It’s really awesome to be here.
Thanks to Hannah and LiNK.
I’ve long admired this organization
and thank you for inviting me here
to spend some time with you guys.
It’s really exciting.
I usually spend a lot of time with old people
so it's very exciting to be surrounded
by such young, fresh, energetic, passionate folks
who’s like half my age.
That’s great. No, but
it's also very inspiring and humbling
to be here with you guys.
When I was listening to Justin,
I was thinking that
I am one of those old guys
that needs to,
that you need to help me think differently
in terms of narrative shifting
because I am one of those guys
who has been focused on, just simply
security and nuclear issue.
And to be very honest,
I have not focused so much on the humanitarian angle
or the North Korean people's angle.
So I am here today to
really learn as much as, to share with you,
some of my experiences, and sort of explain to you
why it is the US government has been so focused
on the nuclear issue, and why we have failed
so miserably, for two decades.
But let me just begin by sharing a little bit with you
my personal background as a way of introduction
and then I’ll get to that.
I am what you call a very proud,
one point five Korean generation -
- a Korean-American woman
Yay!
Who was born and grew up in Korea
before moving to the United States.
And as a child of two cultures,
and two worlds, I always hoped
to play a little bit of a role
to bridge these two worlds.
Right, there is my motherland,
which is South Korea.
And my adopted country
of United States.
When I was growing up in South Korea
my entire paternal grandparents,
on my paternal side, came from North Korea.
So even as a child I had a lot of interest also
in North Korea.
My birth father passed away
when I was very young, I was nine years old,
so my grandparents basically raised me,
and they are from North Korea,
and they used to speak with this very heavy
North Korean accent.
And I’d always hear about their stories;
they came to South Korea right before
the Korean War broke out
and then, you know, they never made it back.
So they spent the rest of their lives
always thinking and longing
for their homeland and wondering
what happened to their mother, father, brother, sister,
and so on.
Unfortunately, they both passed away
without ever being reunited
with their family members again
and they always applied for this
Kumgang family reunion thing
which they never got picked.
So, they both passed away
but I always had this kind of interest about North Korea
and it's so ironic that, I never would have imagined
as a child growing up with them in South Korea,
that one day, as an adult,
I’d work in the US government
working on North Korean issues.
But life is like that;
it's kind of unpredictable and ironic, and interesting.
But so, here I am.
I got my graduate degree
in Korean studies and Korean politics,
Masters and PhD.
And I started working for
the Central Intelligence Agency, like CIA.
And, it's not like how its depicted
in movies and TV series.
Although, Homeland kind of got it okay
in some angle. But that's good.
And I’ve solely focused on the North Korea issue
for 12 years.
So I think I can comment on
what the government people are thinking.
And, after doing that,
I also served at the National Security Council
as the Korea-Japan Director.
And again, there
I was very focused on Six Party talks
and the nuclear issue.
And then I was at a place called
the National Intelligence Council.
Now, I’m at Columbia University
being a boring professor, but that’s fine.
So let’s go back into why it is
that we just simply
have a hard time understanding North Korea.
Let me first start with the fact that
intelligence is extremely poor
when it comes to North Korea.
You think CIA knows everything about North Korea?
CIA knows jack about North Korea;
knows absolutely nothing.
You know, I got intrigued, this is why
I started working for the CIA in the first place;
because I thought, “Hey",
You know, they recruited me by saying,
"Do you want to know what Kim Jong Il
eats for breakfast?"
You know, "Come join us’”.
I do know that he used to love
What is it? Not Uni, but...
Toro! Toro, that was his favorite food.
But that's from the Sushi chef,
not CIA information.
Anyway, so
intelligence is very poor.
And there is a reason for that, right?
Because we can’t really run human operations,
you know, like the human..
Can you imagine bunch of white guys
running into North Korea?
like running around…
It’s not going to happen.
So we can’t run human operations in there.
And, you know,
the guys that we recruit out of North Korea
are mid-level guys, right out of Kuwait, out of wherever
and what do they know about North Korea?
even if we were able to recruit them
what do they really know about leadership intentions
or what’s going on at the nuclear level,
or what Kim Jong Un is thinking?
It's impossible to - they are just mid-level guys
it's really hard to recruit a high-level person
because we are not in the country.
So information is extremely poor.
And this is why, when Kim Jong Il died,
we were sitting, like,
I heard that Kim Jong Il died.
I called my colleagues from the CIA right away.
And I’m like, “What’s going on?"
"I heard Kim Jong Il died”.
And they’re like vacationing somewhere,
because it’s December, and they had no clue,
And we were basically, 48 hours later,
we had no clue. It’s only because
North Korea decided to tell us
that Kim Jong Il died
that we even found out about it.
So, we have very limited information to begin with.
And then number two, I think,
we really have a hard time understanding
North Korean ideology and mindset
and we continue to look at the North Korean problem
also from our own lens,
and our vantage point, and our own viewpoints,
instead of trying to understand
from their perspective
and their vantage point.
Together, with this lack of intelligence,
and lack of understanding of their true mindset
really makes us, sort of, not able to
comprehend or understand the regime’s intentions
or their capability fully.
And the third issue, I would say; the problem has been
again, what Justin was talking about;
an overemphasis on
just the focus on the nuclear issue
versus looking at
trying to solve the North Korean problem
as a whole, right?
.. and let’s talk about the nuclear issue for a little bit.
Obviously,
from the government’s perspective
we’re trying to protect
the interests of Americans.
And the security issue, therefore,
always trumps humanitarian issue, unfortunately.
And because North Korea has always been a headline -
-And it's a genuine threat... it’s not...
Let’s not say that it's not a genuine threat
because it is a genuine threat.
North Korea is now very close
to developing, we think,
it’s much closer to developing a ballistic
nuclear war head that could fit into a long term,
ballistic missile, that could reach
the continental United States.
And people in Washington don’t like this.
Of course it’s a threat.
But, let's review the nuclear history
of what we had been doing in terms of
what the US government has been doing.
You guys know that the nuclear crisis
really began in 1993
during the Clinton administration.
You guys were born after that?
I don’t even know what a millennial is,
Right? Okay, so fine.
So we had, the first nuclear crisis in 1994
because North Korea,
despite being a member of the NPT,
Non-Proliferation Treaty,
was developing nuclear weapons.
We found out in 1993 so, in 1994,
Jimmy Carter went there and tried to,
after lengthy negotiation
and lengthy dialogue, and we finally came out with
what you heard of
the Agreed Framework of 1994.
This was the first agreement
we had with North Korea.
this was a bilateral agreement
that they are going to stop
trying to develop nuclear weapons program,
stop plutonium production
in exchange for a US-led consortium
where we were going to build
two light water reactors for them
and give energy assistance.
Fine. So, we had this one deal that we made under
the Clinton administration.
But the problem is
North Koreans are notorious
for not keeping it's promises...
...right, the North Korean regime.
So, like in 1998,
they flew a rocket over mainland Japan
and they were continually developing
nuclear weapons program. And even in 2002
what happened was;
this was when I was working at the CIA,
we found out that North Korea was secretly
developing Uranium enrichment program.
And, in 2002, then assistant
Secretary of State for Asia Pacific Affairs Jim Kelly,
went to North Korea
and North Koreans even admitted to that.
So then, Bush,
this is also when the Bush administration first came in
and when the Bush administration first came in,
he exercised what our people
fondly remember as ABC policy,
which is “Anything But Clinton” policy.
And what that means is that
they had this whole review of what Clinton was doing,
including the North Korea policy.
And he had a sort of reversal of,
sort of, going back from the engagement
to a more hardline policy.
Bush called or labelled North Korea
as one of the “axis of evil” countries and he,
more or less, kind of followed this hard line policy.
And then what happened was
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test
in October 2006
And then we had a reversal of,
again, a reversal of a policy
where Bush changed from more of a hardline
to trying to engage with North Korea again;
a more moderate, pragmatic policy.
Bush gets bad rep because of
just the way he talks, this whole like,
“You’re with us, or without us”, you know.
He gets bad rep because of the way he speaks
And the Iraq fiasco, and so on.
So everybody’s assumption is that
Bush just pursued this hardcore, hardline policy
towards North Korea.
But he shifted this policy,
when it comes to North Korea, in his second term.
We pursued the Six Party Talks
and he was very desperate to
come up with some sort of a deal towards the end
to the point, where, we then delisted North Korea
off the terrorism sponsor list
in the last year of Bush administration.
Really angering our friend and ally, Japan.
My point is,
from Clinton to Bush we tried
the Agreed Framework, we had Bilateral Discussion,
Engagement,
we had multilateral discussion, Six-party talks,
we had a hardline approach of Bush’s first term,
we had more of a multilateral dialogue approach
in the second term.
So we’ve already, kind of, tried
different approaches to the nuclear crisis.
And then Obama administration comes in.
When Obama came in
he didn’t do ABB policy, “Anything But…
...Bush”.
Good, I’m testing you guys!
So, he was sort of -
- he said, "I’m just going to sort of continue with
the Engagement policy that’s in place".
So when Obama came in
remember, I don’t even know,
you guys are old enough to remember that, I think.
So when Obama and Hillary Clinton
were having a debate,
do you remember when Obama said
"I’m going to meet, I’m willing to meet Kim Jong Il"
"Any time. Any place", and so on..
So he was willing to engage with North Korea
And then what happens?
First six months of
Obama coming into the office we have long range,
short range missile tests.
We have second nuclear test,
we have complete withdrawal of...
...North Korea announcing
that it's going to completely withdraw
from the Six Party Talks.
North Korea’s announcement that it's now going to
pursue enrichment Uranium program, and so on.
So this all happened in the first six months
of the Obama administration
before he could even find his desk
in the Oval Office, right?
He is a busy guy! He comes into his office
and he’s trying to figure things out and then
boom boom boom!
This is what happens in
how North Korea really overplays its hand
because, probably, North Korea is thinking,
Kim Jong Il’s thinking, was, you know,
"We’ll just show them".
They hate to be ignored,
so it’s like, "We’re going to show them
and we’re going to get
the Obama administration to play ball
and negotiate better".
But, they completely misplayed it.
So, because what that really compelled
the Obama White House to do
is do a complete review
of North Korea policy, right?
Because, it’s like, "wow!"
Because, at least with Bush, you can kind of blame him
and maybe it’s his fault.
People’s perceptions is
maybe it’s his fault
maybe it’s the way, his policy is too hard
thats why North Korea is behaving this way.
But with Obama,
he didn’t really do anything.
He didn’t have a chance to do anything.
So it's like, even just perception-wise,
it looks like, “OK, what is North Korea doing
with all these provocations?”
So they're compelled to review
and what came out of that
is what you call, this,
what is dubbed as “Strategic Patience Policy”.
You’ve heard of this term “Strategic Patience”.
What the hell is Strategic Patience?
It just basically means that
we’re not going to buy this horse again,
as Secretary of Defense said.
We’re tired of playing this game
Right?
And you are familiar with,
and now everyone is familiar with,
North Korea’s modus operandi, M.O.
You know, you’ve heard of this cycle, right?
They always make some sort of provocation,
right, and then
that’s always followed by international condemnation,
“Oh, terrible!”
And then they’re like
“Oh yeah, up the ante!” right?
And its like, "Here’s more".
And then we’re like, “oh no!”
Then they pivot back into some sort of peace offensive
“Oh no, ok, we’re now calm”.
Look at last year
after all that provocation, then they are calm,
then they talk to Seoul,
now they’re talking to Japanese,
they do some sort of peace offensive thing
and then
people get back to the negotiation table.
And that usually
leads to some sort of concessions to North Koreans
and they get something out of it.
This cycle,
sort of, you’ve heard of
this like 'provoke and get paid' cycle,
has been continuing now twenty years.
So, what the Obama administration is now doing
is saying
“We don’t want to do this”.
"Because we’ve been doing this for 20 years”
The problem is, now he’s been criticized for
"That’s all fine and dandy, but
you’re just sitting here, right?
so you’re not doing much".
You say "Until North Korea changes",
so, Strategic Patience is basically saying
"Until North Korea is serious
about denuclearization
we’re not going to engage with you.
we’re not going to talk to you".
But while you are sitting here
then, what’s going on?
Not much is going on,
except North Korea is continuing its nuclear
and developing and getting better
its nuclear and missile capabilities.
Meanwhile,
what’s going on with the humanitarian situation
and human rights situation?
Absolutely nothing.
It's always been
in the back burner, right?
Security policy, nuclear policy
always trumped humanitarian concerns.
And I think when you’re talking about
changing the narrative, what’s important is -
- because Washington, you can talk
until you’re blue in the face,
but if Washington thinks
its not in its interest
in terms of, policy interests,
they’re not going to really move.
So I think it's...
... but, it is in Washington’s policy interest.
Because we have seen
that it has not worked.
This over-focus on just the nuclear policy
and not caring enough
about the people of North Korea;
what’s going on in North Korea situation,
and what’s going on in the bottom crowd;
it is against our interests.
So beyond the whole humanitarian concern interest
that you guys are all concerned about,
and I’m glad that you are;
but, to them, I think I can go back and say,
"Now, in your interest,
even in just your national interest-wise
our policy has not worked and is not working.
And now we need to do more.
We need to expand our focus
beyond nuclear to include
more of humanitarian concern,
and trying to get information back into North Korea,
trying to help more North Korean defectors,
and there is so much more we can do.
But, I think that narrative
is trying to make them understand
that it's in their interest
and I think, it could do... I think it could work.
I was in Washington DC last week,
testifying at Capitol Hill
and the Congress is very interested about North Korea.
I think we are sort of, kind of, getting there
because they understand that our current policy
has not been working, right?
At least the UN Commission of Inquiry
came out earlier this year
really highlighting the grotesque violations
that's going on;
the human rights, humanitarian violations
that is going on in North Korea.
I think it’s finally capturing Washington’s attention.
And I think it’s a good thing.
And I do really think that all your efforts
and LiNK and others
sort of being out there saying,
"Change the narrative, change the narrative"
is sort of slowly...
... I mean, it's not moving fast enough for me,
but it's slowly making some difference.
And that is the only way
that we can really solve
a larger North Korean problem.
Because even as someone
who watched the North Korean issue for last 12 years,
North Korea is not giving up its nuclear weapons.
Okay?
Nothing is changing at the high level.
Kim Jong Un is, you know, pursuing the exact
policy that his father and his grandfather pursued.
Economic reform, I think...
changes are happening at the bottom level
but at the high level
they are not really reforming.
He spent one point three billion dollars in 2012
on the missile program alone.
One point three billion dollars
when his people are starving.
He spent three hundred million dollars
on that aquarium in the dolphin park
with the 3D movie cinema, or whatever.
Three hundred million dollars on that
while people are starving.
So it's not changing over there.
So, you guys were talking about
things are changing at the bottom level, right,
in terms of markets, and the jangmadang generation,
your counterparts in North Korea, the millennials,
Seongmin and all the rest who were talking about it.
Things are happening there.
And information, blockade...
... more information is seeping in, right?
Monopoly on information
is one of the ways the Kim regime or the Kim dynasty
has stayed in power.
There are several reasons,
several pillars of stability,
like when you think about
how did North Korea stay in power for this long?
And there are many reasons for it, right?
Elite support;
as long as you have elite support
you can stay in power.
Because, you know,
bad things can happen to people,
but because of elite support of the Kim Dynasty,
Kim family,
they stay in power.
Foreign assistance;
Chinese still gives a lot of money.
But other reasons are
the security service and information;
a monopoly on information.
That's how they sustain power.
But that is slowly changing, right?
We have information coming into North Korea
and thanks to defectors
who play this role as a bridge
to bring information back.
So, things are changing on the ground
and I do think its all our responsibility
to try to do more on this front.
Not only as Koreans, Korean-Americans,
but as Americans who care about
North Korean people,
but just as human beings.
I think it's all of our responsibility.
And as Winston Churchill,
one of my favorite heroes, used to say,
“Greatness is responsibility”.
(applause)