North Korea News Podcast by NK News - How South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung could revive US-North Korea talks

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

The flurry of summitry in 2018-19 between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in inspired hopes for a breakthrough on resolving a decades-old conflict, only for talks to collapse without any progress on the DPRK nuclear issue. This week, historian John Delury returns to the podcast […]

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-feed uh... Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jaco Zwetsla, and this episode is recorded in the NK News studio on Friday, the 18th of July, 2025. And we welcome back a returning guest who was last on the show in November 2020, so

four and a half years ago, with General John and Bombe retired. And that's Professor John DeLury, who was most recently visiting Professor of Political Science at John Cabot University in Rome. He was formerly the South Fellow in China Studies at the American Academy in Rome, and was for many years a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.

He has returned to Seoul, Korea, where he lives. Welcome back on the show, John. Thanks, Jacko, it's great to be here. It's wonderful to have you back. I've been pestering you for a long time to come back, so thank you so much for your time today. Now, on June 29th this year, you tweeted, or is it tweeted? I don't know what it is anymore, ext.

How to put this nicely, this is your words, and then in all caps, there is no military option with North Korea. So how do you know this? John, how to put this nicely, you are after all a political scientist, not a military strategist. Well, I'm not even a political scientist. I beg your pardon. I'm a historian who...

Wrong in the first question. No, it's in my title occasionally, but I'm a historian who... Wrong in the first question. No, it's in my title occasionally, but I'm a historian who moonlights in the study of politics, international politics. Yeah, how did I'm trying to reconstruct the moment when I wrote that. I do, I take full responsibility for the tweet. I recall it. I recall the all caps,

but I don't remember actually the context and what inspired me. It's interesting now was that, yeah, I presume Iran was in the news and on the mind. And there is maybe we can move into that, maybe that's a relevant category because there is a renewed discussion now about military options because, you know,

it was probably considered a commonplace view that there was no military option as far as the United States was concerned with Iran and then suddenly the United States is bombing Iran. So I suppose I wanted to put down the marker of holding up the common wisdom that there is not a military option. Maybe I said solution, which if I said solution,

it's an even better claim with North Korea. So yeah, I think maybe it does bring us right into the question of the Trump administration, Trump policy and the North Korea Iran nexus. So you wrote in the same month in June for a piece, you wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs magazine and in there you said a new war on the Korean peninsula cannot be ruled out. Now, how seriously do you mean that? Do you think that the risk of war is actually rising or are you mainly talking about the absence of stabilizing diplomacy under Trump too?

To be honest, I've been skeptical of the argument, but it's made by the two people who I've probably learned the most from, uh, and, and respect the most, or along with anyone else, right at the top, Bob Carlin and Sig Hecker. I assume they've both been on the show. Yeah, when their book came out, I had them both on. Wonderful. And as you know, Jacko, and probably most

or all of your listeners will remember the piece that they wrote. So not the book, the piece, yes, that's right. And they did seem to be really a warning of an impending war at that point. Yeah, that they wrote. So not the book, the piece, yes. Yeah. And they did seem to be really warning of an impending war. Yeah, that's right. Kim Jong-un has made a strategic decision to go to war. Right. And I believe there's a question mark in the title, but it doesn't really feel like a question mark when you read the piece. And so that had a big impact on my thinking. And I was skeptical of it then,

and I continue to always be skeptical of it, but when two people who you respect that much come out and say with a high level of confidence that Kim Jong-un is showing real signs of being on a path toward war, with I think their argument is primarily on the Korean Peninsula, a war against South Korea That the United States has to decide whether it gets in or not

Aha, you know that's behind my reference to the fact that it can't be ruled out if that makes sense. Yes Yeah, so okay So on well, let's talk a little bit about the space where military and diplomatic tools overlap So for example the current South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung has stated that he'd like to re-institute the comprehensive military agreement with North Korea in an effort to create trust and reduce tension.

Is that an approach that might weaken military deterrence while making a diplomatic gamble? No, I don't see the CMA, the Comprehensive Military Agreement, that came out what, late 2018? Originally, yep. I don't see that as weakening deterrence. Perhaps not then, but what about now?

Like reinstituting something under a very different set of circumstances to late 2018, right? Yeah. No, I would encourage the Lee administration if they can open the channel and restart the process within that framework for sure. I think General Chun in our podcast back then, we could listen to the tapes, was also pretty supportive of the CMA. There was of course debate about it in the South, somewhat predictable split, but not entirely predictable split between liberals who thought it was a great idea and conservatives who didn't or were wary. But for all the things that have

changed in the circumstances that we'll be talking about, the most dramatic one being North Korea's entry into Russia's war against Ukraine, despite that I would say the CMA still makes sense because that sort of confidence building risk reduction is precisely what's needed. And yeah, South Korea has to take certain steps, reciprocal steps that are gonna be criticized as quote unquote weakening deterrence. But if you don't do that,

you never make any progress with an adversary. You commit yourself to endless arms race and endless saber rattling and the CMA would be a good place to start. If you believe as Bob Carlin and Seeg Hacker argued that that Kim Jong-un has made the strategic decision to go to war at some point then surely deterrence is something that is needed rather than confidence building. Yeah, you have to have them back on the show and ask them. That's why I brought up the fact that I don't agree. Ah, you haven't yet been convinced. Right. I take it very, very seriously. But to me there are still evidence, there are still signs. And frankly, until the moment when Kim Jong-un really orders an attack on the South, of course, at that point you argue it's too late.

But until then, we can't say it's true. He's made the decision to go to war, right? So to me, there's still that window remains open for, or kind of opening and closing, but there is still a possibility for engagement, for diplomacy, for negotiation, for the kind of agreements that you'd see in the CMA. Now it's interesting that during the six-month period from the Yun-Sung-Yul martial law declaration on December the 3rd to the election of Lee Jae-myung on June the 3rd, North Korea made no major provocative moves, didn't try to bring down the South Korean

regime, scatter leaflets. I mean, certainly, goodness knows, they were easy targets. Do you attribute that to lack of interest, strong deterrence, or something else at play? I'm not sure. You know, if we look back, we were here during the previous impeachment and pleasant anarchy of the Pak Geun-hye interregnum period there. And as I recall, North Korea, Nukim Jong-un was quite restrained then as well. So, you know, I think that that's the relevant precedent. If anything, we have a bit of a pattern that when there's a real mess in

South Korea, they kind of let South Korea stew in its own juice, you know? And at some point, we'll maybe pick it up in their own domestic media and make the point, look at what a mess it is down there. But otherwise, they don't show an interest in really trying to intervene, you know, and stick their finger in the pot, as it were, and stir it up. So I think that's what we saw, is that they more or less left the situation alone. Now the last time there was summit diplomacy in 2018 and 2019, you were quite hopeful. You grew a peace beard.

You sound, that sounds accusatory, Jacko. Yeah, the accusation comes later. You grew a peace beard, there's an accusation. You were bullish on outcomes and a sustainable lasting peace between the US and North Korea. Were you not? I was Today you said before me Sean of peace beard one political lessons Would you draw from the failure of that last period of so much of what should be tried again? What shouldn't be tried again? Yeah, great question and thank you for

Holding me up to the standard of my own professed views. It's important, especially in this world of watching North Korea, that we are reminded and remind ourselves of what we get wrong. So yeah, I thought that process could be sustained longer than it did. I think Steve Began did too. He was certainly hopeful. Yeah. Even after the failure of Hanoi. I thought that process could be sustained longer than it did. I think Steve Began did too. He was certainly hopeful. Yeah.

Even after the failure of Hanoi. Yeah. And I mean, if we had to do it over again, actually, I'm not sure that I would have commented or written actually much differently in the sense that I do think what was happening was real and moving things in the right direction. It just didn't, in the end, didn't last very long. So what was your question? So what should be tried again, what should not be tried again, what diplomatic tools

should be discarded or tried anew? Right. Well, I think the basic structure, I suppose, should be tried again, in that when we look at 1819, it was a three-party, tripartite diplomatic structure. And that simplified things. It left some parties out in a way that I think was productive. And it focused those parties,

the US and North Korea were working in their channel, and South Korea and North Korea were working in their channel, and South Korea and North Korea were working in theirs. And I suppose if the window of opportunity were to reopen sometime in the next few months or year or whatever, I would advocate going back to that formula of letting those three countries really drive it and maybe in those two channels with a lot of coordination. So North Korea and South Korea over here.

Yeah. North Korea and the U.S. over there, and the U.S. and South Korea in another place. Right. I suppose there's some big caveats. Now the full episode. Head to nknews.org slash join for more information. If you're already a subscriber to NK News, you can listen to full episodes from your

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