we will stand by our allies in the immigration movement, and the immigration reform movement, may. [applause] >> we need to make this next generation the decade, our nation realized that we face far greater issues than to someone loves and wants to marry. that our strength as a people is weakened and lessened when we fight each other, rather than the social, economic, environmental and global concerns that face us all. the lgbt community is talented. we are skilled. we are created. we are ready to contributcontribute to a vision of inclusiveness and to a transform society. and if there was ever a time we need to work together, as one people, it is now. [applause]

ill thousands of people who do not know anything about our lives, and to whom we our invisible -- are invisible. let us start right now to create some change. take out a piece of paper or your hand held. i am serious. now, at the top, right "-- write, "my life." below that, right below that, right, talk, right, meet. now, as lgbt people and our straight allies, i want us all to commit to taking three

actions every month for the next year. each month, talk to a neighbor, a co-worker or family member about an issue that affects your life. each month write a letter to the editor, write a bar, right in your facebook page but right about an issue affects your life. in each month to meet with your elected officials, meet with local nonprofits and community leaders and talk about an issue that affects your life. when you get home take this up on your mirror or fridge with all your other affirmations and reminders. [laughter] or keep your text in a safe place, and all of us just of this conference commit to this we will have taken over 72,000 actions just in the next year to move toward the visibility of our lives to engage and to

advocate. 72,000 just at this conference. [applause] and i have followed some of you on twitter and your friends on facebook so i know how far are reaches in that isn't even counting the people watching this on c-span and but that's what we have to do here we have to take advantage of every available opportunity to push forward. it will create change. last year the right-wing organizations, americans were truth about homosexuality, and believe me there's not a whole lot of truth serum. [laughter] they used a quote for my annual speech here and one of their speech -- letters, like bin activists we turn around and used their quote in our fund-raising letter. [laughter] well, americans for truth about homosexuality, here is your money quote this year. [applause]

we are still recruiting! [applause] we are recruiting, we are recruiting and movement of people who care about freedom, justice and equality and we will not stop until all people can live their lives without fear of persecution, prosecution or attacks just because of who they are or who they love. we are still recruiting. [applause] we will see what they do a fact. [laughter] for 37 years, the task force has been at the forefront of change and that's exactly where we plan to stay.

and we want you there with us as change agents, we want the task force to be your home. for those of you who spend your days in public service, working for change as local, state or federal government employees, you are at home. for those of you who take action in through blogs, social networking or tweed, your home. for those of you who are an activist to take to the streets today, you are home. for those of you remember stone wall because you lived it, you are home. [applause] for those of you like elton john and lady gaga --. [applause] truly one of the clearest mamas and grammy history, you are home. for those of you who have the courage to private practice your

face, to take back your faith, a pace that may have rejected your by others, you are,. [applause] and for those of you who are straight and see yourselves in the late for lgbt equality and justice, well,. [applause] [applause] the task force has never been homogenous. we are diverse, dynamic, and passionate, and because of that we've not always agree with each other, but to gather we always come palla this country to pay attention to our lives. we always compel others to evolve toward fairness and

that's what we're going to keep doing. let us inspiring each other to lead, to create a society where inequality is unconditional, where the acceptance of diversity is not a goal but a given, and where the concern is not who we love but that we love. [applause] let's go create change. thank you. [applause]

with your wildest imagination if you're writing fiction you could not have made the story up.

our company's whether it is providers of video or those who actually invest to create the contents are working overtime to figure out how to get consumers all the content they want on every platform or a device they may own as quickly as possible. >> this weekend kyle mcslarrow, head of the national cable and telecommunications association on what's next for the cable industry, the communicators saturday on c-span. >> state department's special envoy on climate change, todd stern, a. reporter said today on the future of climate change policy after the copenhagen a court agreement. that document drafted in december stated that climate change is a great threat to the world and action should be taken to keep temperatures from rising to a degree celsius. this is 20 minutes. >> [inaudible conversations]

>> the afternoon, we are pleased to have special envoy todd stern to give us the lay of the land on international from the negotiations, post copenhagen. as you know in late january the u.s. announced it submitted pledge to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the copenhagen accord. as a step toward an in a global effort to combat climate change. without in mind and will handle the podium over to todd stern it has 20 minutes to answer questions. >> hello everybody. please to be here today. i'm going to be brief on the

topic and open it up for questions for you all. where we stand right now as you all know that copenhagen meeting and produce in the end a short document known as the copenhagen accord, we think a very important short but important document that was produced very importantly through the intervention of leaders, a great number of leaders from countries there. it was at the end of the day not formally adopted a decision of the decision being a term of art with a conference of the party is, but was supported by the overwhelming number of them. the fact that it was informally adopted has led to a process since copenhagen where countries centrally convey the secretariat

of the u.n. convention their interest in being part of its. the u.n. term is to associates themselves with the accord and in addition the major countries, the major economies have submitted their targets or actions that they plan to take to reduce emissions of this is the developed countries and the major developing countries. that was supposed to happen by january 31st and it didn't. now have slightly less than 100 countries that have indicated they want to be part of the accord, my guess there will still be some additional ones who indicate that. the accord itself of, i think there is an important document for a number of reasons.

it includes, quantifies the objective of this whole exercise of the framework of convention. the objectives stated in the convention is two essentially avoid dangerous climate change in the copenhagen accord quantifying that by talking about limiting the increase entablature 2 degrees centigrade, it includes a pledge by the major economies to submit to targets and actions, includes importance of a and language on transparency, important provisions of financing and on technology, so all in all a very important step forward. going for this year i think the combination of both making elements of the accord in operational as well as for the discussions under the umbrella

of the u.n. framework convention toward additional agreements in mexico, so that's kind of where things stand right now. i'd be happy to take questions. >> you alluded in a little bit in your talk the other week, the commitments by countries like china, india, brazil, south africa are necessarily ambiguous. how do see that going board unless there is a clear commitment by those emerging economies? >> well, i think there will get clarifying it. i think that, first of all, they have also been there proposed actions and there's nothing ambiguous about that. they have submitted reactions that they intend to take to reduce emissions. i think that's a good thing. so far i believe brazil and

south africa and stated in the to the -- conveyed to the secretary that they wish to be associated with the accord and china and india have conveyed something in it which is not entirely clear -- i think that all day clarify though as mine gas over the course of the next few days. there will be -- the way this thing works is the secretary of publishes a report on a conference of the parties. we do this every year when there's a conference of the party is after a couple of months, they published a report on what happened in and report includes all of the decisions that were taken. one of those was a decision to take note of it the copenhagen accord and so on the part of that decision and the accord itself will be published in on the front page of the accord there'll be a list of all the parties to have said we want to be part of this so i think that

that's something that will presumably happen and reasonably soon and i would expect that of the major countries will be part of it at that point. >> can i follow up, will there be a risk to the accord unless there is more clarity from the region's? >> i think it's a brand that the major countries be part of it, but again when i think that we have close to 100 countries now so i think that the accord is already kind of gathering it's been. >> it would india and china don't associate themselves is there a possibility that the u.s. would allow us? >> no, not at all. i think that the u.s., we have put put forward our own submission, it is consistent with what president obama

announced back in november so i don't think it is a question of the u.s. same never mind. i don't think that is the plan. >> if follow-up question. what you said is not clear about china and india. >> the proposals are clear. this is a little bit confusing and i don't want to be confusing. the proposals they've all made with respect to here's what we will do is perfectly clear. there is a second piece of this which is, do you quote to associate yourself with the accord ended a pact would you be one of those 100 plus countries that are listed on the front page of the accord as having said, yes, we want to be part of it? that's the piece i'm talking about right now and as i say there slightly less the 100

countries that have said that. india and china have said something close to that and i think the u.n. is just trying to make sure that they understand what the intention is. >> now a question about india, they announced they would set up their own ipcc because they believe the u.n. is unrealistic and are not reliable. >> well, look, i think it's a good with pork countries to have an active scientific -- it is important and i don't know what it details arm and i don't know what it having nine but i think obviously the united states has all sorts of scientific work that we do throughout our various agencies of the u.s. government's i think that's all i good things in. i think the ipcc is an institution and has made a large

contribution and i think is an important body that will continue and is our representative of countries all over the world. i don't know -- i'm not familiar with the specifics of what india -- >> you're talking about the controversy is -- a mollohan glaciers and some other attacks and figures which have lost a lot of doubt sneath. >> well, as i said i think the ipcc is a very important body, is an important contribution to the extent that there were any -- any errors appear in their lengthy reports i think it's regrettable, with but again i am not -- i don't have any national not a scientist and don't have any considered view when the

specifics of but i think the ipcc is an institution that is quite important and will continue to be important. >> how much more difficult is your job been since the errors in the ipcc report that came to light? >> it is difficult already. look, i think that the scientists, bois -- thwart me an opinion for action on climate change, the fundamental science on a climate change and the observed a day that is quite overwhelming. i think that to the extent and again and made no comment one way or another i don't know but to the extent there are any mistakes in the ipcc report assessments or anywhere else that's regrettable. you don't want there to be mistakes about what should not have been in -- what should that

happen is any individual mistakes, typos, whatever they might be betaken to undermine the very fundamental one record that exists with from scientists all over the world and from serb data from all over the world that this is with a quite serious and growing problem. i think that is really the underlying important point and i think what you do see sometimes is that people will have an agenda that is directed toward undermining action on climate change and they grab whatever tidbit they confine and say look there is no climate change, there is no climate change, that kind of stuff is nonsense.

the exploiting of this were a bad mistake that might have occurred in some hard to of the reports that altogether a lot of scientific data and i think need to be seen for what it is which is delivered attempt to undermine the fundamentals of that haven't changed. >> you talked after copenhagen hi lucy the u.n. role for the negotiations about climate change and that of the major economies and you have any word on when and where the next meeting might be? >> welcome to things. i think this been an absolutely has an important role going forward. i think are obviously anybody who was that are closely following copenhagen can see that there are challenges with respect to managing a big process like particularly the

one with were small group of countries can block actions. that assertion and difficult but to the u.n. has special law all of credibility in history in this and we support the u.n. process. the major economies i think was a very useful. last year there was a useful form, a useful body one that really picked up from the previous administration and then kind of a remodeled so we have every intention of continuing that this year. i am quite sure that we will have them even the spring. we have and not said the exact date or the place yet, but i would anticipate that we will be in working with our major economies former partners to set

up a meeting in the relatively near term and i might say that in the fall and we began a practice of inviting a few additional countries to participate who were important countries but not necessarily a major in terms of their economies and i think that that was a useful process that we began in september and october but we started in the fall and i guess would probably continue something like that. >> [inaudible] >> of little bit but not to a larger extend. >> wong is there any coordination between your office and the trade representative's office and commerce and treasury in trying to and deal with some of the economic concerns that some countries might have about trying to limit to their economic output that might have an impact, the rise in

temperatures globally? >> well, two things, we cordoning with everybody. with this is not just a state department want exercise or a government exercise you're for starters we coordinated very closely with the white house and obviously with the president but people in the nsc and that climate in energy office of mayor and we coordinate a lot with the treasury and in the epa and energy and commerce and other places, so this is a broad government effort where, of course, on the diplomatic side the states are in the lead but there's a lot of coordination just in general. with respect to the question of countries who need to play a role and who have concerns about that, you know, we interact, we

discuss those issues with the country's, with countries in that kind of position a lot. i think that u.s. t.r. is also an agency that we certainly do work with. look, it is kind of a basic underlying reality here which is in that country's in a sort of emerging market economy which were talking about, they have to be part of a, they have to be part of the solution in dealing with this problem. if you only look it developed countries you are at about 40, summer between 40 and 45% of total emissions and shrinking with and if you're trying to deal with the 80 or 85% of emissions and growing, you've got to bring in china and india and countries like that.

you have to do it in a way that is mindful of their own needs for development, but to those things can be reconciled and a half to be reconciled or else there's no way to deal with the problem. >> a couple more questions. >> associating with the accord and commitments for the accord, the earlier a few weeks ago they said that the january 39 -- 31st deadline or to know what that number of countries aren't that have made commitments for the accord? >> i know that they said that but the reality is that the country is who were expected to make those commitments did so by january 31st, somebody might even said that but it was done basically by january 31st and those of the developed countries, the u.s., europe, japan, new zealand and australia and that kind of etc., and the

major developing countries so and that is china, india, brazil, south africa, indonesia, korea and mexico are in a half a house but still traditionally considered developing and not additional countries -- i don't have them at my fingertips but there are additional companies -- countries that wouldn't be considered major's but did stempel run and make their own commitments with respect to action. so that piece of this is basically in terms of the meeting the deadline that that got done so now we're just in the world one of what countries are going to be reflected in as part of a the copenhagen accord. >> okay, and in relation to that one of the next ups in the encorps process? >> well, well -- >> leading up to this? >> so there were in these two steps we've already talked about

bamenda making your commitments in the associating that part isn't quite over yet. beyond that there are a number of elements in the accord but that by their terms we have further had elaboration so it calls for a global fund that we need to set up. there is a structure, mechanics however, the fun will call for technology, what does it look like, where the elements of the mechanism. very important provision about transparency including with respect to developing countries want including with respect to actions they take on are known as opposed to just actions they take with their funded. a very important stuff there and in in paragraph five of the accord in talks about further guidelines to spell out those transparency provisions because that needs to get done so there

probably for five elements of the accord that need further work and i think that those things need to be carried forward. the first piece of that bygone announced was high level we can all or group -- an advisory group i think it is called on financing one that was announced on friday. .. would

have dropped out of the form of action partnerships. i'm wondering if you talk specifically about that? further blow to that side of the equation? and specifically, how do you feel that business, do you fear there is some concern that business interest in this whole process is landing? i don't know anything about the specifics unless i'm not going to comment on that. i think i may know, it's interesting that overall business interest and focus on this issue is growing gradually and that would continue because whenever the ups and downs of this process at any particular moment, there is only one direction that this process can go, which is a new direction of

action to reduce emissions. i hope we get there and i hope we get there sooner rather than later. and we will be doing everything we possibly can to finance that goal. but whether it's in your later comments coming. this is the plan for not just come you know, businesses don't drive by looking right over the head of the car. they look down the road and coming. >> thank you.

>> our companies, whether it's providers of video or those who actually invest to create the

content are working overtime to figure out how to get consumers all the content they want on every platform or device that they may own as quickly as possible. >> this weekend, kyl mclaren ahead of the national communications association on what's next for the cable industry. the communicator saturday and seized an. >> now look at north korea's military and weapons trafficking. while you are this color for the institute for korean studiescowlishaw this winter symposium last last week in washington. this is a little more than an hour. >> well, thank you for that very nice introduction and at least to you have the same pronunciation of the marine corps or core than our president does. i'm very happy to see all the future. thank you for braving the horrible weather to come out here and listen to while others speak. i'm also grateful that i'm sitting on this and the with so many people that i admire so

much, truly. and finally, a bite to thank dr. ken and i say ds for giving me the honor of coming to speak your on the subject matter which i think is very serious although not talked about a lot. and finally, before i get into the meat of my discussion i need to pass on the views that i present here are my own and do not necessarily represent the policy or position of the marine corps university or the united states government. let's talk about the north korean military threat. i think that the movie we had for all of us took the panel today was very compelling. i would only say, it becomes even more compelling if you tie a nuclear capability to the missiles, particularly taepodong which is something they are years away from achieving. i'm not going to talk about the day as the movie did a very good job. what i'm going to talk about are two things.

first i'm going to talk about the north korean threat, the security of stability of the korean peninsula and sf follows that the region as a whole and i'm also going to talk more shortly, but in some detail about the north korean threat from proliferation and support to terrorism. the money talk about the military first if i may. mason at north korea's military, like its people, has been starved by the machine's isolation when in fact the opposite is in many ways true. the key reason why the populace is so short on resources, particularly fuel and food is because the majority of these have been routed directly to troops. as easy as it seems to dismiss the start of a country and a sof and thick layer, north korea's conventional military has adjusted to dire economic times and is far more capable than many analysts realize. jan jan goodwin koubek on the region. there are two aspects of today's north korean military that

warrants a careful look. the first is the near two decades old holdup of north korea's eastern magic forces. what i mean that in this case is forces that carryout unconventional missions. the second matter is reorganization during much of which has resulted in a significant portion of the conventional forces being moved closer to the demilitarized zone, since they are perpetually poised to attack the south. i had to practice and those two p. words one right after the other. north korea has three types of asymmetric forces can't excuse me forces. a poised to attack south korea. organize a long-range artillery units, short-range ballistic missile unit and special operation forces. in the first case, pyongyang version of soviet 240 rocket launchers and 170-millimeter guns. the country has significantly

beefed up the numbers of both weapons systems along the dmz since the late 1990's. and because the systems have ranges of 40,000 meters or more, this means that at least 250 of them are now positioned in range of seoul. they could target the south korean capital and surrounding areas in the province on a moments notice. and to exacerbate the threat, between five and 20% of the systems are assessed to be equipped with chemical munitions. all this means that the potential damage from artillery alone according to estimates from both south korean and u.s. defense officials could reach 200,000 casualties and that's just on the first day of the attack. if war broke out, north korea's artillery could shell seoul, south korea's political, commercial and cultural center back to the 1980's in a matter of hours. short-range ballistic missiles are the second asymmetric

component of north korea's arsenal. since the 1990's, jan jan has enhanced its ballistic missile capability and numbers, command-and-control and doctrine. north korea is now possessed 200 nodong missiles and 600 scads. the letter with range at with 350 enough to target every inch of the south korean landmass. north korea has also added the ss 21 system can also be a platform to its missile arsenal. known as the cayenne too. this indigenously produced version of the ss 21 users solid fuel and can be used very quickly with a range of 120 to 160 kilometers and greater accuracy than other missiles that could easily target u.s. missiles south of seoul. interestingly, these first two components that i've just spoken out, artillery and missile,

would be used in tandem if an attack to face. thanks to reorganization of north korea's military during the late 1990's, both types of forces are now commanded by artillery officers who led in accordance with their training doctrine consider missile systems to simply be artillery systems with a longer range and would target them accordingly. and then attack, many of north korea's artillery systems would aim for seoul and much of the surrounding province while simultaneous missile attacks at every keynote in south korea. as for north korea's special operations forces, south korean estimates now place their numbers satisfy as 180,000 men. north korean special operations forces are probably among the best trained, best bed and most motivated of all forces and our military. they routinely undergo intense training that includes carrying 50 pounds of sand, for tonka

launders in one hour, hygiene and extreme cold weather, marshal its methodologies that include fighting with three to 15 opponents and even using spoons and forces weapons. troops also engage in intense marksmanship training and even daily makes running training. they can attack quickly, reaching keynotes of south korea by aircraft through tunnels in the dmz or even maritime vessel. there's a very interesting quote. there's a lot of sof in the latest iraq white paper. please allow me to read a short quote from the document. this is talking about special operations forces strength. the troops thing for special warfare forces reaches approximately 180,000 by creating light infantry divisions in the forward area and i got a the light infantry battalions to regiment class. the army is concentrated massively on enhancing our capabilities for special warfare

as evidenced by the stepping up of nighttime mountaineering training and street warfare training. very interesting stuff. the combined use of north korea's asymmetric forces would almost certainly incite panic during any attack on the south in the confusion and it is possible or perhaps even likely that enough cracks might open in south korea as a united states defense to allow a northern maneuver forces and infantry, armor, mechanized forces to move forward and to take ground. it is no coincidence that over the past 15 years, north korea has moved many of its conventional forces to forward positions, austin air-conditioned corridors along the border. there are two primary invasion corridors along the border and you can see this on any map. one is the case on moonstone corridor and the other is the corridor. if you put all this together, in

an attack would inflict casualties to the tune of hundreds of thousands, the majority of them and probably civilians and many of them and seoul. so, speaking of those reorganized maneuver forces that have been this close to these attack corridors. let me read another quote if i may from the iraq administrative national defense latest white paper. recently the army reorganized into structures by reinforcing the firepower of the first echelon and the frontline area. thereby attaining a surprise effect with overwhelming combat power in the initial engagement. and for those of us who study north korea's military, it's important to point out that the initial engagement is by all means the most important engagement, the engagement that will take a place over the first hours and days of the attack. so very important stuff. well, why does the north korean army military if you will be doing that far?

for those of us who when the north korean military, we know that december through march is what's called the winter training cycle. the ground is frozen so they can run armor, self-propelled artillery, troops, et cetera. they're not harvesting crops, they are not planting crops, so crops, so the time of year when they train above. what's happening in this one? training this year thus far, only about halfway through the winter and training cycle includes infantry, special operations forces, armor and unusually large exercise with the peasant bread guard forces that also reportedly included active duty troops. there's also some stuff that's extremely interesting and in my view quite compelling. in addition, long-range artillery live fire drills occurred on the west coast, north of pyongyang featuring the 240-millimeter rocket launchers that i spoke of, multiple rocket launchers that i spoke of earlier. those systems capable of hitting

seoul. those are some rather large exercises compared to what they've done in the past. particularly given the past. another initial event that the kurds and many of us who followed the press and south korea have observed with quite a bit of interest is somehow begin usual live fire drills on the west coast near the northern limit line. these events feature a variety of systems over three days i might add, a variety of systems of fire more than 350 artillery shells, which is a lot. very close to the northern limit line. some of them as close as a kilometer and a half to the de facto sea border separating the two koreas. the drills conducting nearly the northern limit line or an al out for reportedly time target exercises. in other words, this involves simultaneously volleys of rounds landing on a single target. shells must be fired at different times with systems farther away firing first. it takes a lot of coordination and a lot of planning,

especially considering the high amount of shells at the fire. reportedly, several different calibers of artillery systems for use. so very interesting stuff. there may be some questions about that afterwards obviously. well, why is all this important? these three pillars if you will of north korea's asymmetric capability, they're special operations forces, their long-range artillery and their short-range ballistic missiles including free rocket overground and the kia to. these are the primary threats that would open up the work on excuse me, would open up the war with south korea. but why is this so compelling? in my view, is so compelling because of south korea's capabilities right now, which are lacking in many ways. please let me address this one by one. first of all, because srbm threat involves protecting south

korea from the srbm threat involves two types of ballistic missile systems. the first one is obviously the patriot missile system. while the south koreans just recently in the past year or so have started deploying the antiquated largely packed to patriot missile system. this is a system that uses a shotgun type blaster try and take out incoming ballistic missiles and is not very effective, particularly against the types of scuds that north korea has. the affected missile system against that is the upgrade, the pack three, which the rocks have not met in which they may have some in a few years but don't right now. the only pack three missile systems on the korean peninsula by men of the united states army personnel and their and u.s. bases. what is the problem here? south korean population centers and military bases that don't have american troops are meant are very susceptible right now, this second to attack from ballistic missiles by the north

koreans. in addition, as i mentioned earlier in the paper, the north koreans have about 200 nodong. but the sets i would also likely be fired, especially the ones up near the chinese border as southern areas in south korea, so just poussaint and judge ito. the best way to take out a note nodong is using one of those we have described earlier and that's the sm three missile package and it's carried on in ages with ship with the south koreans have him their king say jean class ships and it's very accurate for taking on a higher tier missile like the nodong. by the way, the japanese already have this two-tiered system. pack three or low levels and sm threes for higher levels. and they already have them on ships and protecting their population centers and military bases. south koreans do not. this is a problem. so that's why the srbm threat is

particularly compelling. let's talk about the special operations forces directed by may. the special operations forces have grown by about 50% although there's some disagreement with the americans on that. i would concur with the south koreans. a lot of that, most of that test and do what they call light infantry degrades although no forces are exactly like u.s. forces and we shouldn't be her image. they're very similar to u.s. ranger type units. the way to counter that, one of the way to counter that is of course with south korea's bonus sof forces. south korea only has two at their own sof forces to c-130s. they are severely lacking in their own airlift. when i spoke of this at a conference a year and a half ago at nyu, iraq scholar came out to me and said, you know, bruce when i was in the roc army owes

a special forces guy and i remember having to set on a tarmac in way for an american c-130 to fly from okinawa to pick us up because we didn't have enough of our own. this boat is a problem. i thought about srbm at dr. long-range artillery. let me address that if i may. when it comes to long-range artillery, that is obviously as you guys know the north korea's think of artillery and srbm in the same mode, all run by artillery officers. those systems which you can see pictures if you go to nk daily there are some very good pictures on the recently. those guns, the most important thing that we have to do with those guns is our counter battery fire. and that is a very big concern for the rocs. in 2006, early 2006 the mesh and was traded from the united states second infantry division to the roc in 20 units for that battery mission. the problem is and this is

another issue that the south korean military house. the south korean military does not have the proper c-4 i write not to do a good counter battery mission. so if you're talking about the time to target mission that it takes from getting a shot fired at you to firing back according to recent reports sometimes it takes as long as an hour for them. that is just unsatisfactory. excuse me. thank you, sir. if you're also going to talk about another very important aspect of battery fire it's its integrated military. in other words, what the united states military operates is when you get fire from artillery, you courtney with your own error so that not only is your artillery firing back, but so is air. the rocs simply don't have that capability yet and they're working towards it, the rights and other best capability to work towards that is called americans see for i.e. and american united states air force

aircraft. so problematic. why do i bring this up? why do i bring up the fact that these three key asymmetric threats, which were not even talking about maneuver forces right now. what am i bring this up like the reason why is because a few days ago, admiral blair, the director of national intelligence testified before congress, let me read this quote. because the conventional military capabilities gap between north and south korea has become so overwhelming that great, the prospects for reversal of this gap, so remote, jang jan relies on its program to deter attacks on its regime although there are other reasons for the north to pursue its nuclear program redressing conventional weakness is a major factor and one that can and is likely successors will not easily dismissed. admiral blair's remarks are particularly, particularly a

setback are particularly disturbing and misleading because they say specifically that the conventional capabilities gap between north korea and south korea has become so great. please allow me to point out that the military of the south koreans is really, really well equipped to take on the maneuver force dominated north korean army of 1990. of course, now it's 2010. they are not however where they should be when it comes to handling the asymmetric forces that i discussed earlier. nor have they been able to adjust yet to the large-scale reorganization of maneuver forces that has occurred in north korea since 2006. very important stuff because those maneuvers forces can then be able to take over some places were cracks have developed because of what these asymmetric forces have done. so specifically, when it comes to these three pillars of north korea's asymmetric capabilities, short-range ballistic missile

threat, long-range artillery threat, special operations forces that, the south koreans have a lot of capabilities that they have yet to develop and they are very weak in that area, especially those areas. none new clear forces that north korea has taken so much care and spent so many resources aren't in order to continue to threaten the south remained at ominous and compelling threat for a variety of reasons, many of which are in the paper that will be hosted on the icy ds website if you want more details. and some of which i discussed already. those who have carefully analyzed the correlation of forces, opposing firepower ratios or to rain dominated strategy on the korean peninsula and the order of battle and dispositional forces of the north and south korean militaries realized that the rok military alliance can and should take the north korean nonnuclear threat seriously.

please allow me to take a sip. people keep telling me to quit smoking cigars. they are just wrong. the second military threat i would like to discuss from north korea is that of proliferation and support to terrorism. and i'm going to do this country by country. and i'm going to take less time discuss this. as the most of you are more knowledgeable on this than you were on some of the military issues i discussed, so i'll probably have done some things you probably are deterred here an address area first. i think everybody knows about the nuclear or that syria had, which was essentially gone beyond two, which we now know. of course it is gone now, thank you, israel. everyone knows that now from the report that we've read that essentially the north koreans built a copy of yongbyon in the desert in syria and then they

built a fake roof over it so people wouldn't see it from the air. lots of great stuff on that. so bottom line is north korea proliferated their plutonium-based nuclear program to syria. it was not a smoking gun on that. it was a smoking 155, so there we are. north korea also proliferates chemical weapons systems through syria, both for myself and for artillery. in fact, north koreans have actually helped the north -- have helped the syrians build their own chemical weapons factory. so speaking of artillery and missiles, the north koreans have proliferated every single type of scud that they felt to syria, scud b., stud fee, scud d. and the extended range scud. in fact, if you tie that chemical weapons thing and the missile thing together, about two years ago a bunch of syrian technicians and engineers were killed, as were a bunch of

iranian technicians and engineers when they were trying to test a missile that had a warhead on it, this guide d. that was said six gas. there were north koreans present at that. the north koreans also proliferated to the syrians. the biggest proliferation -- the biggest customer in north korea obviously is iran. if we're going to talk about proliferation of nuclear technology, plutonium for syria, for iran that ctu collaboration. there's probably more than what i know about because i don't sit in a skiff all day, but one thing that is for sure is that dozens of north korean technicians, scientists, engineers have gone back and forth to iran for a period of several years now, going back to at least 2002. in 2002 should be important for many of us. if we think back to what happened in 2002? that's when north korea and

pakistan were forced to break off their nuclear collaboration. so really this collaboration has been going on since at least then, probably more intensified by what happened with pakistan. we also know that the north koreans and iranians are collaborating on a 500-kilogram warhead for a missile, presumably the nodong known as the shahab-3 in iran. so there's that. speaking of missiles, there is no one to north korea sells more missiles to than iran. every scud i mentioned in syria and the nodong which is known as the shahab-3 and i rant and in 2005 they sold 18 systems that were devised from the old soviet ss six system, which was a submarine-based missile at esso bm. they converted that to a

land-based missile and then they sold 18 of them to iran. it has a range of about 4000 kilometers. for just using that missile, the iranians can hit europe. of course they could already haven't and they call that the shahab-for. they could also at israel with the shahab-3 for the nodong. when it comes to conventional crises they will sell you all kinds of things from artillery pixel to 170, those long-range guns, some of them i've talked about the seoul goes to iran, small arms, even sold them naval craft including submarines. it is also more to this picture than that, but i get to that in the second. north korea also proliferates conventional weapons and ballistic missiles to a number of countries in the middle east, south asia and africa. which leads me to terrorism. when it comes to supporting terrorism and very recent years, very recent years, since 2005, north korea has provided weapons and training to both hezbollah

and xml tigers. in fact, north korea was providing everything from small arms to artillery to naval craft for the demille tires almost right up until the time they were destroyed by the sri lankan army. then of course the north koreans lost. north korea is now well documented as having built the tunnels in lebanon for hezbollah to make it so difficult for the idea to get at them during the 2006 war. they've also provided small arms to hezbollah including rockets that are fired into israel. the evidence points to the dealing with hezbollah continuing to go on right now. the north koreans have dealt your hezbollah largely through the searing and in the iranians. but especially through the iranians and particularly through the ir gc, their key intermediary. so let's get to that. and the quesadilla ray nance, the north koreans have dealt with hezbollah primary through

the pier this is gone on for several years now and is ongoing. the north koreans also deal with and collaborate with the scuds on the propriety of arms deals with iran. the scuds is well-known for this. dusk, when it comes to supporting terrorism at the north koreans are either providing support for or collaborating with two documented terrorist or terrorist supporting groups hezbollah and the irgc. this is well-known and continues today. so it is rather disturbing obvious to me that north korea has not been put back on the list of nations supporting terrorism. dealing with hezbollah and the irgc is not a minor infraction and the dealings with these two organizations have not been minor, nor have they been short. both relationships have been ongoing for a number of years. north korea's proliferation booked a nation and terrorist organizations as both disturbing and a threat not only to the

u.s. but two allies in the regions where the weapons of training are being proliferated. so, those are my comments on two very serious threat that i see emanating from north korea, not even talking about the long-range missile threat, not even talking about the nuclear threat. i see proliferation and support to terrorism as a very important threats and i also see the often not talked about threat of north korea's conventional forces against the south korean military as a very important and compelling threats. and that concludes my presentation. [applause] >> well, thank you very much, bruce. the floor is open. the first comment dave [inaudible] >> lemay coffee at this as my personal opinions and not those of the department of defense or u.s. government. bruce, you make a compelling argument.

north korea is a complex, very, very difficult threat and still a threat to security on the peninsula anything gets you away and it is a global threat. you point out that in the face of their economic problems, their military still transforming. you know, dealing with their problems, but they are becoming and remaining a formidable military. the problems, the challenges in the north are multiple. the missile, nuclear, conventional threats, asymmetric threat and then proliferation terrorism and one you didn't mention, a threat near and dear to my heart is potential for machine claps and what happens after. one of the things that i'm concerned about is what i would call the dual use of this

asymmetric threats in particular. what happens when there is regime collapse, many of those threats, particularly the sof threat, nuclear, what happens to those missiles, that technology, those weapons of mass distraction and when there is no longer central control by the regime, military coherent, what have you waxed given that north korea had found called a guerrilla dynasty and the emphasis on developing their special operations forces, i would ask, what do you foresee when the regime collapses the kind of security challenges in south korea and the international community will face in the north with those threats. and not to discount the conventional attack, the decision to go to war, which i think first and foremost we have

to deter prepare for. but the long-term threat will exist hear it and i think the same threat that exists in post-conflict or post-collapse here to be interested to hear about that. i'd like to take exceptional one point you made about south korean special operations forces and c-130s. if they are going to conduct counter sof operations in south korea, the most effective air platform is not c-130, but it's a helicopter. just like in counterinsurgency today, it is the helicopter force, the mobile capability to counter a south korean sof. so i think the c-130s are important for quotation into the north, but it is a helicopter capability that is most important for mobility in the south. and lastly, i'd ask you a given that we're in the winter training cycle and looking at it

over time and you've outlined the fact that they seem to be doing some very sophisticated time on target, seemed at the santa barbara range out there on the u.s.a. doing that is very, very difficult to do. and something that takes a lot of training, a lot of capability. so in this winter training cycle, you seem to be doing more than they have in the past. and we know they go in cycles over time, but you assess this as being more unusual than normal and especially given the economic challenges that they have. you know, they are still able to commit the resources and the training to be able to execute a fairly high-level training by any standard. and do you foresee that has continued, you know, what was called over the years creeping normalcy, as they shifted forces often developed those capabilities to be ready for

some kind of an eventual attack. >> okay. why don't you take it and then we'll go. >> excellent comments, dave. and for those of you who don't know about colonel david maxwell, he's a very, very respected analyst on north korean issues and particularly sof issues. so i would deal to end on a lot of those issues. in fact he brought up a question that like to ask him. the threat from sof after the attack? while we don't know for sure but i think there's an interesting corollary that we can look at and that's what happened with the romanians after the attack. i mean, the romanian army, when the communist government collapsed, essentially, you know, they turned over to the people with one notable exception and that was what the respects of the equivalent forces, their special forces guys. and as some of you probably

know, they can millstein and kim jong il studied the romanian collapse because it bothered them. so that's a very good question about the sof, what they will do because those sof guys are not only well trained, they are more brainwashed than the remainder of the north korean army, certainly most of it. and if one is to look at past presidents comments very interesting interesting when a simmering, that song go class submarine was captured, when it washed up on south korean shores, advised the members of the crew killed themselves instead of being captured, you know, rather than be captured they killed themselves. these guys are pretty serious. i think that the majority of the north korean army should we fight a war and i hope that doesn't happen as much as or more so than anywhere else. but should we ever have to

happen for good fight a war, many of their army units, when they look like they're going to be defeated, if that's the case will surrender or giving. i don't think that's going to be the case with the sof. that's going to be a challenge for the rocs particularly since that's going to be their mission. i would say another challenge is missiles. you bring a missiles, that if there is a collapse of the south korean regime and there are forces that are competing for power in the south korea and perhaps one of them is trying to get outside powers involved, one of the most frightening scenarios would be if they decided to shoot a nodong off in someplace like japan. that's really very frightening and something i think folks that are still inactive duty and civilians in dod who working and planning circles are planning for con at least one would hope so. the word i get is that they are. that would also ask how capable is the helicopter lift for the

south korean military? and i guess we can talk about that offline. but that was a very interesting point you brought up. and you asked me something that was very good about the wtc, the winter training cycle. was it more unusual than normal and that's a very good question. and i have an answer for you when that one. the north koreans, but in watching the north korean trade winter training cycle for those of lance corporal before some of you were born. but you know, it's always been -- what is going to be the geewhiz thing that the kempster does this winter to make us go, say, that's interesting. in the kempster used to be candle song now is found kim jong il. but there's some stuff like in 1998 for example they took a bunch of their armor out and rented around and we're talking hundreds and hundreds of tanks, sometimes things we didn't even know were in the word about her.

and some of them so close to the dnc you could look down and see them. they've had winter training cycles where they've had large, huge mechanized forces training exercises, which have been a variety. and then they said this winter training exercises. they've had this winter training exercise where they actually did a very, very, very clever thing in my view. in the end hello, live artillery fire range up to 400 shells have been fired so far. they may fire more. that is a lot of artillery firings. they've been trying to find a way for the past two or three years that they can intimidate south korea over the nl, make that issue important and the geopolitical scheme and not end up taking a lot of casualties. so how do you do that? they did a pretty good job of doing that and some people think, i haven't seen this in the press, and seen it

differently and the press generally. i think it is a lot to do with the fact that general kim jong scheck who used to be on the general staff that some people thought were a demotion but i think wasn't. he was made the corps commander of fourth corps, fourth corps is the core that orders on the north and limit line. this is a smart guy. he's one of kim jong il's most trusted guys and he was made the corps commander about nine months ago. so that they probably did was they planned this intimidating exercise where they're firing shells right up to a kilometer away from this border and in order to not only show us that they have this great artillery capability, but you kind of bring up the issue of the northern limit line again. didn't take any casualties, first edited it to roc marines fired back 100 shells, basically fire them off into the air and after that to do anything. the very interesting stuff. was this unusual to share what's happened so far?

yes. is it unprecedented? note, because next year they will do something unusual to catch her attention. the point is and i think he set up very well, dave, the north korean army conventional forces, nonnuclear forces is something that they continue to work on something that they continue to spend a very big amount of resources on in the capability that continues to evolve in order to threaten the south. that's their specific intent. so i think it's something we should take seriously. great comment. thank you here tonight thank you, dave. and bruce, larry, do you want to chip and? there is a button, push it. >> okay. let me say a couple of words about bruce's comments on proliferation and basically this is to supplement what he said

about what north korea is doing. president obama came out with a statement just a few days ago stating that there was no statutory reasons, no reasons in u.s. statute to bring north korea back on u.s. state sponsors of terrorist on. and a high-ranking administration official was quoted as saying that north korea has not supported terrorism or terrorist groups since the 1980's. now, the reason for this decision really is a decision to try to sustain the nuclear talks that administration that's trying to revive with north korea, aimed at getting north korea back into some kind of

participation in the six party talks. that was the rationale for the bush administration removing north korea from the terrorism in 2008 and that is the same rationale for the president a statement that there is no statutory justification for restoring north korea to the terrorism list. i just wish that the administration would be honest enough to state this reason. that this is the real reason why they don't want north korea on the terrorism list. rather than disputing what bruce's laid out, quite accurately about the factual nature of north korea's support cooperation with the iranian revolutionary guard and through the iranian revolutionary guards

its active arms and training support for hezbollah. and we need to look no further than these north korean shipments to iran, which have been intercepted this year, in the last six months, the big shipment that was seized in dubai in july, the shipment that was seized in the ablution 76 aircraft in bangkok. huge shipments of rockets, rocket launchers, short ranged shoulder fires surface-to-air missiles, tons of this stuff. where does -- what does i read and use such large quantities of these kinds of weapons for quiet this is what the iranian revolutionary guards sense to hezbollah.

this is what hezbollah is armed with. and these north korean rockets and rocket launchers in short ranged surface to air missiles are exactly those kinds of weapons. and you try to argue that such large quantities of these weapons are not ultimately bound for hezbollah and also possibly even hamas. i think frankly, crosses the line into the ludicrous realm at this point of time. the israelis know all about this. the israeli press talks about this all the time. and the only reason it seems to me the israeli government does not come out publicly and layout what it knows about all of this is that it doesn't want to embarrass the u.s. government

and its policies of keeping north korea off the u.s. list of state sponsors of terrorism. not embarrassing the bush administration and not embarrassing the obama administration. now, remember looking back at the bush administration, that it was only after, and dennis help and who is here knows all about this, it was only after some very strong threat from congress that the bush administration revealed any information at all about north korean involvement in that. nuclear reactor that bruce has told us about. and even then, i would argue that the bush administration didn't tell the whole story because the whole story is also about iran's involvement in that

reactor. that the israelis have photographs of iranian nuclear officials visiting the reactor. and according to reports from the german press, citing german intelligence sources, iran was the financier for that. react to her. so there really is an issue of what i would call it truth telling here in terms of the real reasons why north korea is not on the u.s. list of state sponsors to terrorism. now i'm the north korean military, sheeran going to take a little bit to the contrary in view. seems to me we need to say a little bit more about their weaknesses. the weaknesses of north korean conventional forces and those weaknesses are severe and they have deep and year after year

since the collapse of the soviet union at the end of the 1980's. and i just briefly go over three points. north korean conventional forces have no sustainability. they could not wage a major war after just a few days. yes, the army guys more food as bruce pointed out than the masses of north koreans do. but the caloric intake of north korean ranking file infantrymen is only 600 to 700 calories a day. compared to 200 or 300 through the masses of north koreans. this is not a sustainable diet in a war fighting situation. and part of the reason why the north korean rank and file troops were getting more food over the last few years than the north korean population as a whole was getting was that south

korea was providing much of this food. and we saw the photographs in march 2008 of those north korean tracks delivering south korean red cross marked bags of rice to their troops on the dmz. and this is an example of what poor shape they are in. another related elements and sustainability is what i think our greater limits frankly on their ability to concert the special operations forces into south korea. the information that i have is that for the last two years those eight and two infiltration aircraft, which our military leaders use to stress so much in their testimony to congress as part of the north korean conventional threat has been

shut down for lack of fuel. and they are no longer able to operate and train with these aircraft on a sustained basis. but perhaps their greatest weakness lies i think in their armor and mass infantry. here i have a different view of bruce in terms of their ability to penetrate to any degree south korean territory across the dmz. i do believe they have lost much of this capability. their armor is extremely old, vintage 1950's, 1960's for the most part. their infantry is made up of those 16-year-old draftees who have, through years and years of malnutrition. four years ago the reduced the

minium height requirement for their draftees from four feet 11 inches to four feet two inches. there's only one explanation for this and that is malnutrition of these troops. food and fuel requirements go way up for a force like the north korean military in a war fighting capability compared to their requirements for food and fuel and a peacetime capability. they do not have the fuel in the food to boost their resources and a war fighting situation and they know where. moreover, bruce mentioned in u.s. air power, a very good point. the combination of hundreds of tactical fighters that we could deploy into south korea within two to three days of the operate of a conflict plast squadrons of

massed heavy bombers that we would bring over there within two to three days again would obliterate their massed armor and their massed infantry before they would have a chance to make any kind of significant penetration into south korea. we need to accurately assess the north korean military threat, all of its components. for no other reason than the requirements on our military globally are so expensive now and the strains on our military are so great, be at afghanistan, iraq, possibly iran in the future, gammon.

we need to look at what we contribute to south korea's defense. i do believe that in the past there has been a tendency to exaggerate the north korean threat of an all-out invasion of south korea. and i think for too long the pentagon ignored the evidence of deterioration of north korean conventional military. now the pentagon, i think, is beginning to talk more about this and is beginning to make our judgments on that basis. so there is another side to why think what bruce said, certainly south korea needs to take many of the steps that bruce laid out. the united states needs to keep a very robust naval and air president in south korea and not sure if south korea, to send the right kind of message to the north koreans. president obama promised south

korea discussions on enhanced deterrence last year. i don't know whether those discussions are underway or not. we need to get them under way because it seems to me there are some things the united states could do to enhance our deterrence capability, especially with regard to our naval and air power and in doing so, send a stronger message to the north koreans that it issued other contemplate attacking south korea, they will be obliterated. and i think that's the message we need to keep sending to them. and again, i think there are some things we could be doing that we are doing now to some perhaps a stronger message in their direction. >> and now kathryn. let kathryn respond and then i will sum up.

>> okay, thank you. it's a great pleasure to be here. thank you to sang joo kim for organizing yet another interesting worthwhile seminar. thank you particularly to bruce for answering the question i've had for a long time, which is what is the current state of the effectiveness of the conventional armed forces? and so i really appreciate your good work on that. i would like to read first of all, just one sort of brief comment to what larry said about the weakness says of soldiers. i was struck when i was in north korea this summer of 08, a year and a half ago by the appearance of soldiers. i saw quite a number of unit of soldiers in the southern part of the country north and south of pyongyang on the way to the dnc in the southwest.

and all the groups of the soldiers i saw on the road, at the dmz, wherever, at checkpoints were considerably thinner and more obviously non-irish that ordinary people i saw in pyongyang or just walking along the road along the fields in the southwestern part of the country. i was surprised by that. i mean, the soldiers faces were drawn. their bodies were extremely small. so i think when we talk about diverting food to the military, something else is going on other than soldiers are being well fed. that's what i observed. my other comments are about the

issue of intent. i'll try to see this briefly. i don't know where -- where they running out of time i think. but you know, as is well known, when we talk about a fat, a threat is the combination of capability and intent, not simply capability. and that's where i think we need to focus a bit more attention as we discuss the north korean threat. my field is history. what i've done is studied the history of communist countries, particularly the soviet union, china, korea, also eastern europe. and so i look at them over there to check the nt to about it this way. and so i see it in terms of evolution and these countries always of course have evolved as all countries do.

we have a tendency in the case of north korea too treated as some sort of static phenomenon off partly because we don't know enough about it do not think of it historically. but if we look at it as a sort of static thing, we are inevitably going to misread the situation. what i see just briefly from the historical evidence and contemporary evidence is that by the 1980's, the kim il-sung regime realized their system was not working, that they couldn't provide economically for their people. this is what he said in no uncertain terms to gorbachev in the confidential conversations that we have records of. ble

to succeed economically at even the most basic level. then, with the collapse of the soviet union and 91, the overwhelming reality was extreme economic on their ability with the loss of soviet subsidies. extreme vulnerability and extreme security vulnerability with the loss of the soviet union and soviet bloc countries had the reaction to put it simply was naturally to enhance their own security by means of the kinds of steps that bruce is outlined. they >> the kindof steps that bruce has opined, very effectively to enhance the economic situation by means of proliferating. and to, but as we seek to counter the very real negative

consequences from their proliferation in particular and also the very real potential threat that exists simply by virtue of their remaining economic military capability, if we are going to do that skillfully and effectively we have got to understand what is actually happening inside the country, among the elite. because if we are going to strike an effective part in with them we have to understand what is driving them. i think there is ample evidence today that the easy to have lost confidence in ideology. i would say quite absolutely that the etiology is dead. they are aware the system is not working. they are very actively seeking

to gain the skills, the contacts, and the resources needed to survive in a the larger world as individuals and as a country, primarily as individuals. and so they are very actively engaging with people in china, vietnam, in a number of european countries and attempting, also, to enlarge their engagement with institutions and individuals in the united states in order to survive, in order to have the kind of skills that will enable them to cope with the larger globalized economy as an individual and also for their country as long as it remains,

to be able to cope. it is really essential to understand that this process is already happening in north korea. and so what we have is an agenda .. harness that process, to make it more profitable for them to expound this kind of learning that they are doing and collaborating on all kinds ll kf peaceful enterprises and make the cost of the negative and threatening behavior is such as proliferation increase but to simply stop things such as proliferation without providing an effective alternative for them economically, that is unlikely to succeed.

i'll stop with that. >> bruce. >> yes. i will keep this brief. we have a lot of respect on each other's analysis but disagree on the military and argued about it. including a lot of appears in atlanta. let me address some of his comments, if i may. specifically north korea defectors. defectors i talked to say a few days is what they're planning for. at a minimum they think they can take souel under the right condition. that is all she wrote. something to think about. the food coming from south korea, absolutely.

the north koreans take food take it from everybody no matter who it is, and give it to the army, including south korea. certainly they got a lot of food from south korea, particularly during the sunshine policy on steroids that existed during the administration. some platforms and how that affects training for the north korean special operations forces. certainly i have heard the same rumors. by the way, does not use gas. and an2 flies on kerosene. if they're short on kerosene certainly the pilots may not have had a lot of training. i am not sure how much actual training a pilot needs to fly a plane that is essentially a crop duster that carries troops. that is not affected the jumped ability of the special

operations forces. they, like their south korean counterparts jump out of balloons or off towers. they do not almost ever jump out of aircraft. so it doesn't, you know, people understood. get it. does not affect the proficiency of the special operations forces. they are jumping out of towers. just thought i would pass that on. they still have him-48 tanks. i agree, the difference between the rock armor and the north korean armor is the north koreans have more and the south koreans have more modern armor. that is a legitimate thing. we talked about the issues with stealing food. we talked about that. as far as stopping large-scale mechanized forces or armored forces. they have one armored division.

they changed the name back. by the way, it was the division that invaded south korea in 1950. that is why they renamed it. the first things our guys are going to go after is air superiority. the north korean air force is big, but we can probably take them out fairly quickly. it depends how fast they can move through the valley. it moves pretty quickly after they have provided the softening up. and also it is based on the hope that when does maneuver forces did down in the province and start moving, it is assuming they are not right to stop a big at a grocery store and get something to eat first. interesting. what you said about the pentagon is exaggerating the decline, i agree. during the 1990's it was a

constant fight. i was an analyst and at our nation's defense intelligence agency. like. they are evolving. they're changing. nobody wanted to admit that. that was wrong. but the forces have evolved. it is also wrong to do in the other direction and say, well, you know, they have had some units that have had food and fuel problems. some guys with malnutrition problems. they know their research problems. they know the issues they face, and they have made a concerted effort to adjust. i just think that we should keep that in mind. and also, i agree with the strong response. i just ask that we all keep in mind, if they fight a war the not koreans don't need to take the whole peninsula. they just need to wipe out the province. having that threat, having that that means that we have got

mutually assured destruction in a miniature on the korean peninsula with the pace of between north and south korean militaries. and when it comes to asymmetrical forces south koreans are at a disadvantage. through my spin in this, this is great stuff to talk about. kathryn brought up i would just like to comment. intent. i believe from talking to many people caught north korean ancestry in, the north koreans know they cannot beat a combined rok-u.s. force in a war. therefore the intent is to talk about that and get the u.s. off the korean peninsula. north korea has not given up its dream of defeating or dominating south korea.

this is why every time the north koreans talk to the south koreans and every time -- and frequently when they talk to us it is like, well, you know, we will need to ask the americans to leave. when the americans aren't there when we don't have a real commitment with the real forces a paradigm change is considerable. that is why i think it is it the danger is to downplay what the capabilities are of the north korean army. they have many weaknesses. they also have strengths that they have gone after because of those witnesses. something to keep in mind. that is it. [applauding] >> korean-americans studies. intelligence officer examining north korean nuclear capabilities and its potential threat to south korea. an hour and 15 minutes. >> we have built in redundancy to a presentation. so many of the issues that bruce

spoke to and the panelists addressed touch on what i'll be saying. i hope you will understand. i'm not here speaking for the intelligence community per se. certainly most of my comment, at least, will track with some of the ways we tend to see this country. so hopefully we can gain a that a bit more insight into what people are often calling the intelligent black hole. i knew be very informal in my presentation working some from brief notes. first of all, the black hole analogy is quite unfortunate when you think about it. it implies two things. it implies our policy toward the democratic people's republic of korea is somehow based on a lack of information or less information necessary than to

make a wise policy. i would argue as we get to do some of these key issues that our policy makers have to deal with, we do have a good amount of insight into north korea's capabilities and intentions. secondly, it really underestimates the efforts of the 16 agencies that work against this north korean target within the intelligence community that our office within the director of national intelligence has been established to kind of coordinate and integrate their effort. rather than the black hole i personally tended to see north korea has a puzzle. the puzzle for which we have enough pieces to see a picture, a picture that is comprehensible, a picture that speaks adequately ted those two elements of the thread that catherine spoke to. and truth be told, we don't have

all the pieces to the puzzle. what happens is we don't like the picture we often see of north korea. we encourage the absence of the pieces that i'm missing when in essence we have most of the big picture pieces that are necessary. unlike their historic perspective, but people often need to understand from eight strategic perspective is the fact that we are dealing with a nuclear capability. the track back, as you mentioned, well back to the 1980's. actually, you could say the 1960's when north korea first entered the nuclear field. clearly by the mid-1980s on word not to rhea had made a decision at the peak of the cold war to some degree able to survive based vive

based on moscow and pershing planning of the two of them. in the case in the middle of the cold war largely protected by security treaties and alliances. north korea pursues a capability intended to give it a degree of independence, a degree of self-determination, and ability to call the shots, an ability to mitigate any external pressure on the state to change and reform. and into this capability, of course, we have the end of the cold war. that raises even more exponentially the value and criticality of the stability of the survival of the regime. in spite of the agreed framework which was entered into it was successfully brought to an end, the production of at least plutonium as well as the critical fissile material elements.

throughout that whole time frame we continue to see a refinement of its capabilities, high explosive testing taking place in order to perfect the design of a weapon. continued pursuit of its miss out capabilities. bruce spoke of a short-range ballistic missile. the other, long-range ballistic missile. all these capabilities continue to be developed during what is arguably the golden years of dprk-u.k. relations. but people often don't remember as we look at the events as they unfolded with the 2000, during these golden years, during the final years of the clinton administration when you had the advent of sunshine policy. you had the visit of the number two man in north korea to washington. you had a secretary albright

visiting. a visit that i was fortunate enough to be on. during these years north korea had already embarked on an alternative path to fissile material. north korea had already started cooperation with syria to support the production of its young gun two. so even during the key years of cooperation when you could say the u.s. did not have its hostile policy. when we did not have an administration that was not hesitant to use terms like axes of evil and of the dry the deroy

terms. even during those years north korea in the 2000's you have the public break out. the october 2002 confrontation. by then assistant secretary jim kelly was in the state department. initially not north korea confis the existence of an heu program admits to secretary kelly that they have one. shortly overturns the decision and decides to pursue the plutonium breakout. so in 2003 we see the first reprocessing campaign. in 2005 another reprocessing campaign. you have this breakout where intermingled with dialogue, a intermingled with the negotiating process that starts out with the three-party talks d

moves ultimately to six-party talks, even during this timeframe, these breakouts of nuclear test and missile launches silences that demonstrate these capabilities. let me read briefly from the annual threat assessment. the north a october 2006 test, although we against the test itself to be a partial deadlier based on its n its less than 1 n equivalent yield the north probable nuclear test in may 2009 supports its plan that it has been seeking to develop weapons with a yield of roughly a few kilotons. apparently more successful.

north korea has tested two devices. while every do not know north korea has produced nuclear devices it has the capability to do so. after denying a highly enriched uranium program since 2003 north korea announced in 2009 that it was developing uranium enrichment capabilities. as we see in the iran contacts we have a capabilities for commercial capabilities that also bears the capabilities for weapons application. in september 2009 not to reclaim its enrichment research had entered into the complete omplet stage. intelligence community continued to assess with high confidence. we assessed it was for weapons.

we judged kim il-sung as a nuclear power. the engine as the community, his intent in pursuing dialogue was to take advantage of it. he demonstrated his nuclear and miss out abilities. the 2009 was truly a pivotal year. as an analyst who has followed the issue, largely since it began to unfold, and lots of the critical questions that we had, for example, was this simply a capability that was being developed as a negotiating card? was this a capability that ultimately not to renew it would have to give up to pursue the economic recovery and development nd development that everybody surely must know they need? as a new administration entered office what it demonstrated that

was a growing list to reach out to those countries that would unclench their vests. not to rea responded quite quickly to president obama and his a and his out reached hand with a series of steps that not only defined a strategic intent, but also were designed to set the tone for the obama administration. three days before the inauguration of president obama the dprk spokesman issued a statement which made these issues quite clear. it is best to use his own words to understand his intent. the u.s. is miscalculating if it considers the normalization of dprk-u.s. relations as a reward for dprk nuclear abandonment. the dprk has made nuclear weapons to defend itself, not in the anticipation of such things as a normalization of relations

between the united states. it is the reality that we can live, although at a very low rate, editorial comment, without normalizing relations with the u.s. we cannot live without our nuclear deterrent. we have lived for decades without normalizing relations with the u.s. and we live on still with dignity. if there is anything we desire it is not to normalize relations between the dprk and the u.s., but to boost our nuclear deterrent in every way to more firmly defend the security of our nation. that is what we've witnessed in 2009. but not as dilatory steps, not provocations. in fact, in their own lawns, which weather in a satellite launch mode or an icbm mode demonstrates capability that applied to an icbm system but. checked all the boxes, like a

sovereign state. we have a sovereign right. all missile activities were prohibited. not to reassess, we are a sovereign state. you lost satellites, we launch satellites. one month later they conducted a second nuclear test. you test your nuclear weapons. we test nuclear weapons. so 2009 largely eneded the a lot of the analytical debate, even by many of the people who were optimistic. clearly ban ki-moon team kim joh these steps and the subsequent steps following the designation

security council resolution and the sanction that replaced and not correa has clearly stated that it rejects the legitimacy of the united nations security council resolutions. it rejects the legitimacy of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty as a monopoly of the superpowers for justifying their capabilities while denying countries such as not to re-enter the right to theirs. it is real reticulated as referring to the denuclearization. and has reiterated statements to the denuclearization of the world. on the one hand encouraging statements. on the other hand it clearly demonstrates not to reposition was that we will denuclearize, when all the world powers denuclearize. when the united states finally

does something about israel. when israel and pakistan get rid of their weapons. is that position sustainable? that is what makes 2010 a definitive year for the world. if 2009 was the key 2010 is the key for the world to demonstrate its non tolerance of a nuclear north korea. kathryn touched briefly on the domestic context. that is where we need to focus. it diminished physical give ability has more less recovered. they will move forward with the process by designating his third son as successor. some activities that appeared to demonstrate and expedite processes with kim having

questions about his mentality. since then his recovery has not overturned the decision, but it is clearly slowing down the process. now, as you have a succession process nevertheless it is being carried out at a faster pace. you have a lot of from for discontent, uncertainty, and clarity, and perhaps even something we haven't seen traditionally, a policy debate. it is a very dire situation that the succession process is unfolding under. you have every year marked area failing to meet its domestic population. food requirements by roughly 20%. give or take 5-6000000 a year necessary. 4 million produced. 20 percent short of a feeding

its people. monopolize the distribution. maintain loyalty and control. this date unable to feed its people is not a highly sustainable model. less than one-quarter of its industry functions. we could speak on and on about the fuel shortages, the basic supplies shortages, even the difficulties of exploiting the one thing that north korea is known to have. completely broken down infrastructure. there is no way of going in there and abstracting the resources. rampant inflation demonstrates a degree of desperate now is on north korea's parts to try to do something to rein in all of the capitalist activity, the entrepreneurial activity that has begun to unfold, but also demonstrate the state's inability to really bring it

under control. in fact, as we read in the story is still out on this. fade can't bring the economy back under der its control. the economy has become too monetized. the coping mechanism that allowed north korea to survive a sense the famine years in the mid-1990s and onward were, you know, the local farmers using their household plots and selling those on the market's. when you do an action you cut off of the entrepreneurial activity at the knees. in the near term not. maybe successful. the longer-term implication, not so much with kim jong il.

kim jong il has established a degree of legitimacy based on his pursuit of a nuclear program. if you look at the propaganda throughout the whole 1990's, and certainly the 2000's, based on we know we will have to sacrifice. we know we will not have all the necessities we need. we know we will not be an economic superpower. it is not being an economic superpower that will prevent as from the state of the country's. it will be a military capability. .. the regime in

these economically donner conditions is transferable to kim jong il or any other successor. but most importantly, and this is where the hope if there is any, and i do have to believe that there is, for north korea to come to the same calculation, calculation, the same strategic calculation of its nuclear weapons capability that omar khaddafi did india, south africa did in abandoning its capability in order for north korea to come to the same strategic calculus, they're has to be a revaluation of priorities. they have to see that ultimately this is a matter of a trade-off. they can't have their cake and eat it, too. they cannot remain in power that

is denuclearizing and being acceptance into the international community to gain the full acceptance of support from the republic of korea the normal relations with united states necessary to gain the international credibility to restore its financial image, etc.. let me close briefly than by looking at the north korea issue within three contexts to kind of see what the homework is. what can we do about north korea, what are the options we may face, united states and six-party talks partners within three broad context. first of the peninsula context of second a more regional context and flared the international context with emphasis on proliferation. the earlier animated debate on the conventional capability very

much mirrors that takes place whether your behind the green door and have access to the secrets or whether you don't. this is a very robust debate. but i think if we agree that it's not just nuclear weapons but the entirety of the asymmetrical capabilities, the ability to inflict damage upon seóul in on conventional ways, long-range artillery deeply for work in a way that in essence is a terror weapon by its ability to threaten seoul and unleash shells on a large population center at any moment. the special operations forces, the chemical and nuclear weapons all provide capability to unleash incredible damage on our allies in the republic of korea. in the zeros some competition for legitimacy remains despite the fact korea has entered the

united nations i notice they will enter the olympics under different flags for the first time in about two or three olympics. it is a zero sum game and bruce is well to point out north korea has not abandoned its goal of having the capability to affect the unification process a new way favorable to it. i use those languages deliberately because i think it may be kind of anachronism to say north korea still has as its goal gave real goal unifying the peninsula of reforms that implies capabilities to come down south and occupy the peninsula. i think we're respect to the difficulties with that but they certainly want a military capability asymmetrical conventional on conventional allows it to determine the outcome of the end game. however the in the game might play out. there is uncertainty associated

with the succession process that makes it highly unstable and in that case, david mentioned to the collapse in the area how we prepare for that. in this regard the key to the peninsula are context across the board whether the conventional threat associated with traditional health plan 5027 scenario invasion of the south or out plan 5029 collapse of the north. the key to this is close cooperation and allianz management between the united states and republic of korea. and in this regard i would have to say from an analytical perspective, we are on some of the most solid ground we have been in a good number of years. we look at the cooperation and coordination that takes place between seoul and washington both within the six-party talks context and within the bilateral context. the key to deterring north korea had ventured as some of course is a strong blue house and in

engaged committed white house and i would say again kind of if i can pull back from my own position and look at this objectively i think if anybody looks at this objectively we are at a very good period in iraq u.s. relations. the regional context is the newly emerging threat. for years we looked at the peninsula of the inslee war on the peninsula would be regionally destabilizing that clearly north korea developed and of nuclear capability to get their with the short-range ballistic missile, inter medium-range and of course other types of potential icbm this makes it a nuclear north korea a very destabilizing from a regional perspective. that is why the earlier presentation by heritage was key as well because it spoke to the capabilities of ballistic missile defense bring both to the united states and our own defenses as well as partnership

with japan and other countries in these capabilities. the counter ballistic missile threat but ultimately the key here is diplomacy and how the united states is able to cooperate with other sixth party partners particularly people's public of china and its role in the sixth party talks process. the country with historic relations with a dprk, a country with a demonstrated commitment to see a non-nuclear korean peninsula in the country critical for us to work with in the future. second, and clearly as important is our relationship with japan and i think here again there is obviously difficulties with the transition of government on both sides and any time you have a transition you have a period of getting to know each of the book on the north korean nuclear issue there has been a solid

partnerships throughout the whole period if the six-party talks. japan has its own critical interests in relation to the issue. but degette has been a fair partner in the six-party talks and has shown as much concern as a target, perhaps even more so than other countries in the region because of the ballistic missile capabilities but a real target of the north's capabilities as my japanese colleagues like to remind me. no missile with a nuclear war had is the most serious and real threat we face now from a nuclear north korea. that's not to diminish the threat but certainly it sells in tokyo, and again the way that we've coordinated the policy toward north korea has ensured

ellsberg is mentioned with north korea wanting to break the iraq u.s. alliance as the way of getting the forces of the peninsula they would like u.s. forces out of japan. pyongyang goal is to drive a wedge between washington and seoul on the one hand, washington and tokyo on the other and certainly any trilateral cooperation between the two countries and in this regard again, not to throw optimism isn't due but clearly we have a strong bilateral relationship on this issue. finally we move on to the international context because people are correct pointing to the proliferation concern as real. north korea has demonstrated a willingness and capability to proliferate nuclear technology and its support to syria and its construction of the

reconstructionist of the bar. its history of exporting ballistic missiles to iran, syria and other countries. it's long record of list activities, counterfeiting u.s. currency, international narcotrafficking. it's clear north korea plays by a different set of international norms of behavior than other countries do. and while we want to provide for north korea an opportunity to normalize behavior and pursue a path that doesn't require a proliferation of these types of weapons, these types of arms, these types of activities it while we continue to pursue that within the six-party talks context as we team up for north korea all the benefits it would have by pursuing the road it has yet demonstrated in that of denuclearization.

in addition to those benefits we have a very strong set of monitoring and sanctions right now that have proven successful as we've seen in the turnaround headed out of asia, the airplane in thailand that was headed to the middle east. we have seen examples where the united nations security council resolution 1874 put into place with close cooperation with the other six-party talks partners to include russia and china. we are putting these sanctions in the place of hand in effect of deterring the likelihood of not only conventional arms proliferation, not only making it more difficult to proliferate ballistic missiles but helping ensure our capabilities and make it that much more difficult for the sum of all fears scenario that is in north korea allowed to a desperate act which would

be certainly an act of desperation even north korea knows the cost of this proliferation beyond what has done to date and this is why in this regard which in the international context the sanctions that have been put in place on these companies that are associated with north korea's weapons of mass destruction program, these companies that are in the so-called second economy, the all know, and the companies that sound very foreign to a lot of people, these are the companies that are out there selling the missiles and attempting to sell the arms and likely would be the ones that would sell even beyond that and better that we cooperate internationally the greater the likelihood we have of reducing that type of proliferation which obviously would be unacceptable.

in summary we see north korea a fleet we can really to the multilateral dialogue toward the denuclearization carefully chosen words, hesitance to return to the six-party talks which it had probably seen the consensus that grew in 2009 among the other party is of an intolerance of a nuclear north korea and unwillingness to give in to this traditional negotiating the verso dialogue toward denuclearization in a broad sense however. denuclearization of the peninsula. remove the nuclear umbrella from the republic of korea. removal of real and imagined threats and reality. it's a difficult road ahead but

it's good north korea continues to be articulate its commitment to the nuclear season. we need to build upon that to help lead north korea down the road it needs to head. unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a strategic decision by pyongyang, however disappointing and that is why the intelligence community is reflected in director blair's comments. it is a high probability that kim jong il will give up his weapons he sees as crucial to his security and that is why we move on to the third point why we need strategic patients. for strategic patience, engagement, reiteration of our commitment of the six-party talks partners commitment to

number one, moved north korea toward the root of denuclearization that show all the benefits that it could have by the denuclearization. and katherine, you are right you've got an elite many of them have left over cities between to pyongyang from the information penetration then greater than history, they know what the house side is like. they all know the potential benefits of the denuclearization. kim jong il i believe has made the decision the nuclear weapons are more beneficial than all of its potential benefits and it's hard to argue with somebody like that. you've got the same situation to the degree between japan and north korea with of this potential assistance from north japan with progress on abject t issues and yet they refuse to do

even that. how much harder will that be for them to give up their nuclear weapons particularly kim jong il for economic promises. but the next generation may be different and that is what we look to read follow closely and that in itself is why we have to continued to articulate to north korea with intolerance of its nuclear capabilities as well as benefits and would gain should it choose the root of the denuclearization. i will wrap up there and open up for questions and comments. >> thank you. one by one. claudia, and you raised your hand first. okay would you please come up here? we have several microphones. i believe -- okay, you can just turn on.

very formal. you're on c-span. and pushed the button. >> [inaudible] -- was the only joint venture of north korea [inaudible] >> you're right there was an absolutely no reason to think fourth correa having crossed that line wouldn't do it again. of course -- >> [inaudible] >> we watched these types of activities on a global scale and obviously i think everybody in this room knows a lot of the stuff that's in the media, possible cooperation with burma and other countries. a difficulty with north korea of course as it is a fascinating topic given the amount of the disinformation and stick to that of reporting that's all there it's a difficult to sort through the full array of information

and disinformation that's available. and i am not meaning to outright discount all of that information because clearly what we are seeing i think is unprecedented value of southard country opens source information. other countries reporting. i just assure you because of this precedent we watch very closely what. >> a quick follow up on that. could you name -- understanding the your not going to make spectacular news this afternoon by telling us you factually spotted one somewhere else. but could you name five places that bear a closer looking? you know about burma but north korea is extremely busy in many parts of the world. we've just heard larry tell us the bush administration never came clean about the irony in connection. i personally have wondered

because there's all sorts of evidence that there was brokering going on between syria and, sorry, north korea and iraq through syria at the same time that the reactor was being built. so can you take us further with latin america, africa, elsewhere in southeast asia? some places where you keep an eye even if you are not seeing anything yet? thank you. >> maldon effort to dodge a question but to artfully dodge -- [laughter] you know, there's two dimensions to an issue such as this. first of all to look at the ford country's intentions. what type of countries would be willing to pursue the capability. one distinguishing mark about north korea's wmd exports particularly its missiles is that it's countries that can't acquire the capabilities anywhere else that turn to north

korea. number three is not the provider of preference if you are a legitimate country looking to build a decent ballistic missile system or have -- this does not diminish some of the quality of their exports but when you are dealing with north korea, you are risking the isolation, making a strategic commitment that you are willing to be labeled the paray of that comes with dealing with north korea so we look at those countries that would be like that and we do also follow closely where north korea individuals are traveling and have business. i would also save in another reason why i definitely don't want to speak too much on this question is our ultimate success in detecting this is really based upon ability to track this without a large amount of attention coming too late. i think clearly what fussy area

case and i know i will take a large numbers of air rose for this one but on syria it was an intelligence success story how we identify that and worked through that issue. i will leave that up that but it is an issue we are extremely focused on within the larger context of any state wanting to pursue either the plutonium from within elkus barn reactor or covert iranian enrichment program. >> thank you. very artful. gordon? >> we heard a fascinating discussion about the capabilities and frailties of the north korean military. but of course when we talk about this shouldn't we also talk about north korea's friends so for instance north korea and china are each other's only military ally, china is north korea's primary diplomatic actor

and certainly provides a lot of material assistance. i know this sounds inconceivable people's liberation army would help the north koreans but of course in the last couple of weeks we've seen these statements by chinese generals in the asian media about taking on the united states and willing to fight and even prepare for it so i guess the question is can somebody on the panel talk about how the people's liberation army might interact and help the korean people's army after all this is something that has happened before in the 1950's so it would seem to me this would be an important part of the discussion in terms of thinking about conflict on the korean peninsula. >> thank you. anyone else? >> from the intelligence perspective or actually when you look at china what's clear is china isn't a monolithic few score the open source writing

and all of the various voices i think you get a diversity of opinions but what is clear is that beijing and washington have an important relationship and one what find it difficult -- if you look how they led the six-party talks process you see a commitment to maintain stability in the region. both by pursuing the difficult task of the denuclearization and also dealing with north korea that at times likes to throw temper tantrums and make everybody's life difficult to read in that regard it would be difficult for me to conceive any cooperation between the country still is designed either to destabilize the region or shift the balance of power on the

peninsula. >> follow-up, gordon? okay. >> like. >> [inaudible] first i'm not a military specialist, i work on taiwan affairs of the commerce department so for professor bechtol, what is seen for ausley and irg c., and thinking it refers to the iranian revolutionary guard. second come for both professor bechtol and syd, the council resolution 1784 sanctions, what affect has it had in your estimations with their professors be eight or syd on the north koreans position on the program because it seems to

have a pretty dramatic effect on the arms trade trafficking and last, for syd, you mentioned succession and i was that a wilson center even a few weeks ago and there was a lot of discussion about which regime to negotiate with or which would be more effective, the current one, kim jong il worthy successor and i would like to get your thoughts on that, syd. thanks. >> thank you. >> command, control, computers, communications and intelligence. how will i doing? if you really want to complicate things like military commanders like to usually on the advice of guys like dave comegys rowan on ksr and have sea for on ksr command, control, computers,

intelligence. essentially what it means is let's go back to before we had the modern communications. i live in fredericksburg virginia which is the cultural center of the universe about 10 kilometers from my home is chancellorsville where he defeated an army twice his size. he was able to do so because he was able to control his troops better than the union commander was and that hasn't changed. he or she was able to control their troops, move them the quickest to the most effective spot as the best sea for nine and in today's modern technology age, c4i has become an aspect of winning war in short duration unless you are fighting counter insurgency. does that make sense? probably not. i didn't articulate very well.

1874, i saw this wild peace and syd might have seen it, to back from a think tank in stockholm ten days ago that said the weapon sales for north korea had gone down by 90%. please allow me to say i doubt that. i think two things come 1874 is important. that's what you were asking about and i did that psi is important as well because we are never going to stop but we can certainly hurt them and i think you've seen that. 1874 has done something i think is a very important and we've got and haitians who haven't traditionally played a big role in things like psi things like the united arab immigrants, thailand to play this 35 tons of military equipment is a lot to lose so i think it has had some effect. i have no idea how much effect

that is certainly at the very least forced the north koreans to look at using new tactics, techniques and procedures when they run these types of programs and something that is fascinating to me as i am sure you've been reading in the press about what happened at thailand of a ship that was posted from north korea to thailand, sri lanka to somewhere else even chile to to iran, they were using front companies and five different countries. it's a choice to all calls to mind a plan from ukraine built by the russians from georgia, i'm sorry. the north koreans are smart at doing this stuff so we are going to have to -- our government and folks like syd are going to have to continue to be very smart to combat how the from these operations because they are very sophisticated.

>> [inaudible] >> pardon me? >> is it impacting the north korea position? >> i think that larry can answer that one. >> we talked about whether it would be more difficult or less difficult between negotiating with kim jong il at the negotiating with a successor regime it seems to me the positions north korean government has laid out and the last few months including what syd talked about, this denigration of importance of diplomatic relations also the revival of the peace treaty agenda, the attempt to roll the nuclear issue into a peace treaty negotiation rather than a sixth party negotiation. demand sanctions be lifted.

we saw the development of some of these positions actually early in her 2009. in january and february. there were a number of important north korean policy statements related to their negotiating positions. we began to leave these things out. now that was the period wind kim jong il seemed to have been incapacitated because of his period from september until probably april or may of this year. and we had in effect a collective body of leaders from taking over part if not all of the policy formulation process during that period.

these policies which have been the -- which continue to be built and developed and lead out to the obama administration now seems to be the case in which the north korean government now with kim jong il apparently back in charge of the policy formulation process has carried over the agenda that what you might call successor collective leadership began to put forth in the early 2009. that tells me the influence and power that these leaders, one expression used to describe this group was the four generals.

and there may be a few more officials added to this group of five that have been described. it seems to me that even though kim jong il seems to be back in charge of the policy formulation process, the power that this group accumulated during this seven or eight month period and which they were running the policy formulation process, their power hasn't received all that much and he has to listen to them now more than he did perhaps before the priest troup period, and again i think the negotiating agenda on the nuclear issue that they are laying out which is a very difficult one especially this peace agreement i think it reflects the influence of this group and influence which i

think remains at a high level. >> thank you. mike? >> michael marshall. i must apologize for getting here late. i simply couldn't get away before. in question but a couple of observations first. i apologize for being late. these are my observations. it seems to me the internal situation of north korea is extremely volatile at the present and a lot of the policies we see are in effort to keep a lid on that volatility as mr. seiler mentioned, north korea is now much more open to information from the outside than it was under kim il-sung and people know south korea is

better off than north korea and they know that china, people went to china during the famine in the late nineties and saw the life there was better than in korea so there is an awareness that north korea is not what people were told it was in the past. and i think that then gets reflected in not so much -- yes, and popular attitudes. we are not talking of a political protest movements but people's attitude to their country and work. some years ago i spoke to a mongolian senior legislature to read mongolia has opened relations with north korea as well as being close to the u.s. which is very useful. and he said that he also was a private businessman and he had employed north korean leaders who come to mongolia and get work there and he said these people have no work ethic.

they simply don't understand what it is to turn up on time to work hard to read he said after about a year in on goalie at the start to catch on. and i've heard similar things from than members of the south korean unification ministry about north korean workers in the qassam complex that people do not have anything like the work ethic and the south korean workers and what it reminded me of was eastern europe workers and particularly version of workers in the soviet union where people said we pretend to work and they pretend to pay. soa infil level of the population, the working population this clearly extensive demoralization. when it comes to the elite of the few interesting puzzle, mr. seiler, is who stands where among the elite isn't a

monolithic body that there is probably mostly a younger generation looking to the future and realizing the present situation is not sustainable and perhaps an older generation perhaps of military leaders who want to hold on to the legacy of kim il-sung and protected and the nuclear capability is a sort of assurance of that. but just to wind up, the mongolian legislature said that he and the legislature frequently receive parties of officials from north korea and he said one of the first questions they asked in private conversation is what happened to your communist party? what happened to the members of the mongolian communist party? with a shot, put in prison? no, they continued the political process and got elected back

into the government at one stage in the post of communist history so there's clearly concerned among the officials at the mid-level of what is the future going to be like. we foresee a change. is there hope to hold on to what we've got? in terms of the question i would like mr. seiler to answer, obviously the dni does a lot of work on military intelligence. how much do you know about different attitudes and different groups within the elite so the social political attitudes within north korea. thank you. >> larry and iii think may have a different view of the events of 2009 played out and i think in large part driven by the

circles of north korea you think about the people who have been put into foreign policy making for example a counselor under the national defense committee and is now the head of the department who handles relations with south korea and japan among others. i think that we have long seen this portrayal of the hard-liners versus moderate debate as a negotiating tactic. we don't see that type of diversity also clearly there's too careful ways, bureaucratic competition, the ministry of foreign affairs loves when there's dialogue on going. they like -- and the scion cysts for the program and get to launch a missile or make a nuclear device go boom in a hole

in a cave. but all of that said there's a good amount of consensus and i would say that the scenario is that what we saw in early 2009 was planned toward the end of the bush administration when it became clear we deadlocked the six-party talks were a lot of the analysts thought we would locke which is on the issue of the verification and the sampling and access required to number one confirm the actual plutonium production and also gain insight into the highly enriched uranium position and this is exactly where the agreed framework had stumbled when you look at the iaea ability to get the special inspections necessary to clear the delta a tree with north korea declared it actually produced in the way of plutonium and what the iaea and others thought they might have of which was a few dozen

grams of plutonium versus kilograms weapons worth and so the six-party talks process had run its course as far as it could go and north korea could sense it wasn't going to get a lot support for liberal verification regime and this is after the president of a north korea from the terrorism list and then the whole issue what type of access will we have on the ground becomes central and i would opined at that point of korea makes the decision that is going to embark on this path with a new administration to demonstrate leon it's a nuclear power, to demonstrate early on you have to pay attention to us, to demonstrate early on it has been strategic capabilities and they were probably thinking, too if the administration is committed to dialog will not walk into such a dialogue with a greatly enriched hand?

the question is what did the stroke due to that plan and the think it may have impacted the timing. i'm not so sure what he saw was an ascendancy of collective leadership that to get in a different hard direction because early on in this cycle we were a expecting with the possibility of a second launch we would hit basically where we were and after the as the lipari cycle we've been getting to the charm offensive. it wasn't particularly surprising so north korea's chief of the tragedy is why i urge analysts in particular to stop looking at the tactical question three we are often driven and this is no slam on the press because the guys are just writing stories that one of the north koreans coming to the talks, went to the six-party talks start again as if the presumption were an object and of itself and that is the number three in strategy and how it's turned so many concessions just for coming back to the table.

and this is where the interesting thing and it politically is forever decline for strategic patience and when north korea you will not be rewarded for simply coming back to the talks. liz north korea's behavior at this point? will not feel compelled to once again to some type of provocative action or weld at tracie or firmness and comply with it? and this goes back to the question which regime do you negotiate? you negotiate with them all, they are not exclusive. negotiate with the current regime because it's a reality that can't it's a reality that we gained a lot of benefit from the six-party talks process and build diplomatic consensus and we do somewhat mitigate some of the more provocative behavior of north korea. i think the consensus we have in the region helps on the proliferation issue which is also of concern and we keep

putting the message on the table, peace treaty, normalization. all this other stuff it's all fair just come back to beijing. and kim jong il shares that maybe we are right maybe he could care less about these benefits and he just wants the capability. the rest of the elite though is watching. the rest of the elite is seeing where does the future lie? is this sustainable? particularly if the other six-party talks remain firm in their position, and i would add that to a rawness watching. other potential preference are watching. the credibility of any post cold war npt centric type of nonproliferation regime with hinges on how well we have all this. other countries are watching us, so it is a multi dimensional

tissue sometimes that we think only too much in the context but it's got the international proliferation. the was a long and rambling answer to a simple question and i apologize but that's basically how we solve the leadership the dynamics play out over the past year. >> larry? >> i just want to make a brief comment what we have seen in the last month or so and there are three things that seem three different in north korea since the beginning of the year. i don't know what the future will hold, what affect the three developments will have but first of these is a statement that is reported that kim jong il made in january, which he admitted to feeling, to adequately feed his

people, then you have the apology by the prime minister, kim jong il about a week ago before what is reported to have been a very large meeting with local communist party officials in in pyongyang and apology about the economic mess caused by the currency change and also by the restrictive measures against the private markets in north korea. and now you have the reports that the regime has begun to lift restrictions on the market which it imposed in 2009 actually going back to some degree in 2008 and also it is now allowing people again to trade in foreign currency which

in december was banned as part of these economic measures of the regime put forth. all of this or at least the last two elements in these three changes coming out of pressure public grassroots pressure on the regime. now i've never seen anything like this in north korea before. i don't know what it means. but it's something i think we have to watch very carefully. and if something really develops from this, it seems to me u.s. policy makers need to examine the question of how we incorporate a new trend along these lines in north korea into our diplomatic approach to north

korea. i would watch this story closely over the next few months in terms of whether this is just a momentary blip on the screen or whether it is going to be something more fundamental in terms of change in north korea. >> thank you very much, larry. leonard? okay. from the caribbean and the -- korean embassy. >> [inaudible] i raise a question to dr. bechtol. dr. bechtol, clearly explain the threat to that area not to the dena clear and emphasizing the measures between the u.s. and

korea. now one of the main issues of the 2008 period is two years away from also my question is what is your assessment of the implementation? there are many people already raising questions the reconsideration discussion about the issue. thank you >> let me address that question at two levels. the first level is just approaching from a general look at unified command and one of the principles of the war is unity command, so unity of command is a vital aspect of any coalition warfare and nato will

have a guy in charge. he doesn't -- of the nato forces answer to him. i believe that in a bilateral relationship as important as the one we have with our allies in south korea unity and command is very important and i don't think the combined forces command or the separate commands as they will become in 2012 will function when they don't have unity command so that's the first level. the next level is a more practical level at the operational level of war. when we are talking about welfare we're talking about the strategic level, the operational war and the tactical level. the operational level of war is typically the level just above the cork, echelon of and of the operational level of war, the south korean military simply is not ready to take over many of the functions they are expected to by 2012. they don't have to c4i they

need. we've all chuckled about this but it's very expensive and it's necessary. they don't even have a joint c4i system yet for themselves, let alone one that is able to integrate with the system. it's become so obvious the south korean air force can not function the way it needs to, the way it was originally intended to over 20 ten that they said we are going to let the air forces continue to function under the combined and that's going to be under a u.s. three-star was a seventh air force commander. they've already acknowledged that the iraq marine corps and navy cannot conduct or lead into the as operations. i'm talking largest of here. there are many issues, many challenges that the military has not been able to meet by 2012 so we understand the politics of

this so the unity of command let's take that out for a second and talk sheer practicality of capabilities of systems to meet the threat. the south korean military simply will not be there by 2012. that is a fact. one is to talk about bridging capabilities as that word, the two words have been brought up over and over a bridge and capabilities to the best bridging capabilities to leave the infrastructure as it is, combined forces command is a proven combined command of that is deterred the north koreans so the look to his capabilities necessary to assume a separate command from the united states forces. my suggestion my fault, my assessment would be leaving the structure in place pushing back the date of 2012 until the iraq military test those capabilities >> thank you, minister.

yes, dave. >> i would like to first point out something you say we talk about the outcome issue and see that the korean forces are under the wartime outcome of the u.s.. that's not really true. the combined forces command answers to the military committee which is made up of the national command authorities of both countries. there's a u.s. general in charge of combined forces command and he answers to the military committee of both countries and u.s. offenses korea doesn't have the outcome of the korean forces so i think that's important to remember. the other thing interesting to look at alliance over the last 60 years and our military to the development of military capabilities has been very symbiotic and that is what we have and how we have developed of the combined command in the strengths of both countries to

place in the weaknesses and the symbiotic relationship has in many ways not allowed south korean unique military culture to develop because the standard by which south to read and combined forces command judges military operations is the u.s. standard and as bruce taught u.s. c4i is expensive and the challenge for north korea because the standard by which they've grown up with as the u.s. standard they have to invest a tremendous amount of resources to develop that stand-alone capability separated the combined command so it's a challenge and becomes a resource and time question. can they commit the resources to develop the unilateral capability and do they have the time to do it. again i caveat this my personal

comment, not official comments. but i would say my personal comments a think it is correct for the future what happens in the region kaput scenario that they be in the lead. it is important for the unification of the peninsula what happens in the north that is the south korean military and the lead for legitimacy purposes and counter the 60 years of propaganda indoctrination of the north korean because of the forces to lead it can have a counter-productive that challenge is timing and how we are going to do this and i think the symbiotic relationship that we have had is a difficult one to break and try to be a challenge in the future. -- before, david. leonard.

speegap. sprick i would add to what david said over the last 60 years. since the corrine and war american troops have been in korea in the same mode cooperating with the cory in republic of korea military. during this time there was a transition from the president read to 1989 into a space government. this was at least a 35 year transition with a lot of patience, a lot of development and cooperation. part of it was called military civic action. it was building roads and schoolhouses. it was what we call now

infrastructure development and so forth. the status that has been achieved during this military relationship accompanied in the private sector enormous progress in the industry and technology and south korea today is one of the foremost advanced technological countries on the plan that. it has a very successful private sector which is accompanied by the space process. i find it somewhat surprising that the military has not progressed to the same extent, and david maxwell just explained i think the reason why the potential is there and i think the policies, goals and objectives, which seem to be

clear need a strategy in correa for the private sector to help support the development of the capability for the protection of the country. >> thank you, leonard, as always. yes. catherine, you have something to add? >> no, -- >> it's open, push a button and yes. >> a question about china that you raised is a good question. i would just say that the -- the strong consensus of opinion is china's ayman with regard to north karelia is to prevent instability in the border region, the region that borders correa because of the large korean minority that lives there so there's a tremendous concern about the consequences of an implosion on the north korean

state on china's own internal stability and security so rather than supporting any kind of north korean and venture is a militarily it would use whatever leverage it has by way of supplying north korea with resources to restrain. its alliance with north korea on paper would lead it to support any kind of military actions. >> thank you. gordon? >> if there were in and

pollution, north koreans wouldn't go north into china, they would go self-interest of korea and we have already been lined passengers through the dmz so that is exactly where they are going to go. i think the chinese have to from additions for what they are doing. they see some short-term advantage certainly in the deviling south korea and the japan and getting concessions out of the united states because of promoting dialogue in the six-party talks, not a solution so there's a lot going on which i think we are not willing to talk about, certainly not in public and perhaps in private regarding how china and north korea interact and it's important we look at this especially because hu jintao has reportedly felt that at least politically the north koreans have always been correct because he has been a hardliner and therefore he fills affinity for the north koreans solutions. i don't want to prolong this