Pod Save the World - North Korean Nukes with Mark Lippert

Episode Date: March 22, 2017

Former US Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert talks about the threat from North Korea’s nuclear program, Trump’s “new” approach to the DPRK, the assassination of Kim Jong Nam and the attack on his life while serving as Ambassador.

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. Joining me today is my old friend Mark Lippert. Mark was the United States Ambassador to South Korea from 2014 to 2017. Prior to becoming ambassador, he was the Chief of Staff for Secretary of Defense. Chuck Hagel, the Chief of Staff for the National Security Council, an Assistant Secretary for Defense for Asia and the Pacific Security Affairs in the Department of Defense and a longtime aide for Barack Obama. Mark, thank you so much for coming on the pod man.

No, my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Tommy. And welcome back to the United States. Mark, when we first met in 2005, you had just started as Barack Obama's foreign policy advisor in the U.S. Senate office. We worked together for a couple years until you did something sort of unusual, which was decide at the ripe old age of what was a 32, you commissioned until the Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer. You served for a year in Iraq as an intel officer embedded with the Navy SEALs. Can you talk a little bit about what a naval intelligence officer? intelligence officer does and why you decided to join the military and how that experience informed the advice you gave Senator Obama in his presidential campaign? Sure. And, you know, I guess what I would say is I'll start with the second part of the question. Why did I decide to join? You know, I'm from a military family. My grandfather was a fighter pilot, queer Air Force guy.

My uncle flew Huey's in Vietnam. He later transitioned to B-52s in the Air Force. And my mother's cousin was an admiral in the Navy. So, you know, I'm from a military family, always wanted to serve. But was one of those things where I was, you know, coming of age, a military age in the 90s. And really, the military was going through a period of downsizing. So as a career, it wasn't as attractive as it might have been. I had friends who signed up with the military to be pilots and they ended up not ever getting to fly.

So that was discouraged me a little bit from pursuing that path. But what happened was is 9-11, quite frankly, and the call to serve. And what happened was I was a Senate staffer working on the Appropriations Committee. 9-11 occurred. I really wanted to join the military. So started to look through options. And I found an option that allowed you to be commissioned as a reserve officer doing intelligence, which I thought was a good fit. And by the time I finished all the paperwork and went through the process, it was 2004, 2005.

and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. And what does a military intelligence officer do? You do a little bit of everything. You know, you do a lot of, you do some military intelligence officers do strategic analysis and assessments, you know, looking at big picture things like North Korea, China, Russia, all of that. And in my case, it was very tactical. Working with the seals in Iraq, you were trying to combine different forms of intelligence to hunt down and find really bad guys. And, you know, the great thing about being an intelligence officer is you get to work with fantastic professionals. You know, you got to be around and support the Navy SEALs who are just among the best, most finest professionals you'll ever encounter.

And, you know, they let me get the coffee for them. They let me, you know, kind of hang out and pretend. And they were great. And they were just the gracious guys and really appreciated the support. And some of my best friends in life came out of that department. You got to sit at the cool seal table at the Chow Hall? Yeah, kind of exactly right. I mean, you know, I could never get through the seal training, so it was kind of a nice

front row seat to watch what they're doing. Those guys are incredibly impressive. My dad was an Air Force guy, too, and the stories he would tell about playing hide-and-go-seek in the clouds and an F-105 were very cool. I want to get to your service in Korea, but you also spent a couple years working as President Obama's NSE chief of staff. So you get how that place works. You get the process, the rigor.

you know how a president can be well or poorly served by his staff. How do you feel based on what you're seeing now about Trump's new National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. How's he doing? How do you think the place is functioning? Is there anything that scares you, makes you hopeful? Great question. You know, look, I've never met General McMaster, but I have read his book, and it is a remarkable book. And let me just say that it's a really hard job. You know, I think that the biggest thing that makes the job so hard is it's essentially two jobs. You have to figure out how to staff the president and then be a principal that runs this interagency process that really intervenes into the heart of the government.

So, you know, I would say it's too soon to tell. It seems like things have gotten a lot better since General McMaster has taken over, smoother. But again, I think the success at the NSC is not measured in weeks and months. It's measured in years. But I do wish him the best. And like I said, it's one of the hardest jobs in the entire world being the National Security Advisor. Yeah. I just want to know that those guys are having what we call DC's deputy community meetings and principals community meetings on a regular basis that they're grinding and out working on issues. I, too, am hopeful when I saw McMaster get the job. He seems like an incredibly smart, professional person.

So I think most people have heard of North Korea who was listening today. They've seen Kim Jong-un on TV or his father, Kim Jong-il. We've made fun of their haircuts, their jumpsuits, their absurd propaganda. But can you help people understand how North Korea got to this place? How do you have a situation where North Korea is the most isolated, backward, stunted regime on the planet maybe? And then 35 miles south, the city of Seoul, which is one of the most vibrant, sophisticated, and technologically advanced? Sure. Look, let me just say at the outset, I think you're right.

in terms of focusing attention on the haircuts and kind of the kits factor. You know, it looks funny, you know, and Dennis Rodman and all of that. But in reality, that kitsch factor masks a very dangerous, very serious problem, a foreign policy and national security problem that starts at its core with a really problematic, that's an understatement, nuclear missile program, as well as other asymmetric capabilities. You saw the cyber attack that took down Sony. You've seen the sinking of a South Korean vessel, the Chonan by a North Korean submarine. These asymmetric capabilities also are very, very dangerous on the peninsula as well and in the region.

Not to mention the actions that were undertaken in Malaysia, where you saw Kim Jong-un's brother, Kim Jong-nam, assassinated by the use of a VX chemical agent. So, look, a very dangerous, very paramount security threat on a number of different levels from the strategic to the tactical. With that said, how did it get to this point? You go back to 1953. And essentially, what people still, a lot of people don't realize is that there was an armistice that ended the Korean War. There was never a peace treaty. We're still technically at war with North Korea. And under that armistice, two very different states developed over time. And really in the last 30 years, the South has come into its own. You've seen spectacular economic and democratic development that really is arguably the greatest development history, story in the history of the world. It's called the Miracle on the Han, the Han River, which divides the capital soul.

It's called the Miracle on the Han for a region. And now you see K-pop, you see global brands like Samsung LG, all of that. And you see a vibrant democracy flourishing. In contrast, in the north, you had a situation where the Kim family, that's the dynastic rule that rules over the country, we're on the third Kim, Kim Jong-un, has run the place. And, you know, they were a Soviet client state. And after the Soviet Union collapsed, they got into dire straits. The Chinese largely kept them on life support, but it was in the 1990s when they were very

insecure that the nuclear missile programs started to take off. So you have a situation where they are in the 1990s starting to develop these things, and really it is just escalated and spiraled ever since. And so we are where we are after about 25 years of failed negotiations to try to curtail, rollback and otherwise stop a nuclear and missile program that is really illegal and in violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions. So you raised a bunch of fascinating stuff. Let's start with maybe, well, I think clearly the most dangerous threat, which is the nuclear program. We've heard a lot about the nuclear threat lately. The New York Times has been reporting on it. You saw Trump and his buddies at Mar-a-Lago trying to sort out a statement with the Japanese prime minister

in the middle of the dining room. Can you give us a quick 101 about the nature of the threat and how you think this ranks in terms of other challenges? I mean, I picked up the Wall Street Journal this morning, and it said the U.S. and Chinese officials believe that North Korea could have as many as 40 nuclear weapons, which is an alarming number, to say the least. Well, what I would say is that it is a very dangerous problem

and dangerous for two reasons. First, the program is big, and second, it's growing. And it's growing in a whole host of different directions. But mainly what if you read the tea leaves, what it looks like the regime is trying to do is perfect a intercontinental ballistic missile and mounts a nuclear warhead on top of the intercontinental ballistic missile and then engage in a whole host of deception and other techniques to try to mask the movements of a nuclear-tipped ICBM, if you will. So that is a very dangerous and potentially destabilizing situation in and of itself. And then you add the element of the fact that Kim Jong-un, it's not clear, adheres to mutual assured destruction or conventional nuclear deterrent policy. So that really adds a level of instability. And then finally, throw in all of the conventional and asymmetric threats I mentioned, submarines, cyber.

also a huge amount of artillery pointed right at Seoul, and the situation gets very dangerous very quickly. So there's a couple elements, just to dig into this a little bit. There's a couple elements of a nuclear program that would make it a direct threat to the United States, right? You have to be able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to the point where you could put it on the warhead of a missile. You have to develop a missile that has the rocket technology to reach the United States. There is the development of mobile missile launchers, which would make it harder to launch, harder to strike them before they can get a rocket off. Is there, is there an element of that that you think is the hardest part of the process or the part that worries you the most? Well, I mean,

I would say what's hard, hard, hard is building the ICBM and perfecting all of that. And then that's one thing that's very hard. And then the other thing that's very hard to do is miniaturize, right? Those two things are hard. But what I would also say on the other side of the ledger is, remember, the technology is older and older. Right. We're now talking technology that's 60, 50, 60, 70 years old, right? And second, the North Koreans are good engineers. They figure things out.

And they do things that consistently, I think, surprise us in the world. So I would not underestimate their technological ability to overcome these engineering challenges. The other thing I would say, though, on the positive side of the ledger in terms of U.S. policy, Remember that the Obama administration, dating back to about 2010, in a time of declining defense budgets and sequestration, invested heavily in missile defense technology. And you've seen a buildup of missile defense technology in the region. We added two new, what are called tippy two radars in Japan. Those help track missiles and allow for basically queuing so our missile defense interceptors can fire on them. We added new surface combatant ships that can shoot down missiles to the Western Pacific. We moved, essentially, our ground-based interceptors. This is an oversimplification, but we moved a lot of that architecture or potential architecture out of Europe to Alaska to better align with the North Korean threat. We added a thad battery, which is a theater system on Guam.

And of course, now a thad battery that would protect the Korean Peninsula is underway in South Korea. So that is billions of dollars in missile defense technology. And that is all essentially to buy time and space. So you keep the president, you keep the administration out of a decision or out of a posture where they get into a decision of having a binary choice, a preemptive strike or an ICBM shot at the United States with nothing. no ability to stop it. Right. So, you know, the good news is there has been action on the defense side. I mentioned just missile defense.

There's been other activity as well, but that was one part of a very visible prong to try to, again, buy space and time and augment defense and deterrence. Man, I have not heard the term tippy two radar in a long time. That is music to my NSC nerd ears, man. Yeah, those are important elements of missile defense system that I think should give people some confidence that they are protected from North Korea. but it's still an enormous problem, as you said. Yeah, and Tommy, just to say, just to jump in here, look, by no means is missile defense a guarantee? It's a little like having an umbrella. It's nice when it rains, but it doesn't guarantee you're not going to get wet.

You're listening to POTSave the World. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. So some intelligence agencies, including apparently the United States, apparently this was left in a paper. The Obama administration handed off to President Trump. I'm not asking you to comment on that. It's just what I read. Assess that.

Kim Jong-gun believes his nuclear weapons program is the only way to guarantee his regime's survival and his survival and that he will never trade away for anything because he looked at places like Libya where Omar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons program and ultimately was toppled by the West and killed in a rather undignified manner. Do you agree with that assessment? And is this what you were talking about in terms of the lack of a mutually assured destruction posture from the North Korean? Well, I think that in the analytic community, you know, people who really follow North Korea closely. I do think that there is some thought that the nuclear weapons developed by Kim Jong-un and, of course, started under his father's watch, were a tool

to ensure that in a really dynamic and changing situation in Northeast Asia, especially after the collapse of the Cold War, that the regime would survive, that it's essentially an insurance policy. So I do think that there is some element of that. Having said that, I think the other question, though, is what do you do to try to eliminate or roll back the program, right? And look, I think a lot of people, some argue, the Chinese argue that we should talk about a peace treaty, that essentially, remember how I mentioned that there's an armistice that ended the Korean War, that let's put a peace treaty in place, have that conversation. That will provide sufficient security guarantees, and the North then will be in a more stable position to negotiate. That's essentially the Chinese argument. I disagree with that. I think that, you know, right now, we've tried a lot of negotiations over the past eight to ten years. The North Koreans don't want to

negotiate at this point. And I think we're left with really a pressure strategy that involves sanctions and military posture to try to essentially up the costs of the program over time. And key to that are the Chinese, right? They obviously hold a lot of the keys to any pressure strategy because they are a massive consumer of North Korean exports, mainly coal that provides hard currency that keeps the nuclear missile program moving forward. So Secretary of State Tillerson just made his first trip to Korea, and he announced that previous efforts have failed, and he was there to announce a new approach. Can you talk a bit about the approach he outlined whether you think it's really new?

I mean, North Korea is one of those problems that's so intractable that the means of trying to Solve it has its own term of art, it's called the Six-Party Talks, which is, what's the U.S., South Korea, North Korea, Russia, China. Who am I missing here? Japan. Japan sort of have come together for negotiations for what, well over a decade. But do you think this is a real departure, or what's your take on Tillerson's message? Yeah, look, what I would say about Secretary Tillerson is it's too soon to tell. And in many respects, he said things that have been said by different administrations over the course of

several years. I think the question is, do some of these statements portend a change in strategy, or is this going to be largely a continuation of policies under the Obama and Bush administration? Look, I think the fundamental issue with North Korean policy is that there are no silver bullets. This is a really dangerous problem. And quite frankly, really smart people in both the Bush and Obama administrations have looked at this for many years and tried to solve it. And I think If there was a silver bullet in the chamber, it would have been fired by now. I'm all for creative solutions and I'm all for creative thinking. And if there are rocks we haven't turned over, I'm all, I'm for that.

I'm very much a pragmatist on North Korean policy. But again, it's not as though there hasn't been a thorough examination of many, many, many of the options that are out there. What I would say also is that, you know, Secretary Tillerson said strategic patience is over and that got a lot of attention. And look, strategic patience really wasn't the policy of the Obama administration. So in a way, it's driving a stake through the heart of a straw man. What the policy was was really a three-prong policy. Diplomacy, try keep the door open in negotiations, while if the North was not interested in talking, use diplomacy to isolate the North Koreans. Unify of the five parties, unify the world, unify people at the United Nations.

Second prong was economics, and really that was most directly manifested in multilateral U.N. Security Council sanctions, which were the most robust that we've seen, augmented by bilateral sanctions and augmented by other attempts to restrict and otherwise curtail North Korean hard currency. And the final prong was defense and deterrence, right? And I discussed some of that with our missile defense. It also meant bringing our best conventional platforms to the Korean Peninsula and the Western Pacific. It meant updating our doctorate. and things like that. So there was a three-prong strategy. I think those three prongs are what is going to have to be measured against if you're going to evaluate whether or not the current administration, the Trump administration, is departing on a course that is radically different or a relatively similar to what the Obama administration undertook. Yeah. I mean, look, I sat in a bunch of meetings in North Korea. You have sat in infinitely more. I feel like I never once heard a good or certain. not easy option discussed, right? I mean, is there really, is there anything left to sanction at this point? What, like, what more could we cut off do you think? Just banking? Well, I think that's one of the great myths of North Korea policy. And let me just back up by saying, look, I am all for negotiations. If the North wants to come to the table and talk about their nuclear missile programs, I'm all for

it. But remember, they've declined that time and time and time again, including in 2015, when the two Koreas actually engaged in what we call inter-Korean talks, right after there was a shooting episode at the Demilitarized Zone, they got into negotiations and the North walked out on those negotiations based on the fact that the South Koreans, among a whole other host of issues, wanted to raise the nuclear and missile program issue, among other talks. So they stormed out of the negotiations.

They've also done a number of things that showed they're not interested on our end, including declining, Sung Kim, who was our special representative for North Korea, his offer to fly to Pyongyang and engage in direct negotiations. And he made that public. He made that, he said that he gave that, he made that a public offer. So look, the point is it takes two to tango, and right now the North Koreans don't seem to be interested in talking. So it does leave you with more limited options. And on the sanctions issue, what I would say is there is more to be done. And the big thing is coal and some of the other hard currency generating raw materials.

And, you know, even after the UN sanctions went into effect, we still saw large amounts of North Korean exports into China. So, yes, the short answer is, yes, there is more on sanctions that could be done that would curtail and very much restrict hard currency. And I think could change the calculus of the North Korean regime to come back to the table. Got it. Yeah, I guess I should have been more specific in that I'm wondering what the U.S. United States could sanction, but your optimism about China makes me feel better, to be totally honest. So Tillerson floated this idea of a preemptive strike on North Korea. How would that even work? I mean, would you have to decapitate the leadership? Would you have to targeted every single

known military target or command and control unit? Because to your point you made earlier, I mean, how do you pull this off without risking a massive retaliatory strike of Seoul or U.S. forces in Korea, let alone a nuclear response? Yeah, what I would say first, just back on on the Chinese, I'm not at all optimistic. And in fact, the Chinese over the last couple of weeks, including their foreign minister, have given strong signs that they're more interested in trying another round of negotiations than joining up for more sanctions. So, you know, the Chinese are very difficult on this issue. And I wouldn't say that it's going to be a simple solution. But, you know, sustained diplomacy, some hard work, you know, and,

I think that's part and parcel of any good strategy. On the question of preemption, look, what I would say is, first, every administration, every president reserves the right to undertake preemptive strikes against an imminent threat against the United States and in many cases, it's allies. So I think, you know, I think, again, here it's, there's no new ground being broken by Secretary Tillerson. it's just when and where and how you make these statements sends certain signals to the region. And the question going forward is, is he sending certain signals that are consistent with a new strategy? And look, what I would say on military action and preemptive strikes is that, look, it's a very dangerous, very difficult task.

And really, you want to leave preemptive strikes to the very end. I mean, I think that's the point. You want to exhaust all other means to try to keep it from coming to that. So I think the focus on the policy should be figuring out how we stay out of a preemptive strike situation and how we solve this problem through other tools in the toolbox. Yeah. I think you see people who are, you know, who don't understand the details the way you do who think, well, why don't we just take that guy out, take out Kim Jong-un? And I was struck. I was reading a very smart New York Times piece by Max Fisher, who's quoting Jeffrey Lewis, who is a North Korea expert, who I'm sure you know, who was talking about a 1969 episode in which North Korea shot down a U.S. Navy plane.

and killed 31 people. And the Nixon administration never retaliated because they said they couldn't find any options that were tough enough to punish North Korea, but not so tough that the North Koreans wouldn't think it was a general attack setting off an all-out war. And it feels like we've been kind of locked in that mode with them for a very long time. And I don't know if there's any way to break out of that short of a successful negotiation. Yeah. I mean, I think I'm not a military specialist, but what I would say is that, first, you know, look, any, any strike is, is difficult and dangerous to begin with. Second, just look at a map of North Korea. The terrain is incredibly problematic. And third, what I would say is that, you know, it's, remember, it's not just, I guess,

you know, to your point to people who don't follow this every day, it's not just kind of a one-and-done situation, right? You have retaliatory strikes by the North that would really likely decimate the South. You have all sorts of regional implications. And oh, by the way, this is a region with some of the world's biggest economies, with nuclear weapons powers, and that would have global implications. So I think you've got to take all of that into consideration that really up the costs of a preemptive strike. So you mentioned this earlier. The thing you always hear people say of North Korea is that China has all the real leverage here and they need to step up in pressure North Korea or else nothing will change. You mentioned this very notable suspension of coal imports from North Korea to China,

which is important because it accounts for about one-third of North Korea's coal exports. But if you had your wish list and you could say China do X, Y, Z, I mean, what would you have them do tomorrow to push North Korea in a better way? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great question. I think, you know, it would be a very, you'd have to, let me back up and say, you'd have to do this not just in concert with the Chinese. You'd have to bring, I think, the other members of the six-party talks along, right? Most notably, the South Koreans, right? You start with a core of South Korea, China, and the United States and obviously build out to Japan and Russia. And I think that, you know, bringing them along is very important. But look, I think it would be a

carefully calibrated, concentrated effort by the Chinese, by the Chinese of the United States, plus the other members, that would give clear diplomatic message. is that the front was united, second that the economic pressure was going to go up, not down, and go up in a fairly steady and dramatic way if there wasn't a freeze and a rollback of the program and a return to the table. I think that's, that is basically where my wish list would be. And then obviously taking those concrete actions in terms of curtailing the exports of raw materials, commissure it with that strategy would be an essential first step. So now that we scared everyone in the nuclear program, we should also note that North Korea

treats its people horrifically and one of the problems with all the sanctions we've talked about is the impact on the North Korean people. There have been historically mass famines. There is currently daily economic hardship. Hundreds of thousands of people are being held in secret work camps where they're subjected to torture, forced labor, and other assorted horrors. We should hold their leaders in contempt, but there is truly an awful human suffering. happening there on an unimaginable scale. Is there any hope for the people of North Korea,

in your mind, absent regime change? Can people listening to this do anything to help by supporting humanitarian organizations or anyone that's involved on the ground? Yeah, it's a great question, and I think you're exactly right. We often get all wrapped up in the very real and serious foreign policy implications of this, and we often forget about the suffering of the North Korean people who are As you rightly point out, at the hands of the regime, subjected to some of the world's biggest and most brutal concentration camps, if you will, are subjected to economic deprivation, especially if you go outside of Pyongyang. People who've been up there outside of Pyongyang say, you know, the conditions are terrible. I've had the opportunity to meet with defectors who really struggled and suffered. So it's, you know, you're exactly right to put your finger on a very real, very concrete.

problem. What I would say is I do think that it's important to try to get more information into North Korea, you know, through various means to let the North Korean people know that we're not against them, right? And to open that that country up to the rest of the world. And I do think that that's incredibly important part of any strategy. The other thing that I would say is that, look, we have taken deliberate steps to try to carve out. humanitarian and other aid from sanctions. In fact, the last round of UN sanctions or the round previous, I'm sort of forgetting which one had a specific carve out for livelihood of ordinary Korean people because the world was trying not to punish the North Korean people for the actions

of a very irresponsible, dangerous, and brutal regime. Okay. Before we leave the subject to North Korea, I have to ask you about this assassination of Kim Jong-gun's brother, Kim Jong-Nam, which you mentioned earlier. The assassins did this in the Malaysian airport with VX nerve agent, which is a weapon of mass destruction that is banned under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. So, first of all, what the hell? Did this shock you as much as I think shocked the rest of us? And do you think they use VX because they wanted to show that they're willing and able to use chemical weapons? I mean, certainly there have to be easier ways to kill someone in an airport.

Yeah, you're exactly right. it was first shocking in terms of, and you're asking me, was I surprised? I absolutely was surprised. You know, and it's, you know, Kim Jong-nam had, has been, you know, seen in other places, right, for, for years. And even though there was an assassination or a sort of a hit, for lack of a better term, out on him, I was still surprised by all this. You know, Kim Jong-Nam's turned up in an Eric Clapton concert in London, I believe. he turned up in Japan trying to get into Disney World. So he has, you know, a habit of going around the world. He's based, he used to be based before he was killed.

He used to be out of Macau. So he turns up from time to time outside and other places. And, and I, but even still, I was surprised by the sort of ferocity and brutality of this attack. I guess the nerve agent, I don't really have a good explanation as to Why, other than what I would say is that part and parcel with the whole assassination, it seemed to be designed to sign a very clear message and probably most likely directed at the Chinese who are the ones who, for lack of a better term, kind of look after him in Macau. So the whole thing was designed, I think, to send a clear message to Beijing. But the use of the gas, the agent, not the gas, but the use of the agent, you got me on why you. you would use such an agent that is banned and really dangerous to use.

Yeah, really. I mean, I guess, you know, I've heard the theory that he was on the hit list because he was seen as a threat in the border of secession. But yeah, I guess they do have a history of using, like, anti-aircraft guns and other pretty horrifically brutal means of killing people that cross the leadership. Yeah, and I think, to your point, the grand conspiracy, right, about Kim Jong-Nam was always, it went a little like this in terms of, of rumors. It was that he was the break glass plan of the Beijing leadership in case something really went wrong in North Korea, out goes Kim Jong-un and Beijing then installs Kim Jong-nam from Macau into Pyongyang, right? That's the conspiracy in the region, right? And so it's not what if you and I believe, or even Beijing believe that this is a plausible scenario. It's what

the leadership in North Korea believe, right? And did they believe this was viable? And does this indicate a very insecure Kim Jong-un and regime around him? And then obviously the brutality was, I think, designed to send it just a clear message to Beijing on this score. Message received. Okay. So we have a nuclear-armed lunatic running around North Korea, so that's great. But we also have massive political upheaval in South Korea. We have hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets. The president was impeached. This story goes back generations, and it involves corruption, alleged cults, multiple assassinations.

Can you give us the quick and dirty version of what the hell happened over there? Sure. So the essence is as follows. President Pakkenet, that was the president of South Korea. She was elected about four years ago. Leaders in Korea are elected to one five-year term. And they're generally very powerful, especially compared to the legislature in South Korea. It's actually one of the things that's being discussed is how to get under constitutional reform, more power to the legislature.

So President Park is from a very prominent political family in South Korea. Her father, Park Chunhee, was the essentially military dictator of South Korea for many years, who is a very controversial figure in South Korea. A lot of conservatives credit him for being really the father of the economic miracle in South Korea. A lot of the people on the left vilify him for stunting democracy and human rights abuses. So out of that comes President Park, herself, Pakenay, his daughter. And the Parks always had a relationship with this family, the Chase. And the current woman who is at the focus of this woman named Chayshin-Shill is essentially accused of aligning herself with Pachan.

and figuring out a way of Pocanay and Chasin Schilt together colluding to extort money from various companies. Also, there were charges of Pocanay giving classified information to Chachin Schill, a whole host of others. But the essence was corruption and influence peddling by Chasin Chil either condoned or explicitly, with explicit involvement with Pockeene herself. So that was the essence. There's some other charges, but that's the essence. And all of this came to light in South Korea in the fall of 2016 when a news agency broke the story and essentially caused a political firestorm that went through over the course of several months the impeachment in South Korea. And then ultimately, after the constitutional court of South Korea ruled on the charges, her removal from office, which just happened a few days ago. So, and then the last point, which a lot of people saw on television, was that every Saturday night in which is essentially the Washington Mall of Seoul, a place called Guanghamun Square, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of South Koreans would gather to protest on a reoccurring basis to show their outrage and disgust with President Park.

And it was called candlelight democracy. and the candlelight democracy movement or candlelight movement essentially was instrumental in keeping public pressure on policymakers, the legislature, and the court throughout the entire process. So you're the ambassador while this whole thing breaks. How do you manage this sort of upheaval? Well, the good news is the Koreans were very capable of managing it themselves. First, the protests were universally peaceful. and second, the government continue to function. Under South Korean law, once the president gets to a certain point of impeachment by the legislature,

the way it works in South Korea, it's a two-step process. You get impeached by the legislature, two-thirds vote, and then it goes to the constitutional court. And the court by basically a very high number of jurists, it was complicated because a number of jurists were term-limited and left. So it takes a certain number of jurists, but it's a very high bar that they decide whether or not to remove the president from office. So once she's impeached, she has to step down as president and relinquish her powers to the prime minister who then becomes the acting president. And in that case, it worked well. The acting president took over, ran the government very effectively, at least while I was there. The foreign ministry, the defense ministry, the intelligence agencies

continue to function. So that was the good news. And the second piece is the U.S. role was not really to get involved. It was, this was a domestic issue for the South Koreans. It's up to them and their institutions to make decisions on this very important issue. And, you know, it was up to us to essentially just be bystanders and make sure that, you know, our day-to-day bilateral business continued to move forward uninterrupted. So you feel like they got it covered. They got a handle over there. Look, I mean, they've, you forget, it's a young democracy. They've been only really doing democracy since the late 80s. And what's pretty amazing is that in that short period of time, they've gotten very good at it. And it really is remarkable to watch the Koreans

express their views, demonstrate. It is a society that is really rich in terms of civil participation, you know, nine to 11 daily national newspapers, trade unions, all sorts of NGOs that are coming on the scene. It's a really vibrant place in which democracy is really on the rise. That is good news. Change your gears a little bit. In March of 2015, a crazy man slashed you across the face and arm with a 10-inch knife as you were preparing to give a speech at a breakfast forum in Seoul. You ended up with 80 stitches, spent several days in the hospital. I raise this not because I want to make you relive an awful thing, but because of how you responded to it. After all of this went down, you seemed to increase, not decrease your public diplomacy efforts

and interactions with the people of South Korea. When you left, the foreign minister said you were one of the most popular ambassadors in the history of the relationship. So I was hoping you could talk a bit about how that experience impacted you and Robin and your team and how you got back out there after dealing with what I think anybody would say. is a terrifying situation and could easily see a scenario where you would say, you know what, I'm good with this job. I'm going to head back to the States. Yeah, no. Obviously, it was, you know, a very terrifying and terrible moment. You know, anytime you're attacked with a knife and stabbed seven times,

including, you know, the knife wound across my face fell just two centimeters from my carotic artery. And if you hit your chronic artery, you're probably done for in that situation. So every once in a while, you think back about how close you came. But right after that the attack happened, you have to remember that the response was amazing from the South Koreans and Americans alike. And it's really the test in life, the way I look at it, isn't whether or not you're going to encounter adversity. It's how you respond to the adversity. And the response was amazing. I'll just give you a couple of examples. As I was fighting with the guy, a South Korean congressman and then later a trade union leader tackled him to the ground. A foreign service officer, I think, jumped onto the pile and got into the fray as well. My South Korean bodyguard came running up, was the first guy there, and together we worked out an exit strategy, looked for secondary attackers, and basically got the heck out of there. on the street, South Koreans, once we were outside the center on the street, South Koreans helped me to cauterize the wound. A South Korean newspaper reporter ran out into the middle of one of the busiest streets in all of Seoul to flag down a police car.

The police got me to the hospital. And, you know, South Korean doctors with some American State Department doctors overlooking patched me up. So it was really an amazing. And then while I'm sitting there in the hospital, thousands of Koreans came to the hospital. It was, you know, it was remarkable. And I think what that said to Robin and myself and our baby was, you know, Sejan, our son was about, he was really young at the time. You know, it just, the support really made a difference. It makes a difference and it really touched us and moved us.

And the only other thing I would say is you can't be in a situation where the extremists win, right? the United States does not get driven out by extremists. We're there. We're there for the long haul, and you don't turn and run. And I think that was the key, which is you knew that the overwhelming majority of South Koreans support this relationship, support the alliance, supported me and my family personally, and you feed off of that to harness that energy, to keep going, to drive forward, and to do your job the best you can each and every day. I mean, it's pretty amazing, man. I just remember the photo, you look so calm in that moment. I think I emailed you a day or two later, and you just sent me back some, like, shit-talking, joking response within 48 hours.

Well, I'll say this, too. You know, it was pretty amazing. The military stuff does work. And the first, I remember just right after the attack, the first thing that popped into my head was be calm because you're worried about bleeding out. You know, that's how a lot of people will die. But on a more humorous note, I have to tell you one funny story about it. So we went to two hospitals that day. We were at the first hospital, and the press was outside, and it was going crazy, this big mob.

So we went out the back. And remember, at this point, I'm fine, absolutely fine. No, bleeding is all stopped. I'm just going to a second hospital to do plastic surgery. And now you have the, everybody feels bad, all the Americans, all the Koreans, so you get gross overcompensation, right? So a mob of like 20 to 30 people follow you wherever you go. They're pointing out things to you like, hey, sir, watch out there cracks in the sidewalk, you know. So we get into this, we get outside, and we get into the ambulance.

And the ambulance has, you know, it is tiny, but everybody wants to ride in the ambulance. So there's about 20 people in there, you know, give or take. We're jammed in there. They make me ride on this really hard, flat bed. And I'm, you know, banging away, which seemed like forever to get to the second hospital. So we get to the second hospital. and at some point, somebody had changed me into scrubs. And remember, one of my hands is completely bandaged.

And so we get out of the ambulance, and one still photographer and one video camera had beaten us to the second hospital. And I get out of the ambulance, and people are doing all these unnecessary things. Somebody's holding my arms up, all of this. And what happened is nobody remembered to tie my pants on my scrubs tight enough.

So they started to sort of, I could feel them start to inch down. I think there was kind of a knot there, but it wasn't good enough. So I remember like ripping my hand out and grabbing my scrubs for dear life to keep them up and just said, you know, a couple of things. One, even after a knife attack, you still retain the instrings to keep your pants up. And two, I remember saying something to a guy behind me. I said, you know, I'm having a really bad morning. It almost got a lot worse. So I'm glad I speak for everyone to say.

I'm glad you whipped your hand out and not something else. I know, I know. It was a close call. Public sentiment would have turned against us, you know, so. So, yeah. I'm going to blow smoke up your ass for a second. The foreign minister said you left an indelible mark in the history of the U.S. Korean Alliance.

The sole top ambassador said, our relationship is the best it's ever been, and you are the best ever American ambassador I've ever seen, so clearly you connected. But do you think you were as popular as the family dog by the time you left Korea? No, my dog definitely was the most popular. element. You know, Basset Hounds are pretty rare in Korea, and he was a hit. He had his own Twitter account. I notice. I follow him. Yeah. And the other thing that he did, I mean, the thing, it did get sort of a little surreal at sometimes. I walked in, you know, to the Ambassador's residence, which is, you know, a nice place, but you have this one big common area. And I walk in,

and I see in the common area this, like elaborate photo shoot going on. And I asked my wife, I said, what's this photo shoot? He said, oh, it's Grigsby, our Bassetown. He's getting, he's getting pictures for Korea Vogue. I said, you know, we sort of jumped the shark there at some point. It's funny, right? But, like, this is modern diplomacy. I mean, like, you're a bill. Like, the fact that you tweeted from your dog is something that's incredibly relatable

and endeared you with the people. And, like, the U.S. ambassador to Korea is not your average ambassadorship. You have to deal with a nuclear-armed maniac. I think most people will probably be surprised to learn that we have 28,500, I think. Is that right? $28,500. U. U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. On top of that, you're managing the relationship with one of our

most important economic allies. You've all this public diplomacy. And then, you know, you're dealing with officials. You're dealing with impeachment. But you're also, like, building a relationship with the public. How did you balance those things? And how did you guys figure out that, like, you know what? Having the Grigsby, have a Twitter account might be a great way to build relationships here. Yeah, no, great question. I think one of the things that make the job so rewarding. And, you know, I would recommend the job to anybody. It's an amazing job because you're exactly right. You cover the landscape. You have incredibly important security issues, really, really meaningful economic issues, a lot of global issues. We're doing a lot of things globally with the South Koreans around the

world. And then all the public diplomacy, which really matters because, you know, all the, all the sort of the funny and kind of more humorous elements of public diplomacy aside, in democracies, public opinion matters, right? It elects leaders. It shapes policies. And leaders, governments come and go. But ultimately, what remains are the ties, the people-to-people ties that last generations. And I think that is where why we spent in that area, that's why we spent so much time on the public diplomacy piece. I think that's the first point. Second, you know, how did we figure it out? I think, I think the big thing is it's who we are. We just liked it. You can tell.

And, you know, so we're curious. I learned Korean while I was over there, at least tried to. And I think the best part about it is when you are interested in Korean culture, Korean society, Koreans reciprocate and they reciprocate tenfold, right? And it becomes this great virtuous circle. And so, you know, like, for example, we decided that baseball was going to be one of our things because it's this great American game. And if you ever go to a Korean baseball game, what you'll realize is that, you know, the YMCA first brought baseball to Korea. And then what really brought it in earnest was the 8th Army after the Korean War. But Koreans have made it their own.

Every single player has a song that is cheered by heart by all the fans. The fans are so loud. It's like a college football game. I love that. And, you know, cheerleaders with four wardrobe changes, it looks like a K-pop concert, a yell leader. beer. Beer is $3. It's amazing. So I think what we realized in all of this is that we started going, this is one example, we started going to baseball games. And let me just tell you the fans just reciprocated. And, you know, next thing you know, we were signing autographs. Next thing you know, we were the honorary commissioner of the league. We couldn't go down the street without somebody stopping us and asking us, not about American politics, but who was going to win the pennant this year in the Korean Baseball League. So that type of personal, I think people-to-people relationship really is important because not everybody is interested in politics, not everybody is interested in foreign policy. I think what we're looking for is other areas to connect, other areas in which to build common bonds.

You know, and that's what that was all about. Last thing I'll say is this, it did lead to some interesting moments. As I, the one, I think the one that was perhaps the most daunting was, you know, I used to swim a lot, grew up, Spent a lot of time on a lake, was in the Navy, all that. And I found myself down on the banks of the Han River with a whole bunch of Korean triathletes all cheering me on to try to swim across the Han River. And so I'm thinking, so I got down to the banks and I hadn't swam in a while. And I was like, man, that is far. So problem one, looks far.

Second, you know, you're the ambassador. And so there's, you know, like police boats. This is not like if you fail, you're going to fail hard here, right? And the third thing is, is that I had a wetsuit, and I said, well, this is this wetsuit fit? And they said, look, it's the biggest one we could find. Just see what it works. So I put the bottoms on. I'm kind of walking down, you know, with the bottoms on.

And then those fit fine. And then I zip up and chest just doesn't fit. So I'm in this really constrained wetsuit. And I get into the river, and I really can only swim doggy style. I can't quite swim freestyle. And, you know, for the first quarter of this thing, I basically said, I'm not going to make it. So I had to, you know, flop over on my back for a while. Eventually the suit stretched out, got some water and it got going. But there was a time there when I said, oh, my

God, this is going to be an epic, epic, epic fail. Sounds like organized drowning. Yeah, it was. Well, there was the Washington Post reporter. She wrote a little piece that included a mention of it. And she said, you know, he dawned a pink cap, a pink swim cap. And I said, Well, why? People ask me, why did you wear the pink swim cap? And I said, because when I started to drown, I wanted them to be able to find me fast. Pick me up out of the water really fast. So there you go. Oh, my God.

Mark, you approached this job with good humor and humility. And that's how you approached every other job I've worked with you. I've learned so much for you along the way. Thank you for sharing this experience with the POTA of the World listeners, man. This was a fascinating conversation for me, and I really appreciate it. No, my pleasure, Tommy. Thanks for having me on. And the podcast is a big hit.

So congratulations on the success. It's something. That smell in the room right now is melting wax as we fly too close to the sun. But I'll see you soon in D.C. All right. Excellent. Thanks, Tommy. See you, but.