Pod Save the World - Global news roundup and North Korea

Episode Date: November 14, 2018

First, Tommy talks with Ben Rhodes about some major foreign policy news out of Israel, Trump's visit to France and the Russia investigation. Then Tommy talks with North Korea expert Lisa Collins about a new report detailing North Korea's ongoing development of its missile program.

Welcome back to POTSave the World. I have a two-part show for you this week. First, Ben Rhodes is now in L.A. You'll be hearing a lot more of him on this show. I'm hoping he will co-host with me on a very regular basis. And that means we can do things like we did today, which was tick through some of the week's top news on foreign policy. We talked about Israel and B.B. Netanyahu's comments about the Palestinian people and the occupation. We talked through President Trump's continued disrespect. and using of our service members as a political tool. We talked about Trump's attacks on the French. We talked about some of the latest news in the Russia investigation and what it all means. And then I have an interview with Lisa Collins, who is a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS. They did a very, very cool report where they used interviews with defectors and former government officials in North Korea and satellite technology to find new North Korean missile sites. It's a very cool thing.

The New York Times reported it out yesterday, and we talked through some of those details. So here is the conversation with Ben first, and then the conversation with Lisa. Ben, you are a L.A. resident. Yeah. You are in Crooked Media HQ. Yeah.

This is exciting. This is really, this studio is exciting. The studio is very cool. It's beautiful. I could just kind of hang out here. And I just want to say, I am very hopeful that in this coming year, we can make this a weekly thing.

Yeah, no, we're going to. You are a co-host of POTSafe of the world. Whenever you're available, why I know you're jet setting. We're all hands on deck. No, no, no. This is priority one, man. This is the mothership of the jet setting. Yeah, I mean, I think my favorite episodes are when we can talk through the news of the week

and then do a deep dive on some other thing with someone who's much smarter than me. Yes. And so this is perfect. So I'm so excited you're here. I'm so excited you live here and we need to hang out. No, we're going to have some fun. Yeah, got some fun. I wanted to ask you a few questions before we get to the interview down the road about North Korea and this very cool study at CSI disclosed their new missile facilities. But first, a little game of, can you imagine? Yeah. The first lady's communications director publicly on the record issued a statement saying the Deputy National Security Advisor should be fired. Yeah. Can you imagine Michelle Obama did that? I mean, as a former Deputy National Security Advisor, I mean, I can tell you that there may have been a couple of times when I was cross.

with the East Wing, which is scary. Scary place to be. But I never had to worry about them, like, publicly axing me. Just knifing. And actually, to be serious about it, like, whatever I think about this Deputy National Security Advisor, and by all ports, she's like a John Bolton, crony, like, awful person. But it's not a healthy thing that, like, the First Lady's Office, this kind of infighting, family intrigue reality show world is like, you know, careening around the

the West Wing taking out people in various centers of important. That person is supposed to be running the entire government's interagency coordination on national security policy, not apparently getting into fights with the First Lady's Office about, like, seating charts on foreign trips and then getting publicly acts. That's some petty shit. That doesn't, like a lot of things we've talked about, Tommy, like when the crisis comes, this kind of White House management is not going to be helpful to it. Not good.

Speaking of crises, A couple of fun issues in the news. So I was reading an article this week that I immediately texted to you where B.B. Netanyahu dismissed the idea that Israeli forces are occupying the West Bank. He said, the occupation is nonsense. Ellips, huge states have conquered and replaced populations and no one talks about them. Wow. International law defines the territories won by Israel in the 1967 wars occupied,

and the West Bank is managed by the Israeli army and not civilians. It's one of the statements that pre-Trump would have been. a bombshell. I think you would have seen Netanyahu criticized from the U.S., Europeans, from the Arab states, nothing. Yeah. Yawning silence. Yeah. And let's just start with the reality, and then let's go to what Netanyahu said, because there are different things. There's a legal reality that these are occupied territories. You know, that's the international legal interpretation of this since 1967.

But there's also the day-to-day reality. If you're a Palestinian, you're living under military occupation. You cannot go to certain places without crossing through military checkpoints in lots of instances. The Israeli military has basically complete freedom of action, freedom of movement. There's detentions of Palestinians, kind of preemptive detention. So the reality, as lived by Palestinians, is one of being under a military occupation. And that's an uncomfortable thing to talk about, particularly given how supportive we as Americans are of Israel in general. but it's a reality and it's also been coupled with the increased pace of Israeli settlements because essentially what you have is occupy Palestinian lands that now further and further Israeli settlements

are encroaching those lands displacing Palestinians and so they're losing even the land that is occupied in terms of what Neniao said it's one of these things that's striking because it's what's been evident all along it's like he's saying this is how he's been acting for 10 years right for 10 years he's done nothing to meaningfully pursue peace of the Palestinians. He's thrown up obstacles to peace. He has increased the pace of these settlements. He's moved Israeli politics to the right so that the settlers who don't want peace and want to occupy the entire land that is, you know, Israel and the Palestinian territories. That's how he's been acting. Now he's just saying it out loud. And, you know, with Trump, this is happening in more and more parts of the world where leaders feel unconstrained by

any check from the United States. You know, oh, I shouldn't say this or, no, I shouldn't kill a journalist in Turkey if I'm Saudi Arabia. And, you know, we see this replicated in many different places. And the reality is, like, this should be a bigger story in the United States. What is happening in Israel in general should be a bigger story in that, you know, you have Netanyahu really some of the things he's done to kind of take control of the media in Israel, very reminiscent of what Trump would like to do here.

they passed this nationality law that essentially really just downgrades the status of Arab citizens inside of Israel relative to Jewish citizens. And now you have this kind of open acknowledgement that they're trying to displace large amounts of Palestinians like one country that conquered another in a war. And yet we seem to have no capacity to treat these things with the attention that they deserve because there's so much coming at us every day. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, this story, I read this story in my jaw dropped. And all the things you just mentioned, I think, taken in their totality is really going to change the way people view Israel. And it could really harm, I think, support in the U.S. for Israel over the long term. Like, I don't know that these are smart decisions by BB. Yeah, it'll be an interesting, you know, BB's gone all in with Trump, right? And their full embrace of each other will present interesting questions for the Democrats in the context of the 2020 election. So what? What positions do Democrats take on these issues when they're asked about them?

You know, in the past, you tend to just, you know, be reflexively supportive of the position of the Israeli government. But these things kind of run contrary to our values, you know, displacing peoples, kind of legitimizing occupation and displacement. And what we have to get to is a place where we can have a conversation about these things where we can be, you know, Tommy, you and I have both been called, you know, any semites, you know, if you criticize Israeli government. when in fact I actually, I love Israel. I love what Israelis have built. I love the fact that the Jewish people have the homeland. I worry that these things that Nanyahu is doing are putting that at risk. You know, the ability to have a Jewish state that is also a democracy

is imperiled by the occupation because of demographics and the numbers of Palestinians that live in what would be Israel if Israel essentially annexed that land. So we have to find a way to have a more nuanced conversation about whether this is good for America and whether this is good for Israel and whether this is consistent with our values. Yeah, I'm with you, man. I mean, you are not anti-American if you think Donald Trump sucks. Yeah. So you can think Netanah who's a disaster and not be anti-Israel. Obama got a little trouble for making that point about the Likud back in 2007. And unfortunately,

that brushback pitch worked. Yeah. Over the weekend, we were all rage tweeting our frustration with President Trump canceling his visit to a World War I cemetery. to honor fallen veterans over this Veterans Day weekend. Clearly, you know, he tried to blame the Secret Service. He said his helicopter couldn't fly in the fog and the rain. So that may be true. It was probably true. But he could have driven, clearly.

Their cars exist. This idea that they suggested that he didn't want to upset Parisian commuters is also laughable. Because he spent the day this morning, set five tweets attacking France. So I was hoping you could walk me through your rage cycle this weekend of the story. because a group of us were texting about this and tweeting about it and blown away. But I don't think this story has been nearly as big as the Democrats. I'm shocked. I mean, our text chain never was more closely tracking our tweets as I think this weekend.

But I went through several phases of rage. The first was just on the facts of it because I could anticipate that they were going to lie about it. But you always have the option to drive someplace. I mean, best friend of the pod, Alyssa Master Monaco, I don't know how many times there was a bad weather call when we were on trip. You couldn't fly a helicopter, so you'd fricking drive. So he could have gone. That's the first point. The second point is it's a massive offense to our troops in the memory of those who we lost in war one, but also our allies. This is the 100th anniversary of the armistice. They put on this enormous production to honor this war that is deeply embedded in

their psyche, that millions and millions of people died in all these countries. And he's showing disrespect to all of them. He's showing disrespect to our troops. the families of those who died in World War I and are allies. But then when I step back, this is a bigger point, Tommy, which is that the guy is more than willing to hide behind the military when he wants to attack Colin Kaepernick or when he randomly veered out of his way to attack Barack Obama on the way to France, you know, when he said Obama left me this terrible military with no substantiation for it. So, you know, he loves to wrap himself on the flag and he's the kind of guy who loves the flyover at the football game kind of patriotism. But then he won't visit our troops in harm's way. He won't even show up on Veterans Day. Forget the French ceremony.

He wouldn't even drive across Memorial Bridge to go to Arlington National Cemetery, which presidents usually do on Veterans Day. And more importantly here, he just like a week ago has sent thousands of troops to our border as a political stunt to help gin up a few more votes for him in Texas and Florida. And they have nothing to do there. Nothing. And this is going to not only cost hundreds of millions of dollars, these troops are going to be away from their families.

Like some of them had been on tour in Afghanistan, say, and then they think if they're going to be home at Thanksgiving Christmas and said they're going to be like rolling barbed wire on the southern border because there's a caravan a thousand miles away. I think this should be a much bigger story because it's not just the optics of what he did wrong. It's how he's misusing the U.S. military's commander chief. Like the deployment of troops of the border is directly connected to me to this story in France because it basically shows a commander chief who politicizes the military, uses it for his own purposes, and then shows it. no respect. And frankly, I think politically, this could really hurt Trump, right? This isn't one of those stories where liberals get outraged because he's mean to, and I'm not saying we shouldn't get outraged, but, you know, because he picks a fight with some NFL athletes or whoever. These are Trump voters, right? In many cases, like some of these military families, and he's disrespecting them,

and he's disrespecting them not just by not showing up there, but by what he did saying to the border. And they know that. Like, they know they don't need to be deployed to the border. So I don't know why Democrats in Congress aren't making much more noise about this. I would hope a Democratic House investigates what the hell those troops are doing down at the border, what the cost is to them and their families in terms of separation, and really not be afraid to take on this set of military issues where Trump likes to wrap himself on the flag, but he's all talk and no action. I know. It's like all the substantive points you made are correct. There's also just the raw politics of it. And he is disrespecting these men and women who died.

He didn't do an event in Arlington National Cemetery the day after he got back, I guess, because it was raining again. I mean, he wakes up in the morning and just starts attacking France. I mean, 88 French soldiers have died fighting beside our guys in Afghanistan since 9-11. So, again, like, why is he choosing to kick around France for no reason? It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I mean, he has harsher words from Macron than he's had for Putin, for Mahm bin Salman after they kill a journalist. I mean, it's just pattern is well established

where he picks fights with our allies and cozy's up to our adversaries. Part of it is I think he's just comfortable in the company of autocrats. He has a natural affinity for the Putin's and Mohamed bin Salman's of the world. I think another thing is he's just not in these people's league. Right.

You know, like if Donald Trump, yeah, maybe he doesn't like to go places in the rain because his hair looks bad, but if Donald Trump went to that cemetery and had to give speeches after Justin Trudeau, Anglam Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, it would be clear to everybody is like how much he's not in their caliber as a political leader. And I think part of this is just an inferiority complex he has about actual leaders of

democracies and people who can talk credibly about what people sacrifice for in war. And Trump, he just, he can't do that. You and I could sit here all day and drive ourselves crazy with the hypotheticals. The concrete one is, I remember Obama didn't fly to Paris to march with Francois Hollande after the Charlie Hebdo attack, the gunman who went in the satirical newspaper, killed a few people. And there was a march. And we didn't go, frankly, we never really considered going. It was only two days' notice.

And we did think, like, well, if we go on no notice, how disruptive will that be, et cetera, all these things. If you have a pre-planned trip for months and in multiple advanced teams, you can deal with all those scenarios. I make this point because we got brutalized in the media for weeks for not going to that impromptu ceremony in Paris. pylons, you know, 24-7 on cable, Republican members of Congress, eviscerating Obama, he doesn't care about our allies.

It's such complete and utter fucking bullshit that they held Obama to the standard of, you know, if he didn't drop everything he's doing to fly to France unscheduled to do something, we're going to kick him around for weeks. And Trump, we either just have so low expectations or so little capacity for outrage that this guy literally insults our troops, our allies. everybody and it's like a couple of hour story on Twitter and then we all just move on. Like, I think the answer is you got to connect it to a bigger story. It's not just about this one thing. It's about this guy who is derelict as commander in chief politicizing the military. He'll

send them down to the border for a stunt and he won't even pay tribute to them. That's something that I hope the 2020 nominee is literally saying in a debate a year and a half from now. I agree with you. I mean, and then on the substance of these random attacks on France this morning, He tweeted the French president Emmanuel Macron wants Europe to build its own military to protect itself from the U.S., China, and Russia. That's not right. I mean, the Europeans have been talking about developing a force to defend itself without using U.S. assets. I believe it would be a compliment to NATO, but Trump's rejoinder was pay for NATO or not. He seemed to, again, still not fundamentally understand how NATO works, which is you invest in your own force as a percentage of GDP, which,

all contributes to NATO. Isn't this what he wants? Yeah. And first of all, he mangles a Macron quote. Macron essentially said they can't count on the U.S. as much in dealing with threats like Russia. And somehow in the game of right-wing telephone, that became like the French who are going to come attack us or something. But I mean, yes, like we've wanted the French. First of all, they've been more forward-leading than any other NATO country, with the possible exception to the Brits, in actually putting skin in the game. In Afghanistan, in the counter-isol fight, second, we want them to do more.

If his whole thing is that like take more responsibility for your own defense, the idea of having a more cohesive European defense option in addition to NATO has long been talked about and encouraged as a way for Europeans to do some missions themselves without NATO. That would actually be one way in which they'd be paying more. Because as you say, nobody pays a check to NATO. They have militaries and they spend a certain amount of money on their militaries. NATO figures out how to carry out joint missions or joint defense exercises. But those militaries are allowed to do other things, just like our military does things outside of NATO. There's no reason the French military can't also do things outside of NATO.

And if the French want to get together a group of European countries to have a European defense capability, well, that's in our interest. We should be encouraging it. So he's simultaneously attacking them for not doing more for their own defense and then attacking them for doing something for their own defense. The common threat is whatever our allies do has to be wrong. Right. Just to put a button on this, Trump's tweet was,

but it was Germany in World Wars 1 and 2. How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not. I mean, he is such an asshole. This is like freedom fries Arab. Such an asshole. Iraq war attacks.

And not to just briefly be history nerd. Yeah, you could make some case on World War II. And World War I, the French, fucking fought for years in the trenches. They never conquered Paris and repelled the Germans. And yeah, the Americans came in and put them over the top, right? But the French sacrificed millions of people

in defense of France and World War I. So for him to tweet that right after he dissed them on the 100th anniversary of World War I is that much worse, right? Because that's the war, the French put all the skin in the game, you know? So he's ignorant of history and he's just completely offensive. And it's got to make these countries kind of rethink the U.S., right? because it's not just Trump, it's like we elected Trump, right? He's an expression of a certain part of America's viewpoint.

And I don't think we can sustain a second term of this while maintaining our allies. Maybe we can survive one term, but two terms of Trump. And I think these alliances are basically kind of gone. Yeah, term two, they really are going to build in a counter U.S. European army. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Last question for you. There's a lot of rumors swirling about indictments, maybe coming out of Bob Mueller's office. there is this notorious

birther scumbag named Jerome Corsey who says he's going to be indicted and I don't know the facts but he is just a deplorable human being so good. Of course he says that Mueller's team has been asking him about Nigel Farage

one of the guys behind Brexit. We all have this partial information that we're learning through leaks and reports and some of the right and some of the wrong. What do you make of all these developments and these sort of fringe alt-right characters and their ties to

WikiLeaks and their ties to the Russia's efforts to interfere in our election. So it's interesting, Tommy. Like, you know, we had David Lammy on here when I was guest-sussing. He talked a little bit about this. But in some of the look back at the Brexit vote, they're uncovering a greater amount of Russian involvement, Russian money going in there, Nigel Farage, cozy with some of those interests. I think if you look at the Tilees of the Mullin investigation, one, there's just the obvious thing.

We're like, you know, Roger Stone, every he's talking about obstruction and justice, the guy was tweeting out, like, in advance of WikiLeaks disclosures, like, something big coming from WikiLeaks. He's basically like, I'm colluding with WikiLeaks to undermine Hillary's campaign. And, oh, by the way, we now know WikiLeaks got all those emails from Russia, so it's not that hard to say that Stone was someone who's perhaps right at the nexus of sharing of information between Russia and WikiLeaks and Trump associates, right? So part of it is it just points up that we really are talking about collusion here. We're talking about the fact that Russia, stole a bunch of stuff from Hillary's emails, other emails, used WikiLeaks to dump that out.

And the big question Bob Mueller just needs to answer is, did they get any help in any way from the Trump people in that strategy? Did the Trump people indicate when it would be helpful for them to do that? Or what states to target with bots and social media campaigns in the United States? That's the core of this whole thing, is was there any, did they get any signal from the Trump people at all that coordinated their efforts to, in our election. And I think this points to yes. When Roger Stone is in the middle of essentially signaling when WikiLeaks is going to do something, there's a lot of

smoke that suggests there's fire. I think the second and interesting piece to me, though, is that all these kind of weird right-wing grifters like Jerome Corsee, there was kind of a global apparatus. And you've noticed in the leaks out of the Mueller stuff, you know, some sketchy Emirates pop up. You know, you've got people like Nigel Farage,

you've got Jerome Corsi, all these different people. And what it tells me is that the Russians exploited the fact that they wanted to pump a lot of money and oxygen into these right-wing populist nationalist movements to get Brexit over the line, to get Trump over the line, to undermine Europe. And they made use of these useful idiots, right, as interlocutors and bagman or what have you in that effort. And, you know, a guy like these people are all there for a price, right? And whether it's George Papadopoulos or Nigel Farage or Paul Manfred or what they all have in common is they were willing to do shit for money and for the perceived power that went along with it. And so what Mueller might paint the picture of is not just an effort to interfere in our election, but an effort by Russia with all these kind of right-wing nationalist grifters to undermine democracy in general. In the United States and the UK and Europe, there's a lot of interesting follow-on work that's going to have to be done to this Mueller report because it's actually one big play. It's not just a play in the 2016 election.

It's a play against Western democracy. And we're still living through it. Yeah. There are a lot of reporters, people theorizing journalists, that Russian money has been going to some of these far right, alt-right sources for a long time. In Europe and the U.S. in the European U.S. And that some of the deepest, darkest conspiracy theories like alleging that Seth Rich was the leaker to WikiLeaks, he was a DNC staffer who was tragically murdered,

some of those rumors that he was somehow associated with the leak of the DNC emails, first started emerging on places like RT, Russia's propaganda network here in the U.S. So I agree with you. There's a lot of work for the Adam Schiff in the gang to get on that maybe hasn't been done sufficiently by Devin Nunes so far. Yeah, I was guessing not. And now here's the interview with Lisa Collins from CSIS. Lisa, this week your think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, released a report revealing the existence of an estimated 20 undeclared North Korean missile operating bases.

Can you guys walk us through what you found and what was in the report? Sure. Let me just put out there first that we've identified through open source information and defective reports. and interviews with former government officials actually 13 of an estimated 20 sites. So the 13 is what we're looking at. Got it. There may be more. But we have focused on one called Sakamur in this report that we put on the CSIS webpage just a day ago. And what the report, I think, basically shows is what some experts have already known for a while,

is that North Korea's nuclear weapons program and their ballistic missile programs are very complex, and they're very widespread and extensive. And there are more facilities and locations that relate to these programs in North Korea than they've put on the table for negotiations, at least thus far. And, you know, we can debate whether or not North Korea needs to give up all of these weapons and programs up front all at once, or if it needs to be done in stages, if they need to agree to dismantle their program in stages, or if they will give it up at the very end after some concessions have been given to the North by the United States.

But the bottom line is I think this data and analysis helps inform the public debate about these issues and helps hopefully our negotiators and our decision makers really work hard on getting a good deal if there is to be one found with North Korea on their nuclear weapons program. So how significant militarily do you think these bases are? Do they materially increase the risk for U.S. citizens or allies in the region? Or is the significance more the fact that Kim has clearly hasn't stopped his. ballistic missile program? So maybe both. One is that, you know, many experts have pointed out already that North Korea has not stopped its production of fissile material, of nuclear weapons

thus far. Kim Jong-un had this handshake with President Trump during the June summit, but that was really a promise to do something in the future, which was to work towards what they have called denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And we can talk more about what that means to the North and to the United States. But I think ultimately, the bottom line is North Korea is still developing its nuclear weapons program, still maintaining it. And, you know, that's in their national interest until there's a deal where we really get them to agree to dismantle the entire program or parts of it. And then second of all, as detailed in our report, there are different belts that we're calling them across the country. There's a tactical belt, which is in the

southern half of North Korea. There's an operative. belt in the middle part of North Korea and there's a strategic belt in the northern part of North Korea where different types of missile bases, ballistic missile bases are located and they all house and store and support different types of missile storage and activities. So you mentioned at the top that you found these sites through interviews with defectors, former government officials and then open source, I assume, satellite imagery. Until recently, wouldn't that kind of satellite image only have been available to, say, spy agencies or the Pentagon? Well, I mean, definitely the satellite imagery that we're looking at now is much better than it was a few years ago.

It's probably not as good as what is available in classified information to government officials. But we do think it's good enough to analyze and examine these areas, and it was good enough to be able to spot some of these. patterns where North Korea has built up these facilities and where they continue to maintain them in good condition. How long did it take you to go through all the older images you had and compare them to the more recent images you have now? So our imagery analyst Joseph Bermudas, he actually just came on board at CSAS, which we're really excited about. He has been working on this for years. So, you know, talk to him and he will tell you about years of digging through satellite imagery reports. he used to work for some of the other commercial imagery companies,

and he did satellite imagery for nearly 30 years now. So he's probably done pieces of this throughout his entire career. But then over the last couple of months, we really look at these specific sites and missile bases, tried to get more information on them and decided that we were going to publish a series of reports on them. That's very cool. I just love, like there's all these folks in the U.S. intelligence community

and then people at think tanks, et cetera, that just pour over these photos. And like the things you guys were identifying seem to me almost impossible to see. It's like you guys found greenhouses and you found entrances to caves and new construction for where people can can live. I mean, it's so, it's remarkable to me that you guys can put together the pieces of that puzzle and figure out, oh, that's actually a missile base. I mean, how do you get to that last leap?

Right. So, I mean, to the naked eye, some of this stuff doesn't really make much sense. but when you're an imagery analyst, for example, like Joe who's worked on this for 30 years, you just notice patterns from looking at the imagery and different objects from space for so long. And Joe has actually been an all-around person who's worked on a lot of different fronts. He was a firefighter in a form of a lifetime. He worked on the precursor to the Internet at one time, I think. And so he's done a whole bunch of stuff that has helped informed his knowledge on the ground about what things might look like.

And we as analysts at CSIS are helping him understand and better inform the analysis when it comes to North Korea. And he's also worked on North Korea for many years as well. But, you know, just, for example, in one of the pictures, you can see entrances to underground facilities. And those entrances wouldn't necessarily be visible because of the trees in the foliage in the spring and in the summer. But in the fall and the winter, when there's less foliage and when, you know, there's less cover for those facilities. facilities you can see more evidence. You can see dirt that's been removed or moved. And you can see other evidence of entrance ways that we're able to spot through imagery analysis. That is really cool. So if Joe can find these bases, I imagine that the U.S. government or the South Korean government can

also find them. And in fact, since the New York Times published its story about your report, President Trump has weighed in. He called it more fake news. He said this is nothing out of the normal and that he'll let us know if things go bad. That is not that reassuring to me. What do you make of his response? I mean, my take on is that he might have been responding to the New York Times report on our analysis. And I think our analysis stands for itself. We put a lot of time and effort into making sure that it's independent objective analysis

that really looks at these facilities from an imagery analyst perspective with some dimensions for policy. I think that, you know, again, putting this information out there into the public sphere, I think only enhances the debate and lets people discuss what should be the standards that we hold North Korea accountable to. Do we want their missile program, their ballistic missile program, to be part of a denuclearization deal? Some people have stated that's not something North Korea has agreed to, at least over the last couple months, but maybe it should be something that we nail them down on. Or if we really want, full verifiable denuclearization of North Korea, what parts of the program do we want to have North Korea included in. North Korea often uses the excuse that if they give us a list of all of their facilities, then it can become a target list in case there's a conflict between North Korea and the United States. But we can point to data like this and imagery like this and say, look, North Korea, we already know where these places are. You might as well, you know, bring forth a list of your facilities that we can start discussing if you're really.

really sincere about denuclearization, and that can be a starting point for the process. And, you know, again, it can be debated whether or not we ask for everything up front or whether it's a step-by-step process. But I think this data only helps hopefully inform the negotiations and the public debate about these issues. Well, and to your point, I mean, I believe the first step out of the June 12th, Singapore summit was supposed to be North Korea giving the U.S. or the international world a detailed list of its nuclear sites, weapons, production facilities, bases. That hasn't happened. I think a North Korean official told Secretary Pompeo that essentially we'd be handing over a target set for our military to take out if something went south in these negotiations. I think Pompeo's

point in response was we already have a list of targets, so that shouldn't be your concern. But I mean, do you think we can actually go through this process without that first step of transparency see where we North Koreans have to list out all the infrastructure they have for their nuclear weapons program? I mean, I honestly think that it has to be a part of the initial negotiations. How do we identify what their program looks like and how big it is and how complex it is and how to dismantle it if we don't even know everything that's a part of it? I mean, we do know some stuff based on intelligence information. And again, our analysis adds to that dimension. But I think that, you know, we may have no.

clue what is buried in the mountains of North Korea in some places underground or in places in the far north. So I think it's important that we do keep insisting that North Korea produce some list of verifiable facilities, materials, and ballistic missile parts or programs or launch vehicles that are a part of their entire weapons program, nuclear weapons program, as a starting point. Experts will debate whether or not it needs to start slowly with a small list of things. things, a partial list, or if we need to demand the whole thing up front, like John Bolton has mentioned before. But I think that ultimately we need to start with something concrete. Yeah. So, I mean, thanks to your work, the world now knows about these new sites, the Trump

administration's response was seemingly less concern about the existence of these new sites than their disclosure. I mean, how do you think the Trump administration should go forward here now that this is all public? I mean, do they need to? address this ongoing work on North Korea's ballistic missile program? Or, I mean, can things just continue as they are? I mean, what's clear is there needs to be a strategy. Whatever choice that is made by the Trump administration, they either need to decide what parts are going to be included in their negotiations with the North Koreans and what will be excluded. Are they going to put the whole thing on the table? All of North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities, ballistic missiles

facilities, launch vehicles, everything. And is that what they mean by complete and verifiable or full verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula? Or are they going to go with a partial dismantlement and, you know, what does that mean for next steps and for policy implications for surrounding countries and the United States security? I mean, that's something that the decision makers will have to decide. But I do think that moving forward with a more complete and accurate accounting of North Korea's entire program is important for the future success of the negotiations and any deal that we can come to with the North Korea that will hold water not just beyond a few months or years.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, thank you guys for the work you're doing. I mean, this is a really cool new thing to be able to, you know, account for the progress in these negotiations in real time using unclassified information in what I imagine would otherwise be a very, very classified in secret hidden set of negotiations and metrics upon which to judge how things are going. So kudos to you guys for really this very innovative, exciting new step. Thanks. And what's cool is that, you know, these days the technology is getting so good that, you know, if you start learning, you can quickly also gain a lot of knowledge about North Korean

about some of these sites through satellite imagery, use of Google Earth and crowdsourcing, that type of thing. I mean, there are a lot of experts out there who are being self-taught and who can get into this if they're interested. But North Korea is definitely a black box, and we're hopefully shedding some more light on that through our data and analysis. DIY intelligence collection. Who knew? I like it. Yeah. Lisa, thank you so much for talking me today, and thanks for the great work you guys are doing. Is there anything else people should check out at CSIS that you want to plug? Well, our website, beyondparallel.csis.org, is where you can find the information on this. satellite imagery report.

There's other great stuff on the cSAS.org website. We have many, many different programs that do all kinds of amazing work every day. So I hope you will check us out. Yes, you guys are some of the best and brightest minds outside government and certainly, you know, brighter than a lot of the minds in government currently. So, you know, that's great too. Thank you again. I really appreciate the time.

Great. Thanks again. Thank you again to Ben Rhodes and to Lisa Collins and to all of you guys for listening. And please, you know, rate us, review us, the iTunes store. and share with your friends. Appreciate it and talk to you next week.