North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Daniel Pinkston: How North Korea uses technology to control its citizens

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Following a barrage of balloon launches across the inter-Korean border, North Korea analyst Daniel Pinkston joins the podcast to discuss why North Korea is sending trash South and how Seoul should respond.  He also talks about how North Korea uses “digital authoritarianism” to control its citizens with technology, as well as the DPRK’s international arms […]

Thank you. items from our t-shirt or hoodie collections will snag their third for half off. Whether you're eyeing our North Korea themed gear for yourself or as gifts, now is the perfect time to act. Don't miss out. Head to shop.nknews.org and make the most of this limited time offer. That's shop.nknews.org. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. And today I am joined here in the studio by Dr. Daniel Pinkston, who is a lecturer in international relations at Troy University. He was previously the Northeast Asia Deputy Project Director for the International Crisis Group in Seoul. And we're going to talk about digital authoritarianism and North Korea in geopolitics,

as well as North Korea's new position on the unification issue post last year's plenary, as well as balloons. You can find Dan on Twitter at D Pinkston. Dan, welcome back on the show. Great to be here. It's been a while since you were last on. It was, we had you on episode 14 when this was still a new thing back in April 2018, a very different time to now, and we recorded it, that episode, shortly after the Winter Olympic detente and shortly before the first Moon-Kim summit at Panmunjom and about two months before the Kim-Trump summit in Singapore.

So looking back on that period now, Dan, how hopeful were you then, already a long-time North Korea analyst, of some kind of positive breakthrough? Well, at that time, I was a little bit worried. I thought we had dodged a bullet. A lot of people were worried. No, excuse me, they were very helpful. I was worried. People had high expectations. And I felt.S. was prepared to sign some kind of suboptimal deal that would leave us worse off. So the fact that there was no such agreement or bad agreement, I felt we dodged a bullet then.

Ah, so you mean, so the bullet was, I guess, later on, perhaps the dodging was at Hanoi, was it, when no deal was signed? I guess later on perhaps the dodging was at Hanoi, was it, when no deal was signed? Right. You know, both of those summits around that time, I was quite concerned. The U.S. representative is a very bad negotiator. Some people felt that we dodged a bullet back in 2017 when we may have come close to some kind of conflict with North Korea. Do you think we were at the time?

I don't think so at all. I've had discussions about this with people, and I don't want to rehash that here and now, but I didn't believe that at all. The risk of war and conflict, I think, was, you know, in the air term, about 5%, which it always is, but I didn't see the pathway to conflict or getting close to that. So I was not alarmed or worried at that time. I slept well at night then. And how would you describe the situation that the world finds itself in now vis-a-vis North Korea? Well, I think the world has become more unstable. There's more uncertainty. And we're in the midst of an authoritarian wave across the world, and we will see how this is going to turn out. Democracy is under assault across the world, and dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, the usual suspects, those that are dissatisfied with the liberal world order are looking to

overturn that order or to exploit the situation to their advantage. So that's what worries me. And of course, North Korea plays into that. Do you think we're still at a sort of a roughly 5% chance of conflict? As you said, that it's kind of in the air at all times? Yes. The good news is that the parties in Northeast Asia wish to avoid conflict because it would be catastrophic. All parties? Yeah, I mean, maybe there's some gangster group somewhere, some non-state actor group, some foreign arms supplier, something like that. But in general, there wouldn't be many winners in a full-blown conflict in Northeast Asia. Now, yesterday, you took part in a roundtable discussion at the Ministry of

Unification, in which you and other international folks here in Seoul discussed with the Minister of Unification about, I guess, the way forward in inter-Korean relations and how to deal with North Korea. What can you tell us about that meeting without, you know, of course, it was off the record, so you can't quote anyone, but what can you tell us about it? What was the general feeling there? Well, I think I've seen a maturity in South Korea across a number of different dimensions, whether it's economics, business, national security, military affairs, and now in inter-Korean relations. I think in the past, and it's very common or natural for newly independent states or states that come out of a colonial period or are weaker states, they have very guarded sovereignty norms. They want to do things unilaterally. They want to be in control. They want to be in the driver's seat. Because of that past experience, they're afraid of or worried about being exploited by larger powers.

And also the view is that working in partnerships or in alliances or in coalitions, that they're worried that that could be perceived as weakness. You have to rely on these partners because you're weak. If you were strong and strong enough, you could just do things unilaterally. But actually, I think the opposite is true. So if you can work in coalitions and work in partnerships, then that's actually a strength. So you see the United States, which is a big power in the international system, they have a network of alliances and coalitions, work together with partners that have similar goals, objectives, similar interests, similar ideals, and so forth. So that network of alliances is a strength. So getting back to South Korean case and unification and how this fits in. So on the

security side, for example, South Koreans had always been interested just in the U.S. or in their own military power. But now they've recognized the utility of the United Nations Command and multilateral coalition, working with the Japanese in trilateral security issues and also in non-traditional security issues and so forth. So what struck me in part of the discussion, you see this also in reports and news reporting, the ministry and the administration looking to international partners and realizing the cost of unification. This would be a very costly and difficult pathway going forward, and that cooperation from like-minded partners and from the international community would be necessary and helpful. So reaching out to partners and building coalitions, building these kind of relationships, and being open to these views from these other foreign scholars and specialists is different, say, from the past when, you know, inter-Korean issues was a very Korean thing. And it should be. I mean, they're the biggest stakeholder. They should be

in the driver's seat and everything else, of course. But the fact that they're looking for partnerships and looking to the international community as a supportive, you know, pillar of this, I think is a positive development. Did you get a sense from your interlocutors at the Ministry of Unification that the South Korean government is having a rethink about unification? Yes, they're rethinking some things and rethinking some approaches. The minister did say that, you know, despite maybe some misperceptions or, you know, other distortions that the Yoon government has been, you know, is very interested in unification and wishes to achieve that. So, you know, that's part

of a domestic, you know, political discourse here and critics and so forth feeling that maybe Yoon has, you know, dismissed or disregarded the importance of unification or working with North Korea. People can form their own judgments about that, but at least that was the, you know, attitude or the belief of the administration. The un-administration is that, you know, they have not neglected or, you know, they're not, they are concerned about it. I want to talk briefly about North Korea's recent balloon launches into South Korea. They're sending trash and possibly some manure or feces. Do you see that as a gray zone act, somewhere between war and peace, something

that's hard to counteract? Yes, I found that very interesting. It's not the first time. They have sent balloons before. I was reviewing some of the history of this in the past couple days, and I think back in, according to news reports, around 2016, 17, during that year period, they had launched about 1,000 balloons throughout that period. So this has been— Most of those were with leaflets, though, weren't they? Right, right.

This time it's no leaflets, just trash. That's correct. So I was going to get to that. So yes, in the past, the psychological warfare and propaganda, both the North and South have sent balloons for decades. Yeah,, even since the time of the war. And you're more of a specialist on this than I am, so you're very familiar with it. So that has always been the aim or the objective, right? It's the propaganda and this propaganda battle between the two sides. So it was kind of striking when we saw what the payloads, what they were sending in the

balloon. So this was puzzling to people. So people were trying to figure this out. What are the motivations? And I think there could have been multiple motivations. Some people think maybe it's out of desperation, or it's some kind of odd objective to kind of insult the South, or a kind of mockery, or some kind of prank prank or some kind of provocation to try to trigger a disproportionate response that somehow could turn into some cycle of escalation that would benefit the North. But I think what many people are missing, what most people are missing in this, that this took place during GPS jamming, electronic warfare operations or training exercise. So I think it's connected to that. And I'm worried because of the military cooperation with Russia. Russia has been making a lot of advancements in electronic warfare. And we've seen some of those effects in Ukraine.

So there's possible sharing of information there, sharing of technology, testing of technology. sharing of information there, sharing of technology, testing of technology. And so I'm curious about the details of this, the technical details of this, which I've been looking into the last couple of days. About the balloons themselves, you mean, or the payloads that come in them? No, the electronic warfare stuff. So the balloons might be just a distraction then? No, I think it's related to it. It's part of it.

Because those types of balloons, some people just say, oh, it's humorous or shouldn't react or do anything and just kind of laugh it off. I think there is a absurdity of this, or this is what your government, your party state is doing, and the Kim regime is doing, and all of that. Make jokes out of it that are too funny not to repeat, not to miss repeating. So you have to send out, you have to respond to these balloons. I mean, there were hundreds and hundreds of them, right? So not knowing what's in the payload, and there's garbage and feces or animal feces and everything else. So you have to make sure that these are not, there's not some biological agent, some biological warfare agent, some toxin, something that's dangerous.

Wherever they land, they have to be cleaned up. Right. Landing in people's homes and their automobiles or in a school, things like this. So it has to be cleaned up. So you have to send out people. So all of these first responders, right? You probably got the text messages from the government, right? Do not touch.

Don't touch it. Report it to the police. Report it to the military. And of course, these people had to go out. So the fire department, the government, right? Do not touch. Don't touch it. Report it to the police. Report it to the military. And of course, these people had to go out. So the fire department, the police department, military units all had to go out and they had to coordinate this stuff, track these things.

So there could be a couple of objectives in this, testing the air defense system. Of South Korea. Of South Korea, right? So the KPA looking at this, say, okay, what's getting through, what's not? South Koreans tracking this or not. And then when the payloads land in the South, they have to mobilize this interagency response, right?

Right. People in hazmat suits to go and pick them up and stuff. Absolutely. So they're using radios, communications. They have to coordinate all of this response, and they can monitor that. So all of that, all of those, you know, a lot of equipment that's tracking this, the communications and running the operations and everything else, emit electromagnetic energy, and that can be tracked. So the North Koreans can track this. They can do, you know, work with their jamming equipment, see what they can jam or not, and a bunch of different things they can do in the electromagnetic spectrum and so forth.

So I think it's connected to that. It was done while these jamming exercises were going on, so that's concerning. Briefly, what's the best way for South Korea to respond to it? concerning. Briefly, what's the best way for South Korea to respond to it? Is it, as you say, to get into the information space, to set up loudspeakers, to send balloons back into North Korea with not trash, but information? Yeah, I've been an advocate for, you know, influence operations in North Korea. What does that look like? Well, you know, stealthily, a way to get in whichever way you can. I think with AI and other new emerging technologies, I think there's a lot of things they could do to insert into the North Korean information space and into their intranet,

into the Gwangmyeong, and to get in there. Things of recordings of senior leadership, you know, backstabbing each other or something that's reflects badly on the regimes or leadership and something like that. And not the kind of, you know, very unsophisticated things that, you know, like a leaflet with cartoonish figure, it looks like Kim Jong-un with like a pig's face or something like that. But very, very insidious, just things that are slightly off. And then it gets into, you know, North Korean cyberspace, things on the radio. There are different ways to get things in there.

It's difficult. And also humor, getting in jokes and things like that, mockery. As a subversive technique. Yeah, yeah, that's subversive. People like humor. They like to laugh. They like to smile, especially in North Korea. Okay, well, let's see if that goes ahead. Let's move on to digital authoritarianism. That's something that you've been reading and analyzing a lot lately.

What is digital authoritarianism, and how does North Korea use it? Well, there's two pieces of it, of course. You know, the world champions of this, of course, are the Chinese and the Russians. The Russians and Chinese, I don't know who's the gold medalist and the silver medalist there. You know, the Iranians are very active in this, but also the North Koreans. So there's a domestic element, you know, maintaining control, tight control, monitoring and surveillance of the information space, blocking any information that is negative or reflects negatively on the regime. And then, of course, filling the information space with positive information, propaganda,

misinformation, disinformation, and so forth. So this was very evident the past week. It was the 35th anniversary, well, just two days ago, a couple days ago, right? It was the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. So that was all blocked out. That's been pretty much scrubbed from Chinese memory, right? So the effort to erase that so that people don't identify or remember it and controlling that has, of course, political effects. So maintaining that.

And then there's also the projection internationally. So there are international campaigns to undermine democracies. There are international campaigns to undermine democracies. So there's the domestic level that these regimes use all of the surveillance technology to maintain social control, political control. And then at the international level, they're using techniques to undermine democracies. Coming back to the domestic sphere, I mean, for North Korea, I guess it's a little bit easier because they don't have a Tiananmen Square event to black out and to erase from people's memories, right? Is there anything new in North Korea's domestic digital authoritarianism, or is it simply of a piece with the last 75 years? Well, they've had very tight control of the information space, right? Yeah, for decades.

So they control, they have a very strict monitoring apparatus and surveillance apparatus. So they've been, you know, installing and implementing that technology. The Chinese are very advanced in this using, you know, facial recognition, cameras and so forth, you know, tracking devices with mobile phones, you know, you carry your mobile phone around to do all kinds of things. So they can connect that with the facial recognition, your transactions, whom you're meeting with, what you're doing online. Are you visiting or communicating with anyone who's, you know, subversive or, you know, malcontent or what have you. So all of those kind of monitoring tools in place, it makes it very difficult to take any collective action against the government, right? How do you form a rebellion or anything?

So as far as North Korea, I think they're way behind China, but they are getting these technologies to monitor and surveil their population. Now, do you see North Korea as part of a global authoritarian wave in which governments are trying to basically fight against democracy and overturn the liberal world order, as you called it? Yeah, there are four of the four usual suspects, and there are a few others. Of course, there's Russia and China, North Korea and Iran. These states are what I would call revisionist, malcontents. They're grief states. They have grievances against the system.

So their narratives are slightly different, but there's a lot of overlap or convergence. And then they have different ideas about vision for the future or what kind of order they would like to have in the future. or what kind of order they would like to have in the future. But where they agree is that the current system is suboptimal for them and they wish to undermine it and overturn it. And they will cooperate when and where they can to push that agenda. So because of those differing visions, I guess it's hard to speak of a bloc or an alliance. Is it more just of a loose coinciding of interests, kind of more opportunistic than anything else? Right. They're authoritarian regimes. So authoritarian systems or dictators, they're very transactional, right? They can't make credible commitments.

Because when you're unconstrained, you're a powerful dictator, you can do whatever you want. You can make an agreement today, and tomorrow I can wake up and change my mind, right, and rewrite the rules. So in the international system, of course, there's no Leviathan, there's no global police, there's no world government, there's no 911 you can call to enforce an agreement or contract, right? So you can renege upon the agreements. People say that liberal states do that too, right? I mean, there are agreements that Western states make and then go back against, or they simply reinterpret them, or they say it doesn't apply in this case. Well, people can say whatever they want,

but I'm convinced liberal states, democratic states, and authoritarian states are different. If you want to talk about that, we can do a whole hour. You want to come do another podcast on that, we can discuss that over beer, but I think, we can do a whole hour. You want to come do another podcast on that? We can discuss that over beer, but I think that's kind of a resolved issue. What tools do democracies have at their disposal to challenge this kind of anti-democratic wave, this digital authoritarianism? Well, it's difficult. That's what we're searching for. So authoritarian regimes and dictators are unconstrained.

They can write the rules to their benefit. So they engage in rent seeking and corruption. Their coalition of support is very narrow. It's very small. They can provide private goods to their loyalists, their inner circle of supporters. Where in democracies, where in a participatory democracy, you have to establish your political legitimacy through standing for and winning elections. So you have to establish your political legitimacy through standing for and winning elections. So you have to appeal to the full electorate. And that coalition is too big to provide private goods, individual rewards to your coalition. It's too big, so you have to provide public goods. As you go to these authoritarian regimes, the public goods are very poor. I mean, you go to Russia, you get outside of the big cities, the public goods, the wastewater treatment and roads and hospitals and everything else that's run down, same as for North Korea.

So generally speaking, some states are organized differently. They provide public goods better than others. Some states have better governance than others. provide public goods better than others. Some states have better governance than others. But I think in general, dictatorships engage in rent-seeking to enrich themselves and their very narrow winning coalition of supporters. But to come back to the question of what democracies can do to challenge that, it sounds like democracies will always be vulnerable to rent-seeking attempts by authoritarian states. Well, that's why I think that, you know,

this back to the information space and the influence operations, you know, getting truth into these authoritarian regimes and exposing the inefficiencies, the corruption and the rent-seeking. So this is what's, you know, this paradox or this irony of it is in the 1990s when internet was kind of exploding and everyone's

getting online. The consensus in those days was that lowering the costs or lowering the barriers to information was going to do that. It was going to expose the corruption, the inefficiency, the rent-seeking, the human rights atrocities and all of that. And that dictators were doomed, right? So that was the... We're not and all of that, and that dictators were doomed, right? So that was the end of it. It was supposed to be the end of history, right? So yeah, people were caught off guard. I didn't expect it, unanticipated consequences. So authoritarian regimes adjusted and they adapted to this, and now they're using the

information space, using cyberspace, and they've developed these tools of monitoring, surveillance, and also the information warfare, you know, influence operations, misinformation, disinformation to confuse people, to undermine confidence in democratic institutions, both domestically and internationally, to undermine confidence in elections, and then people just quit. You know, they lose interest in participating in government and governance or create chaos. And in that case, it makes it right for a strong man to step in and make the rules and take over. It's a bleak picture. We'll have to get you back on when you find a solution to this. Even as we watch North Korea and Russia seemingly collaborate and encourage each other in

the international space, we do see some cracks in the facade. For example, there was the UN Panel of Experts report that recently quoted a cybersecurity firm as saying that North Korean hackers had broken into a Russian missile manufacturer and may have stolen some data from that manufacturer. Is North Korea playing both sides of the fence, working with Russia and other states, while also perhaps stealing from them or undermining them? That's representative of how actors tend to behave in cyberspace opportunistically, and they exploit any opportunities.

Everyone will steal from everyone. It's kind of like a fair game. It's somewhat like espionage, espionage in the international system. People expect to do it. That's just what you do. There's no more and more. You also eavesdrop on your friends. Yeah, I guess so. So, I mean, that's not a surprise. If you're operating in North Korea,

you receive the guidance from the party. You have these targets. It's a command economy. You have certain missiles or weapons systems you're supposed to develop according to a timeline. You have to get the technology. You have to get the inputs. And if you're a good factory manager, timeline. You have to get the technology, you have to get the inputs. And if you're a good factory manager, you wish to move up the ranks in that system, you need to meet the plan. So you get it however you're going to get it. You steal it, you buy it, you do a joint venture, you do whatever you can do. Sure. But I mean, wouldn't you expect in a rational world that North Korean cybercrime groups would be targeting other subjects rather than close allies, China and Russia? Well, who was the gangster who said he robs banks because that's where the money is?

So if that's where the technology is, that's where you go get it. Now, China and Russia have chosen not to rebuke North Korea in public, despite recognizing what's going on. Why do you think that is? Well, in that area where their interests converge is undermining the West, right? So that whole narrative about the decadent West or, you know, Western imperialism. Imperialism is, you know, the last summit with Putin and Kim Jong-un, right? Kim said, I'll always stand on the side of anti-imperialism. And Iran has similar narratives about the great Satan and everything else. And China and, you China and Russia have those narratives too. So they're slightly different, but you see a lot of overlap and convergence.

The West is corrupt and they're weak and they're gay and they do drugs and all of these other kinds of things. They're in decline and all these terrible traits and attributes. And we have a better way. We're more disciplined in all of this. Do you think that China and Russia would choose to let North Korea get away, North Korean hacking groups get away with it scot-free? Or do you think that they would take some action behind the scenes to tell them off or show them who's boss? Well, they were probably already in North Korea's networks anyway. They weren't going to wait for that to retaliate.

They're constantly trying to get into their networks and to see what they're doing as well. So they don't play nice in cyberspace. There's just persistent activities in that realm or in that domain. Now, you mentioned Iran. How long has North Korea and Iran been in a positive relationship with each other? And what keeps that going today? Well, certainly the most notable one going back historically is in the 80s with the Iran-Iraq war. And Iran and North Korea cooperated on missile development, ballistic missile development. North Korea sold a lot of missiles to Iran. And that war of the cities, the missile war between those two sides. And there's been other cooperation as well. Of course, the two sides have incentives to conceal that cooperation.

But there's a lot of speculation about nuclear cooperation, some kind of trilateral cooperation with Iran, Syria, North Korea, before that reactor was bombed by the Israelis. It was, what, back in 2007, I think. But there are other areas as well with the drone technology. Russia's been using Iranian-produced UAVs, strike UAVs there. Other areas they could cooperate, like, you know, electronic warfare, space technology. Russia has an agreement with Iran to launch or provide satellites for Iran and access to Russian ground-based satellite center. So they can exchange data, designs, a whole slew of things that they can cooperate on. So you're talking about a trilateral Russia, Iran, North Korea cooperation here, are you? Yes, in some areas, right.

So there's mostly bilateral. The regime's are mostly transactional. But looking for the gaps or the possibilities, what they can bring to the table and how they can exploit the opportunities that may lie before them. So they don't talk about that much. There's not a lot of information about it, but you can certainly see the incentives to cooperate. But they don't come out with white papers and they don't disclose or announce this stuff like AUKUS does, you know, like the Americans, Australians and the British with their submarines and things like that. So it's pretty secret. Do you believe that North

Korea is playing an active role in the Middle East conflict at the moment? Well, maybe, you know, in terms of arms sales, you know, they'll sell to anybody that has the money. You know, if we had the money right here, we could buy missiles from them. So we could buy artillery from them. But where would you put it? Yeah, exactly. So wherever they can sell their arms, you know, they've sold arms in a number of places around the world. Usually they compete on price, of course, low cost, conventional arms,

ballistic missiles, and so forth. So they've worked out this deal, this arrangement with Russia and those areas in Ukraine and potentially the Middle East, Syria, where some weapons could be used. They certainly exploit that. I don't have data or anything on it, top of my head now, but there's certainly evidence of that. All right, let's move on to geopolitics more broadly. So what's the geopolitical situation in Northeast Asia right now, and where does North Korea fit in that scene? Well, certainly there's this increasing competition between China and the US. So that's, I guess, more global. It's not just restricted to Northeast Asia, but there, again, China is challenging the liberal order and in a number of critical technologies and industries that have

dual use military applications, right? You know, AI and, you know, battery technology, other areas of governance, how the internet will be managed in the maritime space. Does North Korea benefit from that competition? Possibly. I mean, they wish to see the liberal order overturned. So they view that as being advantageous or potentially creating opportunities for them. So if the liberal order is overturned, and again, these were ideals, they were not perfect. But after World War II, the principles were first the peaceful settlement of disputes, protection of human rights after all of the horrific atrocities of World War II, there was a realization we need to protect human rights, human security. And then third,

realization we need to protect human rights, human security. And then third, open economies, open market-based economies. And fourth is the institutions to support those other three pillars, right? So for these revisionist states, these aggrieved states, they don't like be constrained by those principles. And quite often people will say, well, yeah, Dan, you're being a hypocrite because look, the wars the U.S. was involved in, they didn't resolve all the disputes peacefully. But it's an ideal, right, to strive for. And from this authoritarian wave, the authoritarian bloc, that's not even an ideal. It's nothing to strive for. And under their rules or their governance, the use of force to settle disputes is a completely legitimate tool of statecraft. You can use force to redraw borders whenever you like. You see that in

Ukraine right now. It could happen in Taiwan, Taiwan Strait, and of course in Korea. So if those constraints are lifted, then authoritarians, if there's an asymmetry in power and they can revise, overturn the status quo, and North Korea is dissatisfied with the status quo, then the opportunity to unify Korea on the Korean Peninsula on its terms, they would look at that as an opportunity. Korea on the Korean Peninsula on its terms, they would look at that as an opportunity. Do you see North Korea these days motivated more by strength or fear in terms of how it acts on the global stage? Or not strength, but confidence. Is it acting confidently or is it acting out of fear? I think there's confidence in two ways.

We see how Kim Jong-un, where he's placed his bets, where the Workers' Party leadership has placed its bets, is that the world order is in flux, it's being contested, and it's going to collapse. There's going to be this new authoritarian order that would create those opportunities. So, I mean, it's reminiscent of the 1940s or whatever when Kim Il-sung was, you know, you read those old party plenary reports or party congress reports and that about the global situation, right? And being very, very enthusiastic and confident about, you know, especially like when the CCP won the war and established the PRC in 49, you know, Vietnam and so forth. So there seemed to be this communist wave and what everything, you know, Marx had predicted was coming to fruition. So it was this kind of confidence. So it's, you know, different time, different system, different setting.

But as far as this liberal order and the West being in decline, you know, I think kind of looking forward and thinking there's going to be opportunities. And then, of course, because they've, you know, kind of slipped through the cracks in the division between this authoritarian bloc and the Western democratic bloc, there's no cooperation in the Security Council, for example, you know, sanctions have collapsed against North Korea. And so they've worked out this relationship with Russia for arms sales and so forth. So they're much more stable internally, I think, than in the past because of the economic conditions have probably improved. COVID gave them opportunity to crack down. They're getting more of this surveillance technologies that we were talking about earlier, And they've come

to complete a lot of their weapons developments. Do you see a set of circumstances in which North Korea might be encouraged to act out in a violent way against South Korea? Well, if the opportunities were right, and if they think they could exploit the situation through violence or use of force, of course, they use use of force. That's how the political system works in North Korea. They are the world's greatest realists. As I've said many times, they look at everything is adjudicated by power, power imbalances. That's how you rise the top of the system internally in North Korea. You use your power advantages and you whack your opponents. A few minutes ago, you mentioned Taiwan. There are some people in South

Korea who are concerned that if there was some Chinese action on Taiwan, whether that be an invasion or encirclement or an embargo, that South Korea may be unwillingly dragged into that conflict. Do you think that's a realistic fear? Well, yeah, I should be concerned about that, any instability in the region. Even if you weren't a participant in the conflict, the disruption and problems that would cause from a humanitarian perspective, economic perspective, the global instability, what it would do to markets and everything else, and this very close to South Korea geographically.

Would that provide cover for North Korea to take action of its own, do you think? Would you expect that to happen? Does action in Taiwan that North Korea may do something on the peninsula? It's possible, of course, right? So there's a lot of variables and depending upon the conditions and everything else. So it's too complex to predict or just isolate that one variable. But certainly, North Korea would act opportunistically if they could. There's no aversion to using force to achieve political objectives. So if the opportunity arose, they would certainly be willing to do so. But on the other hand, they're very aware of power asymmetries and they can be deterred.

Now, very briefly on the last year's plenary, we've had a lot of people talk here on this podcast in the last six months about Kim Jong-un and North Korea's new position on unification. What's your take? Are we seeing something fundamentally different or is this same old, same old? Well, I think in the context of this unstable and changing geopolitical structure, global structure from North Korea's viewpoint. I think this is a recognition of why there's a change. North Korea's looking for a new unification policy. But I've heard some people, I heard some people yesterday and see a lot of people talking

about North Korea giving up or Kim Jong-un has abandoned unification. I think that's absolutely false, not abandoned unification. I think what this— But he said he's not interested in peaceful unification with the South. Is that right? Yes. I think the announcement or his report in December coming out of the plenary was that it's a recognition that the past unification policies were failures.

So we can break those into like three or four periods. So one is the war period or leading up to the war period, subversion, United Front tactics and everything to try to avoid the national division and establishment of two states. And then, of course, the war. So use of force, that failed. Then from the end of the war in 1953 up until, let's say, the end of Cold War I in 89 or 90, there was this effort at subversion, undermining South Korea, fostering a revolution

from the ground up and all of that. So use of terrorism and so forth, that failed. So then from the end of the first Cold War, North Korea and a lot of people in the world, everyone in the world was kind of looking at where things were going to settle and what their place was going to be in the world and what the world order was going to look like. But of course, North Korea was plagued by the internal crisis and the famine and all of that. So they really had to focus on their internal affairs and to stabilize things there. So then they moved to this next period under Kim Jong-il, if we want to call it Kim Jong-il period, basically from the early 90s up until now, was this effort at engagement and slight opening to the world to push unification in their way and to achieve this idea

of 1980, Kim Il-sung's Confederation. Confederation. Yeah. Cordial Confederation. You know, that formula. So that was kind of the idea, build a united front taxes and eventually to unify Korea through that mechanism and turn it into, you know, under party control eventually. Okay, so that's all failed. Yes, that's failed. So all of these, so these previous efforts have failed. So now they're

looking for a new strategy. And this is in the context of this changing global order in North Korea's mind. And I think looking at the different options, putting force back on the table, and that the use of force is a realistic option. So if the opportunities are right, situation is right, and that presents itself, then I think that's a realistic option that they're planning for and thinking about. Well, we've got that being said. Now we have five minutes to talk about peace. What do you see as the most important way to build and maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula? Well, for now, considering the political impasse and different systems and types of governance

and everything else, it's in a deadlock situation. And under these conditions, mutual deterrence is the only, I think, feasible way right now. So being prepared and being prepared to impose costs against North Korea, that is the revisionist state, the outlier revisionist state here, who's aggrieved, wishes to overturn the status quo. So to be sure that they recognize that their adversaries or South Korea and its allies have the capability and the will to impose costs that would be greater than any benefit they would achieve from aggression. And when we say cost, I mean, that's a euphemism here, but we're talking about military costs, right? Deaths and destruction. That's what mutual deterrence comes

down to. If you hit me, I'll hit you worse. Of course, I mean, there's the whole kind of toolkit of statecraft, right? So from just some demarche or to sanctions or to use information operations, public diplomacy, military exercise preparedness, retaliation against use of force. Republic of Korea has that right under the UN Charter, Article 51, right to self-defense. So any attack is a legitimate response, proportionate response, of course, according to the laws of war. And to be sure to signal that that's what would happen if North Korea acts aggressively, all the way up to the use of nuclear weapons. If they use nuclear weapons, that would be absolute suicide.

And that South Korean allies under the Mutual Defense Treaty, the U.S. has the means and the will to retaliate in kind, if necessary. Do you think that China has a positive role to play in building and maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula? Yes. It'll take too long to talk about that or bring that up. Why don't we save that for another time? Okay. Well, what do you think about recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power? Is that a way to go forward? Well, recognizing can mean there are different dimensions of recognizing that. According to diplomatically, according to international law, politically, and then militarily. So those all are different and have different meanings. So militarily, of course, you have to recognize capability and plan accordingly and prepare accordingly.

As far in terms of international law, absolutely not, because the way they acquired their nuclear arsenal violated international law, violated their treaty commitments. Politically and diplomatically, I think that's a mistake as well. And I think that sends the wrong signal to third-party observers. The next possible nuclear proliferator doesn't want to, or we don't want to send them that signal that you can engage this kind of nuclear breakout with impunity. Now, you're a former member of the United States military. You were in the Air Force once. What do you say to people on the American right and left who argue that the U.S. should simply pull out of the U.S., pull its troops out of the Korean Peninsula and abrogate the mutual defense treaty? I think it's naive and dangerous.

And what is the alternative? What goes in its place? So I'm pretty much agnostic as far as national security and international security and stability. And there are different pathways to get to security. You can have collective security regimes. You can have unilateral power balancing. You could have coalitions of like-minded,

friendly states that just have common norms, identities, and beliefs. So different pathways you can get there. So if you dismantle the current structure in Northeast Asia, which was created before I was born, and most of the critics were born, so what is the alternative pathway? What is the alternative institutional arrangement? And usually when you ask people that, they don't have a good plan or idea. Same thing with this global, you know, world order stuff I was talking about, the critics, the Russians, the Chinese and everything, they don't have much of a plan or alternative idea.

Chinese do in terms of, you know, alternative institutions, global institutions and that, and how they think things should be run. But I've asked North Koreans this, okay, you want to dismantle the mutual defense treaty between Seoul and Washington, withdrawal of US troops. So, okay, this is the current security apparatus arrangement. What's the alternative? And then they just kind of pause and they don't have any answer. So for those people, I say, what's the alternative? And then they just kind of pause and they don't have any answer. So for those people, I say, what's the alternative?

And usually the alternatives they come up with, if they come up with any at all, I view as being naive and dangerous and possibly destabilizing. So you said before that the way to build and maintain peace is through mutual deterrence so that neither side can be, I don't know, take silly steps or be adventurous or opportunistic. side can be, I don't know, take silly steps or be adventurous or opportunistic. And you then said that you're agnostic on how to, what is it you're agnostic on again? Remind me. On actually, you know, national security and stability. So, you know, if there's a pathway to get there, let's look at the different pathways, different kind of arrangements. So if you want to dismantle the current arrangement, what's your alternative arrangement?

Right. And do you see other ways to get to mutual deterrence than the current arrangement? Well, I will say this. Let me redirect this slightly. So if you look at, I see nothing really wrong with collective security institutions of democratic states. They take collective action because they're under threat from aggressive neighbors or expansionary states. So as we talked earlier, dictatorships, authoritarian systems can engage in rent-seeking because the leadership is not constrained. So they're expansionary. So you gain more territory, you can extract more rents. If it's a democracy, an electoral democracy, any possible rents that you would achieve through expansion would be eroded or competed away through the competitive political process.

That's why you don't see the U.S. invading Canada or vice versa. So when you look at a collective security institution like the United Nations Command in the South, it's made up of liberal democracies. the United Nations command in the South, it's made up of liberal democracies. So anyone that would suggest, and this is where I think dictators like Kim or maybe Xi, maybe he's a little bit brighter, or Putin, I think they totally misunderstand this concept of collective security institutions of like-minded democracies. They're not going to invade you. The UNC is not going to invade North Korea just for kicks or without any reasonable cause. Why is that? Because the electorate will not support that.

If you go to the UNC countries, Canada, Australia, UK, Denmark, and so forth, and say, hey, we're going to invade North Korea, send us some troops and supplies, are you in on this? And that's just not going to happen. Same thing with NATO. So NATO countries made up of democratic countries are not going to invade Russia. You go to German people, the French people, and so forth, the Romanians say, hey, let's go invade Russia and grab some territory. No democratic electorate is going to support such a action or activity and so when Putin says you know NATO is threatening him or you know North Korea saying oh the UNC or the the alliance in the south is threatening North Korea it's just absolutely false.

Well thank you that's where we're going to leave it for today thanks again Dr. Dan Pinkston for coming on the NK News podcast for the first time in six years we hope to have you again in the in the future probably before six years have passed. Okay, great to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you. In the intricate world of Korean affairs, tailored intelligence makes all the difference. Korea Risk Group's consulting services offer specialized, actionable intelligence designed to guide your career-related decisions.

We provide bespoke consulting services that cater to your unique challenges and goals. From policy analysis to market entry strategies, we bring clarity to complexity. Transform uncertainty into opportunity and visit careerpro.com solutions today. And to our post-recording producer genius, Gabby Magnusson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions, and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time.