Caused by Nuclear Weapons. Most people have no real sense of what a nuclear bomb means, but tarumi tanaka does have a sense. He was 13 years old and living in nagasaki when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on his city. He lived about two miles from ground zero, and somehow survived, even though the bomb devastated his neighborhood. Thats just amazing. Two days later, he and his mother visited the epicenter searching to are their family members who live nearby. Heres how he described the scene. This clip is in japanese, so im going to translate this one as well. He says houses were gone, only the steel bars of concrete buildings stood bare and hollow. Steel bars of factories were entirely bent. Everything else was a burnt field. On the way to my aunts house we saw black. Ed bodied all over the place, they probably burned underneath houses that burned down. People who died from severe injuries and burns, they were left on the ground, without being collected. Those who were gravely injured and alive were left to writhe in pain, without rescue. Well today, mr. Tanaka is a Nuclear Engineer himself and hes an activist against Nuclear Weapons and as he told us, he feels things are going in the wrong direction. Listen. He says further its especially disconcerting that the current japanese government is actively feeding the military threat. St provoking more. I want the United States to stop provoking, but instead, work to create the conditions to make dialogue possible. Of people ina lot japan might feel differently. They have seen north Korean Missiles flying over their territory. There have been air raid drills. Glyn where else could they go . Todd let me get the question out. People in japan have seen north Korean Missile tests flying over their territory. They have had air raids, sirens going off. What do you make of what mr. Tanaka has to say . I have little sympathy for mr. Tanaka. Why have they got air raid sirens going off . Be was to get a rid of the constitution. The only way to do that is to frighten the japanese people. Him 6 percentput behind, and hes going to call a referendum, so japans interest is to make every phone ring. Every time there is a north Korean Missile within 1000 miles. If you want to launch a medium range missile, there is no other direction to go. Todd so you think the government of japan has a stake in alarmism here . Glyn absolutely. They are the ones that wrecked the sixparty talks. Theyre the ones that wrecked the Six Party Talks. I understand. I have a great deal of sympathy with the issues of the abductees. They refuse to agree. This is why the North Koreans walked away and why the North Koreans have refused to go backo to the sixparty talks, because they werent a venue that was going to get anywhere. Ar frank, is the experience in japan with american Nuclear Weapons as part of their culture now obviously, does that ni experience and the nightmare of it feed into the modern japanese approach to north korea and the potential threat that they tpresent . Well, i think the threat has always been there so north koreas had Nuclear Weapons for at least ten years since 2006, so the Nuclear Shadow has been there over south korea, its been there over japan. And now with the longrange tests, its growing appreciably in the United States. G i would add that, you know, itc one thing to have the capability, doesnt mean theyre going to use it. So i think north koreas not suicidal. They know if they were ever to attack the United States or its allies that we would respond with overwhelming force and that means the destruction of the country. I think really the concern is dn that sometimes we tend to nitpick north koreas test. Or well say, they didnt achieve this, they didnt demonstrate a reentry vehicle so what north korea may do is they want to prove beyond any doubt that r they have this capability so the concern is that they would demonstrate a missile test with a live warhead that does an atmosphere detonation over International Waters and that would be a game changer for us. I think another concern for us is that north korea may now t mistakenly believe that they have a Nuclear Weapon capability so they can keep the u. S. Aside and they can run amuck and coerce south korea and do a lot of provocations for their purposes. We started with japan and lets go to south korea now el because we have another contributor that i want to help drive our discussion here. This is yooun jay kim. From the university in seoul, who has a clip here. And im going to translate this one, as well. Oh, good. I dont have to translate this one. An you can translate into korean. I can give my korean a rest. H or japanese. Well, i guess the first thing i would like to know is whys the u. S. So afraid of north korea . North korea has a very tiny army even if it gets icbms which it is working its wail towards, america still has a qualitative and quantitative military edge both in conventional and Nuclear Capabilities and so the North Koreans know that if they do anything that if this escalates to an actual conflict with america, they will just definitively lose. Why is the u. S. Making such a big deal out of north korea . Weve had a lot of analysts and experts and journalists maybe even you on the takeaway on my show explaining that sout koreans tend to be much less excited about the north korea threat than americans are, is that true . B it is true to a certain degree. South koreans have be living t with this threat for decades now and they have to go about their daily lives. A they are living in a country that is extremely competitive. They have everyday concerns that theyre much more concerned about. I remember as a child when i was visiting south korea we used to have these regular civil air raid drills at 2 00 p. M. And you have to pull your car over to the side of the road, take cover. Frankly, i think people dont even stop what theyre doing right now theyre so oblivious to some of these threats from north korea. That said, things are a little bit different right now. Ar i think the uncertainty and the lack of clarity in terms of wha President Trump might do has unnerved some South Koreans and also whats interesting is theres a growing call in south korea among some parts of the population for south korea to arm itself. I think its reflected in what the student was saying. Some people are calling to have Nuclear Weapons reintroduced to the Korean Peninsula since this is a really Interesting Development that i see happening in south korea. Frank, you have experience in the diplomatic world and were talking about the potential for military confrontations and how these societies view the threat culturally. Youve been around the negotiating table. How does the actual threat of violence, the actual threat of war if there is such a threat really inform how these discussions you were at the sixparty talks. Those were defunct. There may be talks in the future. How does that inform how talks proceed . Well, this is really the debate over whether we can have a policy of deterrence. I think the students question is a good one of i think i think frank mentioned this as well that of course north koreas not suicidal. I dont think any of us think that. I think north korea sees its icbms and Nuclear Weapons program as a way to prevent the United States from coming to south koreas aid and probably o protecting japan as well and so the question here that one that i think people have been ts struggling with is can you can you Deter North Korea . Can we a possible policy ai solution can it just be lets s just not give them all this a . Credit and intention for these provocations and lets just saya you know, do whatever you want inside but you cant attack thw United States or south korea, japan. I would say, of course we can Deter North Korea from those military strikes but the problem with that is a policy and that gets to the students question is, you cant really use that as a policy to Deter North Korea from proliferation. For example, north korea built a Nuclear Reactor in syria that was destroyed by israel in 2007. For a policy as similar to strategic patience, lets not worry about this. We can, of course, Deter North Korea. Lets focus on Something Else especially Something Else with china, then are we prepared to have a north korea Nuclear Weapons program and an icbm program that it will sell to anyone thats willing to pay for that and thats really the crux of the policy debate with north korea, which is you can have deterrence as an element of that policy, but what is the other part of that policy and thats thats where i think we get into the debate of sanctions versus diplomacy. I just want to make one last point is that a couple of times panelists up here have noted, you know, it seems like the u. S. And the japan are not interested in settling. Rere its interesting that that question really needs to be on the other side. Is north korea really interested in settling . I mean ambassador joe yooun for the u. S. Has been trying to get the North Koreans to respond and his latest response said theres no signal from north korea. If you want to have negotiations as they say, it takes two to tango, right . T if the North Koreans are not interested in negotiations, be where does that leave us . We cant just show up to beijing in the state house where the Six Party Talks were before and sit at the plenary table and say, okay, were ready for sixparty talks. It doesnt work that way. The North Koreans have shown no interest in denuclearization talks. I think they havent responded, that doesnt mean theyre not interested. I think they eventually do want to get to the negotiating table but theyre doing it on their own time line. They want to get their nuclear w Weapons Program to a point where they can sit at the table as peers. He thats what theyre thinking. I guess i would say thats the danger there. I think che was very clear in russia that she sees this or north korea sees this as an arms control negotiation. Con as a discussion amongst nuclear peers. Withthta north korea replacing ussr in those negotiations. And that is plainly unacceptable for the United States. I would argue it should be unacceptable for everyone one that we would suggest that we would accept north korea as a Nuclear Power as an end goal. Thats not naive suggesting they dont have Nuclear Weapons. Of course they do. Sh but i think we have to think you know, north korea experts have this, you know most of us have this flaw of, you know, thinking about it in silos. Rt if we accept north korea as a Nuclear Weapons power, a Iranian Regime will stand up and say, of course, lets renegotiate that nuclear deal and you know what i want, i want the north korea deal. Wh i want the deal where i can get a Nuclear Weapon. Ll so we have to be careful about the precedence that were willing to set here with regard to global nonproliferation. One moment. Ng in just a few minutes i want to tell our audience here at the institute for peace, were going to open it up to q a to all of o you. Thats coming in ten or 12 minutes. Im telling you now so you can get the juices flowing, start to think about your questions. You know all the different areas of expertise that these panelists are bringing to bear. D start to think about your questions because in the few minutes the mike is going out in the audience. So i leave you with that. Glen, go right ahead. Youre saying you have set a precedence with north korea. Youve set a precedence with israel, youve set a precedent with india. Youve set aa precedent with pakistan. I mean, thehe worlds most prolific proliferators were the pakistanis, hawking his gas centrifuges around the world. Where were the sanctions against pakistan . Where were the threats to pakist pakistan . Where were the negotiations . No, that was fine. North korea, oh, no. Theyre a big problem. So from the north korea perspective its the u. S. Thats its not being its changing the rules of game halfway through. Frank, youre the one around this table whos worked at the pentagon and you dont have a uniform on but youve worked over there. The other inevitable discussion is military action from the United States and its allies. I had admiral mike mullen on our show a couple months ago and i asked him if when he looks at the big map and looks at the military options inside the pentagon, as they relate to north korea, if any, of those options are good, he said none of them were good. Ar that was his short answer. There was a longer one but i think you have some thoughts on viable military options, if any, really exist . Is there anything the United States can do failing diplomacy here to really brush back the north Korean Nuclear and Missile Program . Mi im not going to object to what admiral mullen said. Thats my first point. Theres certainly military options. I wouldnt call them viable military options because they all entail significant loss of life. Am theres a recent Congressional Research service that came out that said even in a conventional conflict within the first few days you would have anywhere d from 30,000 to 300,000 deaths and then obviously those numbers go up exponentially when you have Nuclear Weapons involved. So that being said, theres other things you can do militarily that may not be escalatory enough that would put us in a conflict. Its hard to think a lot of what those are because i think if you have a kinetic action that strikes, even, say, one missile facility, you know that north korea will spawn. Based on history when theyre pressured they dont wilt, they certainly persevere, they almosn always fight back and retaliate. It sounds strange and it sounded strange to me the first time i read about this that theres a language of military, you call it kinetic action. I like that phrase. You have the option of a devastating strike that hits pyongyang or you can send two cruise missiles to one site and those two things say Different Things to the victim. Right . Just a pinprick strike says were not going to wipe you out were just sending a message. So interpret that as message sent. Does that type of language work with the North Koreans . The North Koreans have to ni interpret whats happening and theres a danger they misinterpret whats actually happening. Thats the first problem because theyre acutely aware from studying the iraq war and the ct rest that they literally have om minutes to make a decision. Lets hope they appreciate the distinction between two missiles landing somewhere and a fully fledged assault. Thats the first problem you actually face. And secondly, yeah, there are talks about pinprick strikes. Theres talk about if you want shooting down a missile in flight, you might get away with that because kim jongun can actually say that was a missile failure. You strike or disappearing a submarine or hitting a t. L. On the ground . Hes not going to survive very long with his own administration. This is not a man on his own. His military agree with what hes doing as well, so hes not going to survive if he doesnt fight back. How about bringing down a Computer Network with some very creative worms and viruss . I think ive seen that before. Hang on. The u. S. Is doing that and why do you think the missiles are failing. W the North Koreans woke up to that and rewired their whole rt Missile System or whatever and they started to work. They also read the newspapers about what the israelis and americans were doing in iran. So fine. Thats going on. I think that would work. Its not a very computer oriented society. Li its not quite like the states or europe. They can get by without computers probably better than anybody else can. Jeanne, lets get back to kinetics for a second, because the United States has thousands of troops in south korea huddled on a couple of bases as i understand it within range of north korean artillery. So we have to think two or three times about the ramifications of even a pinprick strike. United states has 28,000 troops in south korea and in the region, 80,000 troops and we have we have 200,000 americans in that part of the world. So this is there are huge risks to any kind of kinetic i dont even know what kinetic action means. There are huge risks to any action that could spark or trigger military conflict not just to the Korean People or japanese but to americans as well. When i hear the words military options, we do hear the president threatening