are there some in the progressive party who would? Sure. E.J. Myung, he doesn't want to see the alliance ended. No, he doesn't. Are there some in the progressive party who would? Sure. There are always more extreme people in any party. But would that be larger than 10%, do you think? Probably not much, but ballpark probably there. I mean, I'm not a pollster to measure the progressives. But I think people generally realize

I mean you look at the opinion polls that have been made Over 90% of South Koreans say that they want the US-ROK alliance to continue So it's not going to be much more than 10% of it's even that much Now it's been said that alliances are built not just on capabilities, but on shared perceptions Do you see a divergence today between how Washington and Seoul perceive the North Korean threat? Curious to hear the rest? Become an NK News subscriber today for access to the full episode.

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