are the top stories. russia will ban oil exports are countries that set icecaps on its energy products. the decree will come into effect in february. the european union, g-7 and australia agreed on a cap for russian crude oil as a way of coming the kremlin's revenue streams. -- cutting the kremlin's revenue streams. the u.s. supreme court is reviewing the rule, title 42,

which was imposed during the covid-19 pandemic. it allowed border officials to rapidly expel border migrants. our correspondent is following developments from washington dc. >> the u.s. president is saying the court is not going to decide on the matter until june. that is typically when the supreme court rulings come out, after hearing oral arguments. the president goes on further to say that title 42 must be enforced. what he is saying is echoing what the white house press secretary has also said in an official statement from the white house. until then the white house is going to comply with title 42. >> taiwan will extend compulsory military service from four months to one year, to counter threats from china. on monday, dozens of chinese planes crossed into taipei's defense, zone the biggest incursion in years. the president says taiwan wants peace but needs to be able to defend itself.

at least a 64 people have been killed in weather in north america as a severe winter storm continues to batter the region. new york state is one of the worst affected areas. president joe biden approved of an emergency declaration to provide federal support. netanyahu moved a step closer to forming what is expected to be the most of right wing government in israel's government, after parliament last legislation allowing politicians previously convicted of offenses without serving jail time to join the cabinet. those are the headlines. more news after inside story. ♪

>> north korean drones breach south korean airspace the latest hostile act in a year that has seen it test fire missiles. what is the secretive nature trying to achieve? how the western allies respond without escalating into war, this is inside story. >> hello welcome to the program. south korea spends big on defense with a hostile neighbor across the border. failure to shoot down the north korean drones and its airspace has caused alarm. the military apologized and the president says the incident underlies -- underlines a lack of readiness. we will discuss this with our guest shortly. but first, a reporter.

>> abrasion incursion by north korea has left a sense of unease here in seoul, so much so that the militaries issued a rare apology for failing to shoot down any of the five enemy drones that fluent south korean airspace on monday. four of those drones flew over, island on the west coast, while the fifth flew past a border town while flying in as close as the northern tip of soul where the presidential office stands. some concern that it may have gotten away with some of the pictures of the presidential office. military says it has no such data. the joint chiefs of staff in its apology underline it is difficult to detect and target in civilian territory, drones that are smaller than three meters in size, even as they promised to bolster what they can, including potentially running air defense drills at the joint chiefs level.

the president, in his first comments at a cabinet level meeting this morning, recognize that military preparedness was simply not there. that training had lacked in the past years as he called for the creation of a military drone unit to bring it up as soon as possible, that would feature stealth capabilities as well as future technologies. >> now the drone is the latest military activity on the korean peninsula. he's tested 90 crews in ballistics so far, more than in any other year, including the first launch over japanese territory since 2017. the show force has caused concern among his neighbors. now in response south korea held a joint live fire drills, the u.s. extending military exercises by several days. japan is increased its debt has increased its defense budget by

20% to a record, $55 billion. that is a shift away from the policies in place since world war ii. >> let's bring our guests, mason ritchie is an associate professor of international politics at hancock university in seoul. he joins us from birmingham, alabama. joining us is edward howell, a lecturer in politics at the university of oxford. lawrence adjoins is from washington dc, he is a senior fellow at the center of american progress and a former u.s. says -- assistant secretary of defense. we begin with mason in alabama. there is no other way of reading this other than north korea tested south korea's cell -- defense capabilities and one, that correct? >> that is a fair argument. i think this is drone incursion by north korea shows something

that frankly speaking many people had already expected that there were holes in south korean air defense. particularly for these are smaller drones. this has been a pretty big embarrassment for the ministry of national defense for south korean military. it also exposes several years, or perhaps even more than that neglect on this type of asymmetric threat that north korea represents for south korea. it also falls into a line of errors and mistakes we have seen in the south korea military make -- seen the south korean military make. this whole response that south korea made that went wrong earlier this year where one of its own missiles that was supposed to counter the narrative of a north korean missile test that ended up

circling back and blowing up on south korean territory near a populated area. i think this is a wake-up call to south korea, that it needs to up its game if it wants to continue to deter north korea from these kinds of provocations in the future. >> let's bring in lawrence. south korea's a key u.s. ally. where's all that money going, where has all the support gone? with the small drones they have managed to mount and incursion. >> well, there's no doubt about it. during the trump administration we downplayed our security relationship with south korea. back then president trump was talking about taking all the american troops out of there. we finally started having exercises with them again. i do think that that is one of the reasons why the north launched of these attacks, because they are concerned about

the u.s. and south korea working together and increasing their military capability. don't forget in addition to this they have been conducting a lot of missile tests. something like 90 in this past year. then, finally the said held for five years. that is a step in the right direction. my colleague is correct in trying to show that south korea is not that good. they're probably concerned that the japanese are having a military buildup. >> edward howell what does this mean for north korea? is this a new resurgent, confident north korea we are witnessing? >> yes. what is important to bear in mind even though this is not the first time we have remembered north korea use its drones, we

saw north korea do so in 2017, particularly in light of the deployment of the fog, antimissile defense system in seoul. what this represents is kim jong-un, and regime, are trying to fulfill what was basically a shopping list, a wish list of weaponry, of technology, of unconventional weapons that he outlined at the eighth party congress last year. we saw better warheads, new types of inter connect -- intercontinental missiles ranging up to 3000 kilometers solid propellant missiles and also reconnaissance and combat drones. so, the latter has arguably been ticked off. yes for all of the reasons that my two colleagues have mentioned. to show that the south korean

defense system is weak, as a way of provoking the u.s./south korean alliance. but, it's interesting to show that, although north korea has an exactly responded to the most recent drone incursion, north korea has responded to japan's recent pledges to increase its defense spending to 2% of its gdp by 2027. so, for north korea, this is another step for the kim regime to desire the status of not only a nuclear state, but also state with expanded scope and sophistication of a diverse range of capabilities. >> we will get into the japanese thing. i want to bring in mason richey. there is the idea of blowback, where the u.s. makes a play and that kind of backfires on them. president donald trump, lawrence

mentioned, was not a supporter of the kim regime. he was talking to them. then, he suddenly is out of the picture. the north koreans are resurgent. they see themselves as being abled to melt attacks like this. is that a fair assessment? >> well, despite the fact that i'm not in any way a donald trump fan, i would not say he was anywhere near fan of north korea. but i do think that if anything, what this probably shows, the last five years and arguably going back farther, 10, 15, 20 years, no one, no administration in washington has a good answer to deal with north korea. it's a difficult problem. it's hard for seoul. they have a much more complex

relationship to north korea, because the korean peninsula's divided. obvious to because north korea is a more immediate and direct threat to south korea. no one has a good answer for north korea. north korea exploits that. so, they exploit that sometimes to the use of strength, through provocations, which we saw in 2010 when they blew up a south korean corvette. and when they showed islands to the west of soul -- seoul. sometimes they engage in provocative military behavior, whether that be tests or actions. sometimes the use what researchers refer to as tyranny of the week in order to asymmetrically irritate or terrorize their adversaries. these are extremely difficult

and sometimes asymmetric provocations and strategies that north korea engage in. i don't blame too much trump or obama before him, or bush. no one has had a good answer for how to deal with north korea. the north korean threat is growing. north korea seems to be on the threshold of convincing the rest of the world in some says that its possession of nuclear weapons is normalized, that it should be treated something like a mixture of israel, pakistan and india, and the more that that is the case, the more that north korea is going to have room for these incursions. drones crossing the border. the military demarcation line. mischief in the east to see, the west to see -- east and west s ea. actions that will cause

inadvertent escalation on the korean peninsula. when that happens all bets are off. once you start to spiral it is hard to stop. >> lawrence, what you think of that, no one in d.c. has a good idea of dealing with north korea, do you agree? >> yeah. my colleague is absolutely correct. because no matter how you handle it, it's going to be difficult. we don't want another korean war, obviously. we would like north korea not to become a nuclear power. but we didn't want pakistan to become a nuclear power either. i think were going after except the fact that there are nuclear power and deal with it in terms of the forces we have, the exercises, that we conduct. as also mentioned, the japanese are increasing their defense capabilities. while north korea certainly is getting somewhat more powerful,

closer to a nuclear weapon, their security is not increased. if the u.s. and south korea begin to increase their military cooperation, japan does, unless something -- the north koreans are one of -- north korea is also one of two countries providing arms to russia during this war in ukraine. >> let's talk about containment. if there's no real strategy to be able to deal with north korea, the cost of doing business in that region means that we are just going after except that north korea will mount attacks like this. as long as they don't escalate that's the best we can hope for. >> yes. that is a very pessimistic scenario. but to reiterate what has been said, to develop on the points made by my colleagues. are we getting to that point? i just want to add, we discussed

different types of so-called mischief, provocations north korea engaged in. we need to add cyber domain. cyber warfare,a s we have seen particularly throughout this year, but beforehand also, has allowed north korea to escalate tensions without really causing much change to the status quote. by the status quo i mean any particular form of response from the international community. you mentioned the idea of containment and the idea of whether in fact we are basically going to have two except north korea -- two except north korea as a nuclear armed estate. one the concerns is given the ongoing focus of the united nations security council on russia's continued war in ukraine, actually, if north korea were to conduct this

service nuclear test that many analysts and researchers and policymakers have been calling and predicting for many months now, actually, this would represent the fundamental weakening of the uni did nations -- united nations security council, but would north korea get away with it more so than in previous years? most likely yes. we are seeing north korea take advantage, particularly now of a weekend -- weakend, international order, and united nations security council focus on ukraine, which north korea can leverage to increase and accelerate its provocations. whether that is missile testing, drone warfare, whether that is cyber warfare, or otherwise. >> we have mentioned japan. let's get into that. mason richey, the idea that japan is now escalating quite massively its own arms program,

perhaps in response to what north korea is doing. but as part of its own regional security. it must be worried about north korea and china. is there jayna -- danger of an arms race? >> i don't think that there's a danger of an arms race. there is an ongoing arms race. it's happening as we speak. japan is going to raise its defense spending within the next five years, at least that is the plan. significantly. whether or not they hit the 2% threshold is a bit of an open question. more importantly how the money spent matters quite a bit. whether or not this goes into procuring new systems or whether or not that is done with wisdom and intelligence and how that fits in with japan's new evolving east asian or

indo-pacific defense strategy. it's a separate question. but, it is happening and happening in japan. it's going to be developing counterstrike capabilities. which would be able to hit north korea as well as china. in some sense, the chinese threat from the perspective of japan is more the salient one. north korea is clearly an important secondary worry. south korea is increasing its defense expenditures for at least the the last six or seven years. by every year, anywhere between 5% to 8%. south korea's pouring money into its defense -- national defense. you might ask where some of the money has been going to the extent that they don't seem to be going -- having an answer to these asymmetric threats. they're putting money to submarines, aircraft carriers.

to put money into f-35's. there putting money into unmanned system. there putting money -- they are putting money into intelligence reconnaissance. surveillance capabilities. so, south korea's doing that. we see china, massively increasing its military expenditures and growing its own nuclear arsenal. so, that is taking place. north korea is an instigator as well. as we've seen with the development of the -- which professor howell referenced earlier which can range with a nuclear payload, how accurate and reliable that is is a separate question. we have to assume that it functions. there's an arms race going on in the region. i think one of the responses we would like to see, if you're watching in d.c., is to increase

trilateral cooperation between south korea, the u.s. and japan, not only in terms of how the alliance shares information but what -- but looking towards a combined or in part an integrated missile defense posture. that is something that will have to move slowly because south korea and japan are not on good terms. this defense cooperation is a relative very -- relatively tricky endeavor. >> let's bring in lawrence. you mentioned earlier this idea that there is a difficult way of dealing with north korea, that perhaps we don't have a grasp on. is there anything immediate that the u.s. can do, now in dealing with north korea? is there a short-term solution? >> basically, make it clear to them that if they don't stop this behavior we are going to --

encourage south korea's response after this incursion, south korea did go into north korea. we need to make it clear that in conventional war with south korea they would not do well. i think north korea is thinking that everyone is focused on taiwan so they can get away with this now. as you know if you look at the united states national security strategy it is all about china and taiwan i can't get into kim's head but what i do think he thinks were distracted. this important we convey to him, when the japanese if they go through with this they will be the third largest military budget in the world. is this something, given the history between japan and the korean is -- korea's. >> is there a way of bringing the north koreans to the league of nations, to use an

old-fashioned term? >> i think, what is interesting is that we need to understand that now is not a good time for north korea -- north korea doesn't want to engage in any kind of dialogue at the moment. north korea has always based its foreign policy on this idea that it's preferred outcomes will be met. north korea will only draw in any form or dialogue, negotiation, when it feels that it can get its desired outcomes. we saw this in 2019, the second summit between kim jong-un and trump which ended inconclusively, because north korea was not getting what it wanted from the u.s. which, at that point, was in particular easing of a particular sanction. is there any way that north

korea can come back and join the negotiating table? at the moment i think it is not in north korea's interest to do so. as we speak, the and -- end of the workers party has begun. we have seen kim jong-un discuss issues of crises happening in north korea, across this year. and usually, what we have seen -- >> we are running out of time. do you want -- i do want to bring in mason richey. the one country we haven't got into an talked about is china. does china have a role to play in bringing north korea to the table? are they not interested either? >> that's a very tricky complicated question. it probably depends on at what point you're asking, and what you mean when you talk about the role china has. the short answer is china could, if it wanted to make life

extremely difficult for the regime to the point that it could cause the regime to fall. the way to do that would be to shut off oil supplies coming in through pipelines from china. it has no interest in seeing a failed state, especially in nuclear failed state. it's nominally an ally of north korea. they have a mutual defense treaty. thirdly, china has no interest at the moment at least, in bringing its buffer state to heal. it's not enthusiastic about north korea about having -- north korea having nuclear programs. from a north korean perspective, in the back of their head they probably look at the nuclear weapons as an insurance to chinese meddling in their affairs, with respect to how they look at it as a tool to be used against the u.s. at the end of the day, china's limited leverage. north korea's and

independent-minded state. it does what it wants to do. and there is a tearing of the week, where china -- attorney of the week, where china if it becomes too involved will see its own backfire effect. if it goes too far it may cause instability of the korean peninsula which is what china wants to avoid. to that extent it has limited leverage. >> i want to thank all our guests. mason richey edward howell and lawrence korb. i want to thank you for watching. you can see the program any time visiting our website. for further discussion go to our facebook page. facebook.com/ajinsidestory. join the conversation on twitter. from me and the whole team here. ♪

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