hello and welcome to crossfire where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle after sixty eight years the two koreas are on the verge of signing a peace treaty a donald trump summit is in the works is peace coming to the korean peninsula well it's possible the foreign policy blog and the corporate media are less enthusiastic after all conflict is very business model. crosstalk in the korean peninsula i'm joined by my guest and washington he is

a senior fellow at the institute for china america studies also in washington we have john merrow he is former chief of the north east asia division of the bureau of intelligence and research at the u.s. state department as well as author of korea the peninsular origins of the war and in new york we cross to daniel as our he is an author and freelance journalist who writes frequently about the middle east eastern europe and the us constitution right gentlemen cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i always appreciate so let me go to you first in washington if you look at the mainstream media and particularly the cable stations all the focus on the korean peninsula is directed towards this summit that may have with the north korean leader but really i think it's what's more important happening this week and if the two koreas coming together how does this change the situation on the peninsula if north korea and south korea can find some kind of meaningful and let me stress meaningful reproach moment go ahead in washington. let me in response to your

question laid out right over here that the real credit for this situation the opportunity that we have today is because of president mungy in south korea you know if we had a the same all the conservative south korean government in place today what would have happened is kim jong un would have gone through with his condense testing schedule and then after that he would have gone straight into his bunker emerging from time to time with grave threats and snarly garley threats to blow everything up the fact of the matter is that mungy him is the person who has been able to tease kim jong il kim jong un out into the sunshine and has open and shown him a pathway to global integration and as well as not south reconciliation. in the south korean progressive government has

a lead this process of reconciliation which has dramatically altered the dynamics on the on the korean peninsula of course the olympics also have helped and therefore it is north and south they extend that they leave the process that they would have dragged the other parties along including the united states credit allies with the peninsula parties ok john let me go to you more or less the same question here because the dynamic changes considerably if there is a peace between the two koreas after sixty eight years make started coming to some kind of defense and security measures that both can accept then regime change as it were that we hear so many people talking about in in the washington foreign policy blob that kind of is taken off the table because that would not be in south korea's interests go ahead john in washington. right peter well i think i think you overstated it a little bit i do give president moon

a lot of credit but i think the main credit i never thought i would say that i know obviously belongs to donald trump i know you're going to say that. this this this this is this is the man who said he wanted nothing more than to sit down and have a hamburger with kim jong un and looks like he's going to get his chance right now there apparently still cia people liaison people behind in pyongyang at least according to the south korean media and people are hard at work and mr pump aoe is the guy that's been running this. formerly from his post as cia director but hopefully in a few days as secretary of state so i think i would agree the president deserves a lot of credit and certainly with a progressive government a lot of things are possible that weren't underpass conservative regimes but i think we have to give president trump his do as well and i just i just hope things

go ok it's a topsy topsy turvy world exactly and you know and i'm very happy that this process is going on let me go to daniel i don't care who gets the credit i think that is really low on the hierarchy a bit of importance here getting peace on the peninsula where you have the most heavily armed border in the world after sixty eight years of considerable american military presence is there and the chinese have come in and in ways that i think we'll find out in the future they were very constructive here it's the result that counts most importantly go ahead daniel well. let me speak up for ken jiang on which i think it's played his cards extremely well. is not in the door a political endorsement of him by any means but he is a very smart yep player yeah and he has done a very. he's you know he sort of kind of you know seize control of the opening seize the opening that that trump courted him and has really run of the i think

it's it's a pretty impressive performance ok let's go back to washington so i think what's really important here i mean it's good to get down to really the details here because we have a do you need arise south korea i'm sorry korean peninsula means north and south so that means that american nukes would not be allowed there i mean this is the kind of opening that i think the north korean leader was looking for he's looking for a grand bargain and you know what folks he's been asking for a grand bargain for a while and i think he had to go through all of the theatrical of the missiles and the launches and you know all of the heated rhetoric back and forth this was the opening that he was looking for and it was a south korean leader that opened the door and we got a nod from donald trump i mean we'll find out where it goes so you know it really gets down to the details of what that means because we know all along north korea wants security guarantees maybe russia and china can be guarin tours of that go

ahead sort of been in washington you're absolutely correct on that i mean the devil is in the details in terms of how do you go about staging nuclear solution in terms of how that process works out the mechanics of that process but you're absolutely correct on that point with regard to denuclearize the nuclearization that it is not just a north korean if it needs to be a peninsula or fair let me throw out a useful principle which might be useful here both in terms of denuclearization as well as in reduction of conventional forces in terms on the peninsula and in terms of the hostilities that are there in terms of denuclearization we're talking of course complete verifiable irreversible nuclearization of north korea they can have a civil nuclear program which can be. civil nuclear program which will be very intrusively watched over by the i.a.e.a. full scope see if guards etc etc but what that means for south korea is that of

course they have this civil of very extensive civil nuclear program but there will be no strategic forces on their territory and they want to even be an extended deterrent to south korea provided by the us so long as there is complete nuclearization of the north now the parallel fact which north and south korea frankly need to work out because the nuclearization is essential ie a topic of discussion between north korea and the united states with regard to conventional forces what the disposition of the end of the day needs to be that the peninsula is is kind of insulated from the larger the geopolitics off the north east asia south the south korea has already shown that it is not in not terribly interested in getting into things like a regional ballistic missile shield well it's not interested in going to eilat for a line we're going to fly or we're going to find actually less yeah we're going to

find out just how far the pentagon wants to go along with it john let me go to you because if you get if you look at the mainstream media and the punditry that we are bombarded with all of the time and the mainstream media is really not on board here is it just because they don't want to see succeeded anything or in the military industrial complex i mean south korea and the and that region of the world is a nice. trough for arms in the us as a vast military establishment there and that needs to be paid for i mean is it a combination of these things here and go ahead john in washington. well you know i peter i don't know that's that's that's kind of hard to say what i will say is this i think what has happened is that we have now gotten a de facto freeze for freeze this was the proposal you have that was made by moscow and beijing years ago and i wrote on this subject about

a year and a half ago and i got excoriated now for saying that but this is what it is this is what is now de facto in place and so this is this is a big deal it is you know the u.s. the u.s. military exercises this year the joint us are ok exercises are a shadow of their former self last year we had three aircraft carrier battle groups participating this year it's one small aircraft it's really an assault ship with short takeoff and landing j. thirty f. thirty five so it's a huge deal now there are huge military asymmetries on the peninsula which are going to be astronomically difficult to resolve so we may get a start in these in these discussions when the two korean leaders may meet they may in a few days they may even to clear and then to yes the korean war at least hostilities

but it's going to take a lot of tough slogging to work through some of these details and to particularly to put in place the security guarantees which i think the north koreans are going to insist on to go forward daniel let me go to you i mean the security guarantees that's what it's always been about and i'm glad that john mentioned the freeze for freeze because that's been around for a while nobody in the mainstream media says that where that idea comes from but i can tell you if you go to last year during the security council you could see the russian and chinese ambassador at length go through that. process here daniel before we go to the break go ahead in new york. well i just want to remind your viewers that that in two thousand and two george w. bush virtually declared war on north korea which he somehow blamed for nine eleven but north korea was was one of the three countries comprising the so-called axis of evil and the us invaded one of those countries has been sort rattling at the other

ever since and so north korea had had grave concerns regarding its own security so kim jong un figured his only protection lay in a nuclear power nuclear weapon which he. only has let me jump in here hold that thought gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the korean peninsula state with our team. three traits that have been wrong for five years one is that the dollar is going to crash that goal is going to twenty five hundred in the very short term and that three the bond market's going to crash all those three trades have been absolutely wrong for five years and they've taken many people out on a stretcher. you

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welcome back to cross like we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the korean peninsula and the possibility of peace. ok let's go back to daniel in new york you were taking us down history lane you were you were just talking about the absence of the pick up from there go ahead daniel yeah so in two thousand and two with this axis of evil speech george w. bush essentially declared war north korea and that's that speech has never been rescinded anyway this one nope no apology issued no you know no taking back etc so so so kim jong un figured quite logically that it's only protection lay and having a nuclear weapon capable of striking the united states mainland which he apparently

has achieved so that is his that is this great you know it's great chess pieces ace in the hole and i don't think i want to live here but i really doubt that he will agree to for denuclearization unless the u.s. meets is willing to engage equally and equally grand gesture which trump might be willing to do but i can guarantee you the rest of the foreign policy establishment or blog as you call them will not they will raise holy hell and they will essentially block from from doing that. in washington because you reflect upon them because that's been my inkling for a moment long you know i'm like john said i'm perfectly willing to give donald trump credit for this if this is just kicked it off ok fine ok but there are forces and you see it all the time in the corporate media mimics the their corporate

owners ok they're not keen on seeing. making out particularly if it means negotiations as equal that's not in their d.n.a. they don't operate that way go ahead absolutely absolutely correct first let me back up a little bit out here and say that yes i totally agree with john that a huge amount of creditors also due to donald trump because let us remember before you talked about fire and fury and destroying north korea he also probably went up further than any u.s. president had had talked about and talked about particular some assurances that he doesn't see the collapse of the north korean regime he doesn't seek regime change he doesn't want to have an invasion over thirty it's over the thirty eighth parallel etc etc so he has tried he had made a lot of assurances also in his early months and that hasn't had that has he has not got adequate credit for that so yes i mean in other ways also donald trump deserves credit and that's that's that's that's perfectly fine you know the one

grilli good thing going for donald trump is that the u.s. system provides huge in on foreign policy huge amount of power not just to the presidency but to the president and so he can really overwrite it is starved because frankly this is all going to come down to donald trump and making that deal with game jungle on which the foreign policy establishment has not been willing to contemplate and part of the reason it's not been willing to contemplate it's easy to say that all the came regime for ever and the kims never never. on their from their part always cheating etc etc which is which is not entirely true it is partly true not entirely true but just too many forces i think for people in washington are western and in a cold war mindset confrontational attitude to north east asian geopolitics with

the thirty eighth parallel being that tripwire and it's not easy. they fought many off them to come to terms with that you know what. could be just insulated from that whole geopolitical environment let's ask john because john that was his line of business for a while i mean what are the forces moving against this here and beyond because it's donald trump's idea but i mean the you know talks through the bureaucratic inertia that you know that would be against this go ahead well i think i would disagree i think that currently the top leadership of the u.s. defense department is not against what trump is trying to do and we just saw that in syria we saw the d.o.d. weighed in and so we had symbolic strikes against syria rather than the more far reaching operation that some were advocating so. i

think that we have to be a little bit careful here now i would take this back even a little bit before the axis of evil speech people forget that nuclear weapons were first deployed on the korean peninsula during the eisenhower administration and we had at one time nine hundred fifty nuclear tactical nuclear weapons in korea this is this is now a de quite well we had seven thousand and western europe. anyway. president bush the elder who's now ill in the hospital was the was the one who decided to put an end to this this kind of madness and so we began withdrawing them but you know you don't have to explain the nuclear issue in terms of the evil nature of the north korean regime although perhaps there's some of that that that can be part of the explanation it's really an action reaction sequence and we took the initial

action and the north koreans then responded to it so i think the same dynamic can be used in the current circumstances and terms of confidence building measures and hopefully we can walk this back i agree completely that having. a progressive president in seoul is a huge help and i think china and russia can also help but. i think it's going to be really difficult to unravel this not which which we've tied ourselves up in and on the peninsula and these various asymmetries ok danielle i think this kind of leads to where i want to go in the program i mean i am sure that there is there's a sense that if if the u.s. in there is the perception of the u.s. backing down the perception of the u.s. . involved in a diplomatic process that would be deemed as

a piece meant here that would have a ricochet effect through all of the other and tangling alliances the u.s. has in the pacific is this part of the thinking there because it is john said you know to untie this not here there is a huge ripple effect through the entire region go ahead daniel. this totally true totally true and would be a huge ripple effect in washington as well where all these countries have their have their interests they have their they have their you know their little alliances japan most particularly russia and china as well so if you know. the north may be playing a kind of vietnamese game where they're trying to you know seek a closer alliance with the south in order to protect themselves against china so therefore that's certainly possible in china could be getting nervous as well and china has friends in washington and. between the japanese wouldn't be very happy if it is with a unified strong powerful korean peninsula and so you know that they wouldn't there

to hold the fence i think you would have to be rethought keep going daniel. japan has tons of friends in washington also so so i think that will give you can see a huge ripple effect from the north northeastern northeast asia on to washington as all sides are pile on and you know and trump is on one hand trump has got great power as a u.s. president but on this hand politically he's very weak he is really on the ropes it's a ferocious problem so so i don't know i doubt very much it will be able to withstand these forces and i think that he will i'm pretty sure he is incapable of engaging in the same kind of grand gesture that kim jong un is willing to engage you know let me go back to sort of i mean you know he won the presidency he surprises it's all the time you know maybe it'll work this time i don't know i mean don't you think also it's just

a mindset i mean north korea is this cartoonish evil character the axis of evil i mean it's so convenient and there's so many people that have made entire careers out of demonizing and i'm not i'm not siding with the north koreans or it's . i don't do that kind of thing i i'm basically a realist when it comes to foreign policy so but i mean don't you think that's part of the problem here is he is changing minds you know taking a fresh look and there isn't this really an amazing opportunity that we may never see again go ahead. oh absolutely absolutely you got an opportunity so it's the end of the korean war in. as since the end of the korean war to have a peace regime on the peninsula as well as since the denuclearization declaration and agreements of the early one thousand nine hundred to do did in the nuclearization let me go out a little bit on a limb here and make two points you know with regard to denuclearize mission most people and i totally agree understand there the views that this is going to be very

difficult close to impossible he's not going to give it up i'm one of those feel very tiny minority but who believes that this is very doable and i can really give it up i could give john i did john is not in the same position as saddam hussein. but he had to go hide it that's why he developed it in the first place to trade it away for security guarantees it seems logical to me exactly. exactly let me explain that point also you know what is a nuclear weapon the focus of a nuclear weapon is to call unacceptable damage to the adversary he already can do unacceptable damage to their adversary by crushing seoul with this conventional guns and therefore a nuclear weapon over and above that is something that he can leverage and he can bargain and which is exactly what he is doing and therefore i would say that this is doable this is a great opportunity but what we have to do also is this cannot be a process which gets out over many years on

a decade on its action for action with five hundred steps which then breaks down after twenty steps this has to be a big grand bargain account in a truncated where and then to define time period and i think it's doable let me go to look at let me go to john john you're on the negotiating team for the united states what would you tell your boss dollars trying to do in forty seconds go ahead hey i what i would tell him to do is just have good vibes in the in the meeting apparently that was the case when pompei went there i think what. it's different this time around is that the negotiations are not being run through a bureaucratic process and a lot of people are criticizing trump on that score it's it's a crisis situation and people forget what we were talking about last fall we're talking about the imminent prospect of war on the peninsula so i think things are moving in a good direction i am concerned about the asymmetries. also we're going to have

one possible drop out in this process prime minister abbay is in deep political trouble i'm not sure if he's going to be able to survive or not but yeah i think we we just have to hope that the intercooler goes well ok and in a way moon isn't playing that is vance gentlemen we have run out of time and very rarely do we end on a positive note many thanks to my guests in washington and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here on c.n.n. and remember. this idea of luxury and fame but also an alarming number of people living in the streets. a simple fact in l.a. he's there's just not enough shelter even if people on the streets right now

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