Lawfare Daily: Trump, Kim, and the Future of Korea

[Intro]

Andrew Yeo: You know, what eventually we would like to see on the table is some discussion about security guarantees, about making sure that North Korea isn't accelerating their nuclear or, or their missile program.

Daniel Byman: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Daniel Byman, the foreign policy editor of Lawfare, with Andrew Yeo, who is a senior fellow and the Korea Foundation Chair at the Brookings Institution's Center for Asia Policy Studies.

Andrew Yeo: The big concern is that Trump and Kim will just kinda shut out South Koreans and then negotiate their own deal. That being said, I do think President Lee has, he's placed some hope in Trump that, that whatever negotiations, whatever diplomacy unfolds between Trump and Kim could be helpful for inter-Korea relations as well.

Daniel Byman: Today, we're talking about President Trump's decision to curtail exercises with South Korea and to reengage with negotiations with North Korea.

[Main Podcast]

We are here to discuss the Trump administration's, I'll say, changing policies towards both North and South Korea. President Trump recently announced that the United States would be reducing the scope of its military exercise with South Korea as it tries to improve relations with North Korea. We're recording on August 20th, and North Korea has just fired 10 short-range ballistic missiles, adding to the uncertainty about the whole U.S. shift.

Andrew, I wanna have you talk us through the very complex issues both with our ally, South Korea, and also with North Korea. But let's begin with a little bit of history. Trump, of course, tried to do outreach to North Korea in the past. It did not work so well, but he first met Kim Jong Un in 2018. Can you compare the situation today on the Korean Peninsula to the one that President Trump dealt with when he was last president?

Andrew Yeo: Sure, and thanks for having me on Lawfare, Dan. It's, it's great to be here with you. If we think back to the Singapore and then the Hanoi summits that took place in 2018, 2019 with Trump and Kim, I mean, the context is quite different. At the outset, you could say that maybe not that much has changed with the peninsula. There's still tensions between North and South Korea, and so it's still divided. But the geopolitical context in which the peninsula is situated, I think that's changed dramatically. And I, I'll just point to three things.

First, North Korea rejects unification and sees the two Koreas as a separate state. That wasn't the case in 2018 when North and South Korea had meetings. So President, then President Moon and Kim Jong Un had two summit meetings in 2018 in April and May before Trump met him Of course, North Korea participated in the Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea. So there was pretty robust inter-Korea relations back then, and now there's absolutely nothing. North Korea's completely rejected South Korea.

I think the second difference between now and back in 2018 is that North Korea is a, it, it's a stronger and more capable country. A big part of this story, of course, is its security pact with Russia and the economic, diplomatic, and military benefits it's now reaping from Moscow.

And that leads me to my, you know, third, sort of, difference is with China and Russia in you know, firmly in North Korea's corner The importance of U.S.-North Korea relations for Kim has diminished. So, he just feels that he doesn't need the United States as much as he may have back in 2018. So those are some pretty big differences when you put the Korean Peninsula in a broader geopolitical context.

Daniel Byman: Thanks. That's a kinda great way to begin our framing. I wanna shift the perspective to South Korea and how Seoul sees all this. Trump has described North Korea as, quote, "unthreatening and respectful," end quote. How does Seoul hear that statement?

Andrew Yeo: Yeah. So, of course, I, I think just your average Korean probably did a double take or they're thinking, "What the heck?" You know, "We thought we were friends with the United States." But I think South Korean policymakers, whether they're conservative or progressive, also probably did a double take. Some may have been shocked to hear Trump describe North Korea as “unthreatening.” You know, this was Trump's words, that North Korea is “unthreatening and respectful.”

And while the current South Korean government, I think, does seek to improve relations with North Korea, it's emphasized, so this is South Korean government, they've emphasized the need for deterrence. They've expressed concern about North Korea's expanding drone and missile capabilities, not to mention its growing nuclear program. I mean, yesterday Trump even mentioned that North Korea possesses 57 warheads. So I think this was pretty surprising for the South Koreans to hear this, that North Korea is not threatening, 'cause that's certainly not the way South Koreans feel about the situation.

But I'll just add, though, that I think President Lee, because he does want to see engagement with, with North Korea, he, you know, he'll try to make lemonade out of lemons. So it's not what he wanted to hear from, maybe, President Trump. He didn't wanna hear the criticism about not participating in Iran. But if you can use Trump's words to try to reopen diplomacy with North Korea, I think that's what the Lee government is trying to focus on right now.

Daniel Byman: I wanna focus now on the more short-term, immediate question of the Trump administration's declaration that the United States is going to limit it, the scope of the Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises. First of all, just how important are these exercises? And kind of with that in mind, if you reduce them, what are you losing here?

Andrew Yeo: Yeah, so it was the reduction of joint military exercises that precipitated this whole, you know, question about North Korea and, and re-engagement between Kim and Trump. But one thing that's important to understand, for those that may not be familiar with the U.S.-South Korea alliance, is that it's an unusually integrated military. The two countries maintain a binational combined forces command which would coordinate U.S. and South Korean forces in the event of a conflict with North Korea. So exercises like the Ulchi Freedom Shield so that's held every, every August annually. It's not just about thousands of troops practicing maneuvers. They're also about making sure that this complicated combined command structure can actually function under a crisis or under wartime conditions.

So, with that in place, you know, the fact that the exercises were basically cut in half, they were supposed to run between August 17th to the 27th, but now they're ending on Friday so from, you know, 10, 11 days to, to just five days. You know, it means that I think the, the counter-track drills, the live-fire drills, these things are being cut back. And I think, you know, just stopping exercises one time, maybe that's, in the grand scheme of things, that's not going to make a huge difference in terms of, you know, U.S., South Korea, and, you know, interoperability, their ability to maintain command and control.

But if this is something that's done repeatedly or if, a- and, you know, Trump has talked about this during his first term about joint military exercises being a big waste of money. Now, if Trump decides not to do these exercises, you know, they do them also in the spring in March. I think that could, that could have some real implications for the U.S, and South Korean military because, again, they're part of this combined forces command, and they do need to, they need to have these exercises to maintain readiness and a deterrence posture.

Daniel Byman: I wanna kind of take President Trump's claim, you know, very seriously here. Are these provocative exercises? Like, is this something that really does change threat perceptions on the North Korean side?

Andrew Yeo: Yeah, well, it's not that there's no truth to what Trump says. But again, if you're maybe North Korea or China or maybe, in the U.S., the progressive foreign policy type, you know, where U.S. militarism is seen as the root cause of all regional instability, then yeah, maybe you could say that these massive, you know, training exercises could be provocative.

But, you know, I would counter that these exercises are done regularly. They're scheduled they're announced, and they're mostly defensive in nature. So, on that front, you know, the, even, you know, before the exercises happened, USFK, there was a, you know, they did a, the public affairs team did an announcement explaining what the exercises were for. And yes, if, if you're North Korea, you see this as, you know, geared towards them, and it's, it's, it could be very threatening. But from the perspective of the U.S. and its allies, you know, you gotta remember that North Korea has nuclear weapons. They've threatened to use them. It's in their constitution that they, that they could use them, that first use will be permitted. And, you know, they, they constantly are saber-rattling and launching, testing missiles.

And so for those reasons, the U.S. and then their allies need to be prepared. They need to be ready, and that's why we have these exercises. So again, it's not that there's no truth in what Trump says, but you have to remember why we have these exercises in the first place. It's to deter North Korea and defend our allies and our, frankly, our own strategic interests as well.

Daniel Byman: So one thing that has changed on the North Korean side is that it has gained real battlefield experience in Ukraine, and this has involved, you know, bearing the full brunt of modern warfare, a battlefield with extensive drone use. How much should that change how the United States and South Korea plan?

Andrew Yeo: Yeah, so North Korean forces have gained something, I think, that they didn't have before, which is real exposure to a modern drone-saturated battlefield. And I, I remember watching this video online where these drones, where these Ukrainian drones were chasing North Korean soldiers. It was, like, when they were first, North Koreans were first on the Russia, you, you know, Ukraine front in the Kursk and they were chasing these soldiers. The soldiers were scrambling and running away, and then there was one drone camera that had a close-up shot of a North Korean soldier's face, and it, it was a look of confusion plus terror, like all at once, and then the screen goes blank. And, you know, this is the sort of warfare that the North Koreans were just thrown into.

But at this point, you know, they've, they've kind of figured out, and now they're adapting, you know, drone technology into their own capabilities. Like, they understand logistics, they understand dispersion. And this is going to help, I think, North Korea's military in the lo- in the long run.

And so for the U.S.-South Korea alliance, I think the implications, going back to, you know, the point about having joint military exercises, that they need to also adapt and prepare because the North Koreans may you know, I, it's not just that they might fire missiles aimed at Seoul, but they might, you know, launch dr- a, a drone attack, whi- which, and they have before. There have actually been North Korean drones that have entered South Korean airspace, actually in Seoul back in twenty 2022. So there's real learning that's taking place among the North Koreans. It's not j- just about the, the weapons and the capabilities, but it's also shifts in doctrine and the way they're incorporating these new technologies.

Daniel Byman: Let's shift over to the negotiations question, which is if, as President Trump has announced, there are negotiations between the two leaders. And if Trump and Kim sat down tomorrow, what would they actually be negotiating about? What's on the table?

Andrew Yeo: Well, I, you know, we've seen Trump meet other world leaders that, you know, such as Xi or Putin, and I'm not sure if there would actually be any negotiating, if it would be more of just an initial meet and greet again. But, you know, what eventually we would like to see on the table is some discussion about security guarantees, about making sure that North Korea isn't accelerating their nuclear or, or their missile program for that matter.

So, you know, I, I think there needs to be that sort of discussion, but what I fear is that, that the security issues, the hard kind of political issues aren't really going to be addressed, and instead Trump will gravitate to what he feels is more comfortable, which is, you know, investment deals. You know, things, or looking probably investing in North Korea for critic- looking at North Korean critical minerals, or, you know, developing the eastern coast of North Korea, where Kim Jong Un has built a, a huge seaside resort.

So I feel like those things may come up more on the economic side, even though I think some of these security issues such as the, you know, North Korea's nuclear program, es- the missile program in particular, I think those are what we want to see wi- within the discussion. But, you know, in the, in the first meeting, you know, I think it's gonna be more a meet and greet before any kind of substance is, is nailed down.

Daniel Byman: It's interesting to me that you said the substance would largely be about trying to, you know, limit the nuclear and missile programs. You know, for decades, the U.S. goal was, you know, either preventing a North Korean nuclear program or reversing it. Is that done with? Is that another era where the world has reluctantly accepted that North Korea is a permanent nuclear weapon state?

Andrew Yeo: Yeah. Well, I think we have to distinguish between denuclearization as a long-term objective and maybe denuclearization as a starting point for negotiations. You know, your colleague at Georgetown and a CSIS's Victor Cha, you know, he wrote this piece in Foreign Affairs. You know, the cold piece has gotten a ton of attention because it, it's almost seen as an admission in South Korea that even Washington has, you know, turned to a new chapter saying that it's no longer about denuclearization, but we have to look at North Korea realistically.

But I don't think it means abandoning or denuclearization as a goal. You know, we shouldn't just simply recognize North Korea as a legitimate nuclear weapon state and then move on because that has serious implications for South Korea, has implications for the non-proliferation regime, and potentially for other countries in the region as well too. So, you know, I think the consensus that seems to be emerging in, at least in D.C., is that the objective should be, the immediate objective should be threat reductions arms control, limitation in terms of where North Korea's nuclear program is at.

So we should be asking questions like, can you get a verifiable freeze on fissile material production? Or can you constrain nuclear missile testing or further expansion of its nuclear arsenal? Or can you introduce risk reduction measures that lower the possibility of escalation? So these are the sorts of questions that I would wanna see raised. And so you don't have to bring up denuclearization, you know, upfront.

But my concern is, is that enough for Kim Jong Un? Because when he says, we don't, you know, “we're done talking about denuclearization and we're keeping our nuclear stockpile, full stop,” you know, there's not a whole lot more I think the U.S. can do or offer at that point. Because for us and for South Koreans and our allies, the nuclear weapons program is a serious concern.

Daniel Byman: Let's shift back to South Korea and, on the assumption that these negotiations go forward, but they go forward as you suggest, where it's, you know, a photo op, it's some discussions about economic opportunity, but it's not anything that is, you know, kind of deeply substantive on a security front. How much should we worry about the South Korean reaction to this? How does this affect the bilateral relationship?

Andrew Yeo: Yeah, so what South Korea is often fearful of is this, there's this term called “South Korea passing,” meaning that Trump and Kim are going to negotiate, and then Trump is going to completely forget about what South Korea's interests are in this diplomatic engagement.

And, you know, one, one good example is, you know, I, I mentioned this artillery, North Korean artillery is all aimed towards Seoul, and so a big concern is short-range ballistic missiles. But if Trump says that, well, the real threat is North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missiles, and so they wanna, they want to freeze, you know, testing, ICBM testing, but they don't say anything about the short-range missiles, that would be problematic for South Korea. But, but that is the, the big concern is that Trump and Kim will just kinda shut out South Koreans and then negotiate their own deal.

That being said, I do think President Lee has he's placed some hope in Trump that, that whatever negotiations, whatever diplomacy unfolds between Trump and Kim could be helpful for inter-Korea relations as well. As you and me and some of the listeners know, you know, North Korea, as I said up at the top, has completely rejected South Korea in terms of like South Korean overtures for engagement, for aid, for assistance. And I think Lee is hoping to perhaps ride on the coattails of Trump if he's able to engage with Kim that, that Trump would do him a solid and also encourage him to reach out to South, South Korea as well.

So that when I, when I said that Lee is trying to make lemonade out of lemons with Trump's, you know, latest Truth Social post, I really do think that he is trying to, he's hoping that some door can open towards diplomacy or at least some environment for diplomatic dialogue can be created through a, a Kim-Trump meeting.

Daniel Byman: I wanna step back beyond the, I'll say, current situation and just ask more broadly, what do you think Americans, and this can be, you know, people who follow the issue generally or experts, but what do you think Americans kind of systematically misunderstand about North Korea today?

Andrew Yeo: So for those that don't follow North Korea repeatedly, our image of North Korea is it's this, you know, isolated pariah state that's extremely poor but has lots of nuclear weapons. That's still correct but- th- there have been a series of articles in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times Washington Post, about just how much North Korean society is changing that, you know, Americans will be shocked to know that they have mobile banking, you know, online banking, mobile pay. There's some, like, Uber-like, you know, s- service. A- and so if, if you just looked at the photos or if you just looked at North Korea propaganda, you would think it looks like, you know, Hong Kong or Shanghai. Obviously, this is just the capital and it's not, there are large parts of the country that are extremely poor. But North Korea has moved, forged ahead despite sanctions, despite its isolation from the West. They've been able to move forward, and this has accelerated with support from Russia and China.

So I think for most Americans, I think they would be surprised to see, you know, how, you know, technologically savvy the North Koreans have become. I mean, and those that are in the, I mean, y- you might follow this a little bit, Dan, but, you know, North Korea is one of the worst actors out there when it comes to, to cyber heists and in terms of, you know, crypto. Rhey're big into cryptocurrency and crypto theft. I think $2 billion were stolen by, by North Korean actors you know, between 2022 and 2024.

So that's something that I think Americans may need to update, that North Korea is not so isolated as it once was, and it's not, I mean, it's not this poor, backward country that we, we may have been thinking for, for decades. So that's, that's something that we, we do need to update. I guess, folks like myself or, or Victor over at CSIS need to make that point clear, that it's a different North Korea from what it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Daniel Byman: Excellent. That's fascinating. Let me again flip to South Korea. Is there a fear or concern that South Korea has that you feel is not sufficiently appreciated in Washington circles?

Andrew Yeo: I, I mean, so there's always this question about whether South Koreans are hedging between China and, between China and the United States. I'm sure we're gonna hear some of this in the next week or so. Wang Yi was actually in Seoul today you know, holding meetings with South Korea's national security advisor. And so, you know, folks in, you know, in the Trump administration may again be asking why is, why are the South Koreans talking to the, to the Chinese?

But I think something that Washington maybe doesn't s- sufficiently appreciate is that the Korean Peninsula is on the border with China, and this isn't just an issue, it's not just a hard, you know, security issue for the South Koreans. I think for South Koreans who still think about unification, that think about inter-Korea relations, it's, it's, yeah, it's not just about security, but it's an issue that relates to unification. For that reason, the, the Koreans, they like to… There's this framing where they say it's either alliance or autonomy. That you either choose the alliance or you want to kind of go your own way and you want to choose autonomy. I mean, this is one of the reasons why South Koreans are spending much more on their defense, that they want to make sure that they're properly equipped if, you know, the U.S. moves in a different direction.

But I think most Koreans, even the progressive Lee government, they'll say that it's not really a choice for us, but it's really, you know, alliance and autonomy. And it's because of the strategic neighborhood that they live in, that they have China at their border, that they're, you know, they feel in their history they've always been, they've been undercut by, you know, great power politics, whether it's at the start of the Cold War when the peninsula was divided or when it was in the late 19th century when Japan, China and Russia were vying for control in the Korean Peninsula. And I think that has an impact on the way South Koreans think about their security and their security environment.

And so when it comes to things like North Korea, when it comes to, you know, its relationship with China, they feel that there's this historical, I guess, narrative if you will, that it kind of shapes their thinking about their environment. And so that's something that I think sometimes Washing- folks in Washington don't really get, and it's, it's kind of hard to explain. There's a lot of context and nuance behind it, but, and someone like President Trump, he doesn't really do nuance. So yeah, but that's something that I think South Koreans think, so, you know, Washington doesn't sufficiently appreciate.

Daniel Byman: Most of what we've talked about has been on, you know, military exercises or negotiations, but a, a relatively short-term set of questions focused on the coming months. Let's fast-forward five years. It's a different administration and we're looking at North Korea. What would constitute a successful U.S. policy towards North Korea in those five years where you'd feel five years from now, "Hey, that actually went reasonably well"?

Andrew Yeo: Sure. I mean, it depends how high or how low you set, set the bar. I mean, five years ago from now is, was, it's like 2021. I mean, there's nothing going on. The last U.S., North Korea official engagement was in October, October of 2019. It took place in Stockholm, Sweden.

Since then, there's been zero engagement. There's been no inter-Korea engagement You know, it's, it's a pretty low bar if, if you say just having some diplomatic engagement would be a success, but that's how difficult this North Korea problem has been, that it certainly, for sure it hasn't gotten better. If anything, it's gotten worse because North Korea's capabilities continues to grow.

So if you can at least get North Korea to put a hold or put a freeze that's verifiable on their nuclear program and have some diplomatic engagement between U.S. and North Korea, or even among the parties, you know, South Korea's talking about this four, they're talking again about a four-party, you know, discussion between Beijing, Pyongyang, Seoul, and Washington. If there's some dialogue that's taking place without North Korea moving further on its nuclear program, I think that would be a huge, huge success compared to what we've seen in the previous five years.

Daniel Byman: That strikes me as a, a realistic benchmark for success, and I'm gonna end on that optimistic note that maybe we can, you know, if we can't move forward, at least we can avoid moving farther backwards.

Andrew Yeo: Yeah. Well, it's rare to get s- hear the word optimism and North Korea policy in the same sentence, so I'm, I'm glad you're ending on that note, Dan.

Daniel Byman: Maybe I should say a less pessimistic note-

Andrew Yeo: Yeah.

Daniel Byman: Than usual. Andrew Yeo, thank you very much for joining us.

Andrew Yeo: Thanks for having me here.

[Outro]

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