For our regional allies and called for serious consequences. Joining me now is richard haass. Once again, im pleased to have him back at this table. Welcome. How serious is this . Richard this is arguably the Number One NationalSecurity Threat that faces the United States over the next five years, possibly facing the next president of the United States. Charlie why . Mostrd this is the closed, most militarized society on the face of the earth. It has committed, in some ways, a slowmotion genocide against its people. They have posed a military threat for decades, i should know. The division at the 30th parallel, now, on top of it all, youve got a fast growing nuclear program, not just nuclear material, but as you said, Ballistic Missiles that could launch from a number of platforms, from land or from submarines. And they are working hard on shrinking the size of the warheads. I think it is a question of the National Security advisor walks into the oval office and says mr. President or madam president , we now face the imminence of a nuclear charlie what do we do . Richard its hard to sanction a society that is already so without. Secondly, negotiations. That hasnt worked. What can we do . We are building defensive systems. There are two big issues. One is whether you can persuade the chinese, through china, probably 2 3 of north koreas trade goes every day. Can you persuade the chinese to put more pressure on the North Koreans . They dont like them much. They would prefer right now to have a divided Korean Peninsula to a united five unified Korean Peninsula dominated by seoul. If we cant, what further pressure can we put on north korea, not just through sanctions, but through cyber or through military force . Charlie are we likely to do that . Richard i would hope we would certainly have the exploratory conversations with the chinese. What are we and the South Koreans and the japanese prepared to put on the table . What would we say about the terms under which a unified korea would live . Would it still be an american ally . I would say yes. Maybe we would have far fewer forces moved away from the 30th parallel. I would hope the 38th parallel. There might be something in it for china. The question is if it would be enough for china. The other thing is why wouldnt we do things to pressure the regime. The regime is fragile. Why wouldnt we necessarily say regime change . Put information into that closed society to strike try to stir up some opposition to the regime. And if they do have Nuclear Weapons, if we are not content with deterrence and defense i dont know about you, the idea of having a deterrent relationship doesnt fill me with great comfort. We have to ask really serious questions. Imagine we got intelligence that north korea was putting its missiles on alert. Would we be prepared to tolerate that . Would we consider launching a preemptive strike . Charlie would it be a preemptive strike against their missile sites or Something Else . Richard if we know there is the possibility of imminent launch, i would say, for an american president , that would be a real decision, whether we are prepared to tolerate that risk or, if that at that point, we would act, even if there could be a decent chance of war. Charlie if they have a warhead on a missile that is ready to go, with a have enough Early Detection of what we are doing would they have enough Early Detection of what we are doing to launch . Richard its not clear. The alternative is we dont even let things go that far. Rather than preemptive strikes, inventive military strikes. We have thought about this very hard. United states during the early clintonthe early years. North korea was taking these pods, these nuclear rods, and they were moving it. There were a lot of people, including myself, who said we ought not to let the koreans gettings next step, closer to Nuclear Weapons. The Clinton Administration looked at it. They decided it was too risky to launch an attack, in part because they were really were worried about a conventional war on the Korean Peninsula, which very damaging. Because we have not acted in the past, we now face a very real possibility. I dont believe there is any chance we can negotiate ourselves out of this. For a future president , you have to say are you willing to live by some mixture of deterrence and defense, or, if thats too risky, you have to hope negotiations with china would somehow solve this problem with you for you or you have to contemplate more sanctions or even conceivably military actions. We are into a really dangerous place it away. Charlie it is the number one Foreign Policy dilemma for the United States and for the next president. Richard i believe Vital National interest are at stake. Interests are at stake. This is big. ,harlie lets take the chinese for example. Clearly, they have been resistant. They understand the damage of collapses, refugees come flooding across the border. They are concerned about the balance of power in the region. They are concerned about those two things. You spoke to us in part. Thats the reason they have been resistant. Theythey have been have joined the world in condemning this . Richard they voted for sanctions as recently as today. Privately, chinese diplomats hate the disdain the disdain they have for the North Koreans is hard to exaggerate. So, what can we do to influence them . The question is incentivizing them to say, look, i know you are scared about instability. We know youre scared about a combined korea, almost being like a combined vietnam. How can we reassure them about the orientation of that country, in terms of it could be better for the chinese in some ways . Also, the chinese have been complaining the last two months about our Missile Defenses there, the theater highaltitude that the United States and south korea are going ahead with. But the chinese have to know their failure to stop the north Korean Program is roughly responsible for what the United States and south korea is directly responsible for what United States and south korea are doing. We will be forced to take defensive measures that you are not going to like, because it may have implications for chinas own ability to carry out Nuclear Deterrence or project conventional motility conventional military force. We have to make it clear there are consequences china will not like if north korea continues to go down this path. Conversationsn over the last couple of years, theres a lot of people in china who see north korea as far more asset. Ability than an charlie so, there is internal debate within the chinese government, within the standing committee, about what ought to be the nature of our relationship with north korea and how do we reevaluate . Richard absolutely. And thats something that we ought to engage. Charlie thank you. Richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations. We will be right back. Stay with us. We continue our conversation about the challenge from north korea with christopher hill, the dean of the joseph corbel skill he served as a u. S. Ambassador to iraq from 2009 to 2010. In 2005, he headed the u. S. Delegation to the Six Party Talks aimed at resolving the north Korean Nuclear crisis. Im pleased to have them on this program this evening. Welcome, chris. Christopher thank you very much. Charlie tell me how you size up or size up for us the threat of north Koreas Nuclear capabilities. Christopher the threat is very real, and their Nuclear Capabilities are developing really by the day. I think in the past people talked about this as more of a stunt to get attention, whether there was an International Event going on and they would fire off a missile or something. But i think what we are seeing now is a pretty integrated military Program Designed to take make a Nuclear Warhead that can fit on an intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Its pretty clear that it is a military testing program. They will have their failures. They dont seem to be afraid anymore of having failures. They will learn from their failures and have another test until it works out. I think the time is approaching where we cant just give the Junior College try here. We are going to have to sit down and figure out what we are going to do about this very serious threat. Charlie a couple questions before we ask that very question, what are we going to do. How far are they having from having a deliverable Nuclear Warhead that could reach the United States . Christopher the honest answer is no one really knows. What we know is they have been successful with multistage rockets to what we know is they seem to have experiment did with different designs. You will notice in their statement they did not talk about a Nuclear Device. They talked about an actual weapon. I think they are getting closer. That said, there is a whole host of complexity to putting a missile. Arhead on a there is a lot of stuff that needs to be done. I dont think this is going to happen all by next tuesday, but its pretty clear that it is coming and it is probably moving faster than our policy apparatus has moved in terms of trying to come up with something to really deal with it. Charlie then what is our response if, in fact, they become successful, not only within the context of after theyve become successful, but what should our response be before they become successful . Christopher i suppose it depends on what the definition of unacceptable is, because we have talked for years about the idea that it is unacceptable to allow north korea to make a Nuclear Weapon that is deliverable and that can threaten its neighbors and, frankie, even intentionally threaten us and, frankly, even potentially threaten us. They dont care what the United States thinks, what china thinks, what the Security Council does. They dont seem to be dissuaded by sanctions, albeit those are sanctions that we can work harder to strengthen. They are one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. They dont seem to be moved by this. At the same time, the military options are pretty awful. Yet you going in an overt way the idea of going in an overt way to take out their missiles or their launch pads, things like this, these are fraught decisions, especially when you look at a map and you see that some 20 million South Koreans live within a stones throw almost of the border. The military option is not very good. The question is whether there might be some other options, options that probably shouldnt be discussed on television, but options, nonetheless, that could, in some way, through some theirf process, retard program and create circumstances where they cant move as fast as they clearly are moving today. And those intelligence those items are in the intelligence area. Things that probably the u. S. And china need to really have a deep dive to discuss. This idea that we can outsource this problem to china to say that the chinese need to solve it, and at the same time, the chinese are saying somehow the u. S. Needs to solve it neither of us can solve it on our own. We need to work far more, i think, comprehensively with the chinese and others on the range of capabilities that we have and how to apply those capabilities to retarding this program. Charlie could china shut it down if they wanted to . Christopher china probably could do more, but i think the problem in china is the lack of consensus on what it would mean if north korea went away. There are many chinese, especially in the security services, who would think of the demise of north korea as somehow a victory for the United States and a defeat for china. That mindset still exists in china, and so that has to change. It is changing. There are a lot more chinese who are really getting quite angry and fed up with the North Koreans, but, for now, they dont have the kind of consensus on what to do about north korea that they need in order to take the akoni and measures that are necessary to take the draconian measures that are necessary to do something about this nuclear threat. Probably the fifth nuclear test will convince some chinese who thought, oh, the americans are exaggerating. They are just trying to steal the march on us. They are just trying to pressure us. Probably some chinese are going to come over from that argument. But, still, china has a problem making these moves. Charlie is there greater National Security threat than north korea . Christopher you know, my own view, being sort of an oldfashioned guy, i worry about Nuclear Weapons. I worry about the proliferation of them. But i also worry about countries like north korea for whom a sense of responsibility is a completely elusive concept. So, if i stack up all of the problems in the world, whether d, whetheror worl its isis or whatever, i really think north korea should be at the top of those issues. I think we need a policy commence or it with the emerging threat policy commensurate with the emerging threat. Its not just a threat against in our partners and allies the region. Some of them would be interested in Going Nuclear if they see the threat unattended to. I think we need to look at the whole issue of what north koreas emergence as a Nuclear Power could mean to the whole international or global system of nonproliferation. It really makes a mockery of it. So, i think weve got a huge problem. And i think we need to, in terms of our relationship with china, really get that problem up at the top. Obviously, there are a lot of issues with china. The South China Sea is a serious issue. The East China Sea is also a serious issue, visavis china and japan, but i dont think there is a more serious one the north koreas hellbent desire for Nuclear Weapons. Charlie and all the possibilities they could do if they had them, not only as a threat to the region, but also to selling those weapons to nonstate actors who would have zero sense of responsibility about using them. Christopher thats right. Sell ad news is, if you Nuclear Weapon to someone and they use it, you can find out where that weapon came from. It is sort of like fingerprints. The bad news is, these are totally responsible entities. The use of one of these weapons is just hard to imagine in todays world. And when you see the North Koreans with a test of a weapon that is some 2 3 the size of hiroshima, i mean, this is a serious, serious problem, and its not going to go away by North Koreansthe have a lot of problems in their testing programs. They have not married up the weapon to a Ballistic Missile. Thats all true, but i think what you have to look at is the intent of north korea, which is quite clearly aimd at aimed at getting a deliverable Nuclear Weapon. Charlie suppose north korea has Nuclear Weapons and can deliver them through their own intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. How fast would it take for japan and south korea to have Nuclear Weapons that they could deliver in the region as well . Christopher i think those are two of the world most worlds most technologically advanced countries. If they wanted to go nuclear, they could do it, but they also pay a great deal of respect to the international system, to their obligations in the international system, so it would be a very heavy step for them to take. Currently, i dont think you could find public support for that type of thing. But from a technical point of view, they could do it very quickly. From a political and, frankly, civilizational point of view, i think it would take a lot longer. That said, we need to make sure that they understand that our Nuclear Weapons, our im sorry, our Nuclear Umbrella would cover them. Aat is, if they are hit by Nuclear Weapon, we would retaliate. Your duty bound, we are treaty bound to retaliate we are dutybound, we are treatybound to retaliate. We need to make sure they believe in that Nuclear Umbrella we have provided them. We have said you dont need Nuclear Weapons because we have Nuclear Weapons. They need to be absolutely sure that our commitment would be followed. Charlie chris hill, dean of the Joseph Korbel school of I