Transcript for:
Intelligence Matters: Insights on North Korea with Sid Seiler

This is Intelligence Matters, sponsored by Flare, a leader in providing actionable cyber threat intelligence to companies and governments around the world. Sid Seiler is one of our country's leading experts on North Korea. He worked for over 42 years in the U.S. government in jobs focused on Korea.

He was a senior policymaker, negotiator, and intelligence officer. He joins us today to talk about North Korea's recent treaty with Russia and its growing provocations on the Korean Peninsula. We'll be right back with that discussion after a quick break. I'm Michael Morrell, and this is Intelligence Matters.

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That's flare.io. Sid, welcome back to Intelligence Matters. It is great to have you on the show again.

Michael, as you know, it's an honor for me. I really love our discussions and the way it advances the story on the Korea issue. So, Sid, I'm going to start. by asking you to embarrass yourself.

I want you to share with folks how much time and in what ways you have worked on Korea over really the entirety of your professional life. Could you kind of, you know, summarize that? I just want people to get a sense of the expertise that we're bringing to the show today.

Michael, I just feel so blessed to have had an opportunity to serve in so many various positions over the course of the years as a collector, signals intelligence, open source, human side, as an analyst, all source, media analyst within CIA, then Directorate of Intelligence, now Directorate of Analysis. To have served... three and a half years at the White House as on the National Security Council staff. As a policymaker, as a policymaker. Yes.

Getting to watch, you know, firsthand the making and implementation of policy, and also as a negotiator, as a special envoy for six-party talks. So in addition to having had time during the six-party talks under the Bush administration, having that position for one year during the Obama administration gives me great insight into how we negotiate with North Korea, what we put on the table before them, what they come to the table asking for, and as we see over and over and over again, why these talks ultimately break down, because North Korea simply isn't interested in a relationship with the United States. I was fortunate enough to learn the language many years ago and serve in enough language use positions that hovered between the four plus and five level.

I'd say that not to brag, but just to kind of lay down, you know... the fact that I've been able to exploit original sources, engage North Koreans and our ROK colleagues in Korean conversations, etc. So I come at this with no particular agenda other than wanting to make sure that the record of the last four decades, at least, since I started looking at this issue in 1982, reflects truths as I saw it on the ground, often directly involved. So thank you for that opportunity.

opportunity to present that not again not to you know to defend myself but rather the case i'll be trying to make on a lot of these issues that we'll discuss today yeah and not only right i want my listeners to think of this as not only the expertise you bring to the table but as the kind of expertise that we need to build in the government on all sorts of issues it's a dilemma isn't it because We need a flexible workforce, and we never know what tomorrow's crisis might be. And, you know, having led a lot of analytic shots all the way up to acting director at CIA, you know what it's like to have to surge on one issue and move people quickly. You want to develop tradecraft skills that are... universal in application, and you can't afford to have a workforce of a large number of experts that fit only one niche.

But I think we've had a happy balance until now. And I think in particular, as we tackle the Russia issue since the invasion of Ukraine, but even bigger, the China issue, we're having this wake-up call that we have neglected to some degree. I'm not speaking to the CIA, but...

writ large, expertise has kind of slipped as we focused on other crises around the world. For sure. And we need China experts. We need North Korea experts.

We need Russia experts. We need Iran experts. We need Iran experts. And I think there's an awakening to that of late, and that's a good thing.

I look forward to seeing how the HR efforts and all the agencies ramp up to tackle that challenge. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you mentioned it, but you also served in Seoul multiple times.

You served with the U.S. military. I literally can't think of anyone who has done all the things that you've done, not only on Korea, but quite frankly, on any of the issues that matter. So I think the U.S. government should hold you up as the model.

You don't need to say anything. I just... I think they should hold you up as a model here of what we're trying to achieve in the government.

Okay, let's jump in. So Vladimir Putin was just in North Korea. During his visit, he and Kim Jong-un signed a security agreement. What was that agreement?

Historical precedence for it? What does it do? Why did both sides sign it, do you think? What's your sense on all of that?

Well, when you look at the treaty itself, you're kind of struck by the impression that there is a new international order that's being formed, and Pyongyang has just joined the club. And that as part of this... We will have mutual commitments to defense treaties that remind us of Cold War era confrontations, even as both Moscow and Pyongyang criticized the United States for its own treaty alliances.

But it's broad, it's aspirational, and it's missing a lot of details. As you know, I was able to staff four separate summits while I was at the White House. two in Seoul, two in Washington, and know the process of looking at deliverables you're hoping to get, how you want to lock in progress that you've made in certain areas, and how you want to lay a groundwork for going forward. This is not a document that was produced by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un on the spot. This was in work for a good amount of time.

And as I looked at it, it provided no surprises, substantively. We knew there was a middle-to-middle cooperation. We knew there was economic cooperation. We knew that the two were portraying themselves as allies and that they took it up to the next level by putting out a treaty. It's interesting, but I think it's also important to just step back and think about what the treaty says.

The treaty commits either side to come to the defense of the other if it is invaded. if it meets some level of a definition of war, and if it's in accordance with the UN Charter Article 51 on self-defense. And so, as you can imagine, Moscow makes the case today that its actions in Ukraine are justified, justified act of self-defense, and therefore North Korea's support to that would be in accordance with this new treaty. On the other hand, you just can't imagine.

a scenario in which United States and our Republic of Korea would attack North Korea and launch a war, and that Russia would want to risk nuclear war with the United States to come to the defense of North Korea. It's interesting because in justifying their nuclear program in the past, North Korea actually reached back and said, over the years, we knew that in spite of the basic treaty with Russia, that they would not come, our defense treaty, they would not come to our defense. They would not go to nuclear war with the United States to defend us.

And we knew China, whatever its intentions might be, lacked the arsenal size necessary to provide a nuclear umbrella to us. That is why we had to provide our own. So what has really changed in that regard? I think the dynamics.

it's troubling that Russia is essentially drawing a lifeline to North Korea. There's many downsides to this relationship we can talk about if you wish. But one of them is not the idea, if you look at the diplomacy of 1950, for example. The Korean War was launched in June 25, 1950. And in the months leading up to that, we see a lot of diplomacy between Kim Il-sung and Joseph Stalin, Kim Il-sung and Mao Zedong. And we see the groundwork being laid as the Soviet Union is enabling North Korea for the attack of June 25th.

Yeah, this is a very different environment. So while comparisons to Russia's conventional commitment in the past, or the Soviet Union's own support during the Cold War, That environment is entirely different from what we have today. Yeah, yeah.

So was there a similar agreement during the Cold War for both sides to come to the assistance of the other if attacked? Or is this unprecedented between the two? You know, it's not unprecedented because I think it was in line with the 1961 treaty. Okay. And again, if you do a deeper, a little bit deeper, it's still shallow, but maybe a shallow dive.

on Cold War dynamics, you know, that once you had the Sino-Soviet conflict emerge, we had de-Stalinization under Khrushchev, and then you had all the events in China, cultural revolution, and so forth, that it was a complicated environment in Northeast Asia. And these standing tensions between Beijing and Moscow kind of forced Pyongyang to either take a policy that sought to exploit some of these divisions, but more often than not, Kim Il-sung is taking actions to fireproof his system from over-dependence on either side that they could use back as leverage. And this is what you see with these autocratic, highly personalistic dictatorships. They're very paranoia, very, very paranoid. They're opportunistic.

And they're distrusting of even like-minded countries. And so Kim Il-sung has a concept of hyper-concerning over sovereignty, protecting that from great power encroachment. That's inherited by Kim Jong-il and certainly is in Kim Jong-un's mind as he explores possibilities of Russia. Can you talk a bit about what...

the North Koreans are providing to the Russians for their war effort in Ukraine? So, you know, with the White House's release from the intelligence and what we're seeing used on the ground, I mean, there's obviously a lot of artillery shells for some of the older systems that North Korea had in its inventory that were compatible with systems Russia was using in Ukraine. And then later on, we see these short-range ballistic missiles that the White House talked about.

And these are the missiles that we're seeing now. Frankly, not underwhelming, because any missile is dangerous. It's a weapon of terror. But they're having misfires.

They're having some difficulties with them. But they're short-range ballistic missiles that are being used. And that provides Russia both, again, a weapon of terror. And it's also providing North Korea an opportunity to test these systems out in conflict to see what the flaws are, to see what the shortcomings are, so that they can go back and improve these. So that's what we know so far is, you know, and the numbers are out there, how many shells a month Russia is consuming, how many they need, the continued shortage of munitions.

I know early on, some people were saying, well, there's a There's a temporary shortage because of lack of materials, people, et cetera, in Russia. And so they're turning to North Korea as a stopgap measure. Yeah.

And once their own munitions capabilities improve, they would be less. I think for now, it's just, you know, North Korea has geared up its production. It's providing the support. And it's likely to continue.

Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Sid, the way I think about this, right, is that North Korea's— providing this critical assistance to Russia, extraordinarily important to Russia, that gives North Korea more leverage in this relationship.

The way I think about the treaty that just got signed is that that's part of that's part of the payoff here. And, you know, what else do we need to worry about in terms of what the Russians might eventually provide to the North Koreans as a result of the North Koreans providing this critical assistance? You know, the lists are speculative, but basically what we've heard so far, of course, is support to the nuclear, WMD, and I would include space and that, so everything nuclear and missile. Looking for areas where North Korea maybe is struggling, RV reentry capability, etc.

The success of nuclear warhead designs doesn't seem to be consistent with what Vladimir Putin would see in the realm of justifiable support to their peaceful nuclear program. And to me, that's code language for help with a light water reactor and, of course, the... the uranium enrichment that will be necessary to support that. I was recently in Seoul and I had somebody ask me, what about uranium itself?

I said, you know, North Korea's got adequate supplies as far as we can tell. But that said, you know, if it helps in any way in any part of the fuel cycle that, you know, the manpower or facilities necessary to increase that. uranium enrichment, that certainly could be something that Russia helps North Korea with. I've also been very focused on the conventional side, because for me, as I look at North Korea's nuclear development over the past 30 years, we ask ourselves the question, how did we let this happen?

Well, the reason we let this happen, frankly, I mean, you've been in the room many times. I've been in there not as many as you. When we look at what can we do, what are the options on the table?

And then you have the question, what's what's the likelihood this could go bad? We've been somewhat reluctant to engage in actions that would bring an unacceptable risk or destabilize the action. And part of this is because I think over this 30-year history of the nuclear program, we've also had a conventional force that's been in a state of great deterioration resulting from the end of the Cold War, the loss of the Russian or Soviet and Chinese support. you know, food, fuel, modernization. We have a conventional force that began to lose credibility.

So the actual threat in the back of people's mind that, you know, we had a lot of, surely Kim's not suicidal. Surely Kim knows he loses any conflict with the United States and South Korea. Does that change? Should Russia provide assistance in North Korea in the conventional realm?

So we've got more credible aircraft, we've got more credible submarines, we've got more credible shipbuilding, air defense, UAVs, even maybe space capabilities. And then when you have a more credible conventional force, now Kim's options for coercive or compelling or even revisionist actions could expand. So you have a much more capable force that you have to deal with. That's what I'm worried about.

Yeah, there's a similar dynamic going on between Russia and Iran. And I think it's very important to remember that the war in Ukraine is impacting the threats we face from both North Korea and Iran. The consequences of this war in Ukraine are broad. Right.

Really, really, really important to remember. Well, can I turn the table just for a second? So, you know, for me, it's a Russia expert question, which is, does Vladimir Putin, how would he view an emboldened North Korea that decides to act militarily against South Korea, feeling it now has kind of at least a flashing yellow light, if not a green light, as they got into Stalin? Does Putin just cherish the idea that the U.S. would be tied up with these smaller conflicts?

globally so he's asking his partners go ahead and make trouble as you wish yeah is that is that so so that's one explanation the other explanation would be in in the moscow version of the sit room right that they know they've thought through the increased risk associated with what they're doing but they're absolutely willing to take it given given their their needs in ukraine so it's either Where we are in the world today in terms of Russia and China pushing back on the international system and trying to undermine the U.S., that instability in the Korean Peninsula is a good thing, right? Or they see it, they... do see it as a risk.

They are rational about it the way you and I are talking about it, but they're just willing to take it. And of course, the actor we haven't talked about yet is Beijing. Yeah.

Because Vladimir Putin might say at the end of the day, hey, if there's trouble or noise in Northeast Asia, that's all right. Yeah. But for Xi Jinping, this directly impacts Chinese interests. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And in a negative way. And so this has been, I think, the dilemma since the Ukraine. invasion, which is, you know, if Xi Jinping had a vision for this, you know, future alternative world order, alternative to the U.S.-led world order, its reputation is severely tarnished by Moscow's actions to date in Ukraine, and it will only get worse as time goes on.

Yeah. You know, the other thought I had, this is a general point, but the other thought I had when you were talking, Sid, is that one of the things I learned from going to the sit room was how difficult making policy is, how incredibly complicated it is to make policy. I think intelligence officers think intelligence is hard, nowhere near as hard as policy.

Is that your sense, too? Exactly. You know, and I wish every foreign policy analyst, I listened to your podcast with Andy last night, and it's somewhat similar. I mean, you were in the Oval, and you watched these discussions take place, and that's where you get your first exposure to all the dynamics that feed foreign policy formulation, domestic versus international, what's going on at that time, even something as simple as the time of day of a PC.

You know, people are worn out. Let's just get home. You know, state, you want to do this? Go ahead and do this. You don't see much of that.

But there are so many variables. And, you know, they all interact together in a way that a lot of foreign policy analysts, unless they've had an opportunity to sit in one of those briefing positions or sit in an NSC director, senior director position, just won't understand. You know, it occurs to me how many people think they can solve. an incredibly difficult foreign policy problem in one op-ed in 800 words.

Now that it's infuriating, now that I've kind of jumped into that world, and I'm not criticizing all of my new colleagues, but there is a general inclination that everything the current administration is doing is wrong, and I alone have the right answer. I might not share that answer with you because at the end of the day I don't, but you're going to generate the headline for me. criticizing yes absolutely uh and if you go in with an intelligence analyst thinking uh you're you're you're boring yep you know you're not criticizing something i i recently did a paper uh for george washington university and uh and seoul national university published it jointly and i basically said at the end i said i think my administration has the best policy possible i do not know what hasn't been tried that Biden to or Trump to would turn to. So I probably am sure getting a lot of criticism for an insider justifying the status quo. We're talking with Sid Seiler, an expert on North Korea, and we'll be right back after a break. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm.

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Sid, I want to turn to... North Korean provocations, which seem to me at least to be ramping up. So I'd love your sense on that. Is that right? Can you give some examples of what they've been doing?

Some of them, you know, quite silly as, you know, sending trash or human waste over the border. And then why? If the provocations are ramping up, what are the reasons? So...

If you look at the national intelligence estimate that we were able to declassify the key judgments for, and then we provide a graphic that outlines, projected out to 2030, 2035, three possible scenarios for North Korea. I used to call it responsible rogue revisionist. You can imagine the editorial staff. Responsible rogue. And revisionists.

Revisionists, that's interesting. Right, three R's, right? Oh, three R's. Those are the three different...

The three different possible scenarios for North Korea. Got it, got it, got it. And I deliberately avoided reunification, the temptation to use reunification, because we can imagine the number of revisionist actionists to change a stab squad on the ground that falls short of KPA having to go all the way down to PUSAB and secure 50 million.

But in that NIE, you know, we... What we concluded was that more than likely, we went to offensive, defensive, and coercive. So coercive being the road.

You know, the North Korea we've known for the last 70 years, only now each and every conventional provocation has an escalatory path to nuclear use, or at least a threat of nuclear use if the ROK-US response is too over the top. So the NIE predicted... that most likely North Korea would continue to engage in this type of coercive behavior, sometimes lethal and kinetic, as we saw in 2010 with the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yongkang-do, or maybe something short of that.

But with the intent being, there's a lot of reasons why North Korea does these provocations. Part of them is now they feel compelled to respond in kind and proportionally to what we do. We do an exercise, they do an exercise.

We do a strategic asset deployment, they fire a missile. You know, South Korean NGOs send leaflets north, North Korea sends trash down. Consistent with their description of the leaflets that the NGOs are sending as trash and garbage.

So, for now, everything's been proportionate and in kind, and not particularly escalatory. they certainly generate a lot of headlines and a lot of head scratching. You know, what is this going about?

I was on the beach on the East Coast in Korea when the first batch of balloons came south. And I remember, you know, the ROK military being on patrol to try to recover some of the bags in the area. And so, you know, where, again, not to say everything is what is. been expected, but this is something we had projected that North Korea would continue to engage in these types of actions.

And this is the best case scenario because everything is de-escalatable. I encourage analysts and experts today to think about three basic types of provocations, three broad areas. One are tension escalations.

One is accidental. A group of soldiers comes out of the the uh the line and some shots are fired or something else have bumper boats on the west sea during blue crab season you know we we know what these are and the armistice has provided a framework for handling these quite well over the last seven decades none of these escalate to war right uh and then you have the so that's one type it acts now then you have the deliberate one-offs provocations again chun-an i'm sinking yam kongdo shelling where north korea is seeking to inflict political damage on the South, to drive a wedge in South Korea debate between conservatives and progressives on North Korea policy, to drive a wedge between the United States and the ROK. And these all have de-escalation built in because the assumption going into this is neither side wants war.

And North Korea, even as it engages in this provocation, does so in a way where it's got the element of surprise, forced dominance, which allows them to a localized war. force dominance so that they can hit and then run and then pick up the pieces later. And the third type of probability- Can I stop you for a sec? What was the de-escalation that was built into the two incidents in 2010?

The fact that they were- prepared to absorb whatever retaliation took place and they knew there would be complicated attribution if you remember at the time of the Chonan on sinking it took us weeks months before we had all the sufficient you know evidence in you know be able to say North Korea was behind us and by then the the the passion for some type of retaliation had diminished yeah And the live fire, the live fire de-escalation was that North Korea simply didn't respond when South Korea conducted its subsequent live fire. So the Yongkangdo shelling, South Korea live fire, and then everything. The third one is the one we have to really worry about because it's the one we haven't seen, but this is the one that we all need to be preparing for and thinking about. And that is the deliberate provocation seeking escalation to a revisionist level. And so if you look at the NIE, and people ask me this, what's the difference between coercive and revisionist?

I said, it is a matter of degree. Maybe one, you're in casualties two digits and below. The other, you're in casualties three digits and above.

But it's something where you're seeking to fundamentally change the status quo. Maybe you seize an island. Maybe you seize some land on the East Coast. Maybe you redefine maritime boundaries and go out and actively defend them.

And they're designed to achieve the larger goal of even more tension in the US-ROK relationship. We're taken to the next level, actually bringing everybody to the table on North Korea's terms because the provocations continue and North Korea says, one more strike and we're going to hit you with a nuclear weapon. And then everybody says, we got to talk. We've got to sit down and talk.

What is it you want, Pyongyang? So there are things that Pyongyang can achieve. You can tell by my explanation that it's hard, it seems a bit far-fetched, but weren't Russia's actions in invading Ukraine far-fetched at the time?

Absolutely. Underestimated what Vladimir Putin thought he could get out of the US force. And that same type of concern applies in a scenario that happens on the peninsula. Now, I've always said as an analyst that I'm not sure what I'm talking about.

I'm not sure what I'm talking about. that it will look different. In the past, for example, you see these provocations along the DMZ and then life in Kenyon goes on.

Diplomats are walking around, going to the market, etc. That you would see a more widespread mobilization of the force because of the concern, or not the concern, the intent of the whole action is to elicit some type of response from the United States and South Korea. And what's interesting about this is when you... think about the debate that will happen in the situation room.

You know, what is better, trying to de-escalate by seeking to talk or to try to terminate by escalating? Yeah. Escalate, terminate.

Yeah. And our South Korea friends will be saying, the only way that you can get, you know, convince Kim Jong-un not to take the path he is on is by a strong, firm retaliatory action that backfoots him. And you can imagine... depending on the administration in Washington saying, we've got so many other problems on our hands. Escalation on the Korean Peninsula is not one of them we want to take on at this time.

I think that's the type of dilemma Kim eventually wants to put us in. We don't see indications of that now. And what we do see with these trash bags flowing back and forth, you know, is silly. Yeah.

And it shows, you know, a kind of a lack of creativity on North. Korea's part, but also I think it does show some restraint. They could be shooting loudspeakers.

They could be shooting at the NGO launch sites. They haven't done that yet. Sid, in your third category, going back in history here, are there examples of actions they've taken? Take the Korean War itself off the table, but are there actions that they've taken that you would put in the third category historically? No.

And I think- part of that is, you know, we will never fully be able to deter North Korea provocation. But I think these more risky, revisionist types of options are deterrable. If Kim is really convinced that, you know, that coercion will not pay off, that he will not have China's and Russia's backing.

that his forces are not necessarily strong enough to do it, that the United States has not become complacent, and that the ROK will not capitulate. And if you look again at the NIE that we released, we released... at least the graphic, and it has offensive, defensive, and coercive drivers, things that would lead North Korea to those types of behaviors, changes in the international environment, belief China and Russia will give them a pass, capability, a use or lose scenario. For example, if suddenly it looks like South Korea is going nuclear.

But with those drivers, you've got both indications and warnings. So analysts can say, oh, I see, we see this, we see this, we don't see this. Not perfect, not thorough, but at least, you know, a framework. And then secondly, you've got some shaping options for policymakers. If we want to keep North Korea from going down this path, these are the diplomatic actions we might want to do.

These are the pressure. These are the military. Yeah.

So it sounds like there's two broad objectives here from a policy perspective. One is continue to deter. And then the second is prepare if deterrence fails.

Is that. fair? That's a great characterization of it.

And as I look at what we've done over the past, you know, in the post-Hanoi era, where, you know, Hanoi did not, we did not drop our guard in 2018. Many people thought North Korea was on a charm offensive that they would break out of after 12 to 16, 18 months, like they had done in the past. There was no real commitment to denuclearization at any time during this period. And there was no sense we were on a new path.

But since Sinsanoid, it's become even clearer without a single answering of the phone or answering of email from State Department, North Korea absolutely refusing to talk to us. What is the best policy that we can bring to the table in the absence of denuclearization diplomacy with North Korea? And it certainly is that.

Don't give up on diplomacy. Keep the door open. Work the allies.

Work the international community. Never let China off the hook and see what you can do about Russia in the future when the opportunity presents itself. On the financial side, a lot of blows to our sanctions regime with the Russians refusing to extend the panel of experts charter.

But that said, we still have a lot of like-minded countries who don't like cyber crimes committed by North Koreans against their banks and institutions. They still see the legitimacy of Security Council resolutions and the value in stigmatizing the policy path North Korea has chosen by having these weapons and refusing to come to the table. And while you do this, and this is what I think the last four years under the Biden administration, almost four years now, has proven is that you can form multinational alliances, what they've done with the Quad and what they've done with- trilateral cooperation uh august i mean there's a lot of capability and capacity is being built to be able to help deter north korea and prevent the worst case scenarios from unfolding we're not going to we're not going to be able to block every potential uh provocation even even the smaller scale lethal ones we're interested in those revisionist larger scale uh provocations and i think there we've got This administration has done well to keep that international consensus together.

So one more question, Sid. In terms of the relationship between South Korea and the U.S. and then Japan as well, bringing Japan into that because they're an important player here, how healthy is that relationship, those relationships, as they're strong as they need to be? How do you think about that? You're a career expert on Japan as well, and you know all the dynamics of it.

Sid? these relationships going back historically and certainly in the modern era. And we know we're just like one Dokdo training exercise or Yakuza Shrine away from, you know, a significant setback to what's been accomplished.

But we've had some boldness of leadership in South Korea and in Japan. Japan too, yeah. And willing to take the risk because I think... You know, over time, there's a fundamental truth here that it's hard for Koreans to accept at times. I don't know how Japanese are, but when I try to provoke my South Korean friends and say, you know, at the end of the day, the Republic of Korea shares much more in common with Japan than it does China and even North Korea.

It's kind of hard to accept that, but in terms of, you know, norms, values, political, economic systems. views toward human rights, the ROK and Japan are natural allies. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And getting over that history is...

I'm not underestimating it. Countries, we all have challenges getting over historical grievances. But the actions of Pyongyang and the actions of Beijing have certainly enabled the creation of an environment where we had the success that we did, Camp David and since then. And I do know it's tenuous. I know that there'll be setbacks.

But that is an instance. institutionalization of cooperation between the three countries against these challenges of China and North Korea. And short of some major change in Pyongyang and Beijing, that environment is going to be relatively steady. So then you just have to look at how these two sides manage the domestic churn that will happen.

We've got one of these history book writings, all the things that cause the derailment. And so I think this administration has done a great job of trying to institutionalize it. I also know that if there's a major hiccup and suddenly it looks like everything's falling apart, I would not be necessarily surprised by that. Right, right, right. Or that that would be short term, right?

Right, exactly. And get back to where everybody's interests are. Sid, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us.

I love talking to you. And at some point, have you back. To really walk through the history of the relationship between the two countries, because I think that's so important in terms of understanding where we are.

Well, thank you, Michael, for this opportunity. It's always delightful to talk with you. We could go on and on.

So I'm looking forward to our next session. Absolutely, Sid. Thank you. That was Sid Seiler.

I'm Michael Morrell. Please join us next week for another edition of Intelligence Matters. Intelligence Matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with assistance from Ashley Berry and Sophia Rubin.

Intelligence Matters is a production of Beacon Global Strategies.