Stanford University

Discussion with General Vincent Brooks: Challenges and Opportunities in Korea

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About the speaker: Vincent K. Brooks is a career Army officer who recently retired from active duty as the four-star general in command of all U.S. Forces in Korea, where he concurrently commanded United Nations Command – continuously serving since 1950 and initially commanded by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur; and the Republic of Korea-U.S. Combined  Forces Command comprising over 625,000 Koreans and Americans under arms.

General Brooks, who goes by “Vince,” is a 1980 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the first class to include women, and he led the 4,000 cadets as the cadet brigade commander or “First Captain.”  He is the first African American to have been chosen for this position, and he was also the first cadet to lead the student body when women were in all four classes (freshman or “plebe” to senior or “first classman”).

General Brooks is from a career military family and claims Alexandria, Virginia as home given the long roots in maternal and paternal branches of the family tree. His areas of expertise are national security, policy, strategy, international relations, military operations, combating terrorism and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, diversity and inclusion, leadership in complex organizations, crisis leadership, and building cohesive trust-based teams. He is a combat veteran and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, currently director of U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, will moderate the discussion. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 until 2011. Before appointment as Chief of Mission on Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a thirty-five year career in the United States Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of Lieutenant General.
 

This keynote event is part of the 11th annual Koret Workshop, "North Korea and the World in Flux," and open to the general public with registration.

The event is made possible through the generous support of the Koret Foundation. 

 

Oksenberg Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd floor
616 Serra Mall, Stanford University
 

General Vincent Brooks <i>former Commander of U.S. Forces Korea</i>
Moderated by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
Seminars
Koret Workshop
Koret Workshop
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Transcript: Andrew Kim on North Korea Denuclearization and U.S.-DPRK Diplomacy

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Sung Andrew Kim
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In his much-anticipated first public speech, former head of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center Andrew Kim, currently our William J. Perry Visiting Scholar, provided insights into the process of diplomatic engagement with the DPRK and outlined a roadmap for achieving the U.S. goal of North Korea denuclearization. Kim, who helped orchestrate the 2018 Singapore summit between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, spoke at APARC on February 22 to a packed audience and members of the media. The full transcript of his remarks follows below. 

Prices for Denuclearization of North Korea

Andrew Kim
Remarks delivered at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center | February 22, 2019
 
 
We have a long history of negotiating with Pyongyang on denuclearization. These negotiations have been in different formats from bilateral talks to trilateral talks to four-party talks to six party talks. We learned many lessons through these engagements. These lessons provide a useful reference, but they should not close our minds to new possibilities.  
 
The North Korea that we are currently facing has the ability to produce and test ICBM and nuclear weapons that threaten its neighbors and even U.S. territories. 
 
The North Korean WMD issue has become worse over the years to the point that we can no longer wait for this problem to naturally go away. We now have a new leader in North Korea who says he wants to engage and appears to want to take his country on a new path. South Korean President Moon strongly wants to bring North Korea out of isolation. At the same time, we have a U.S. administration focused on proactively trying to resolve this national security challenge.  
 
We have new players, like President Trump, Chairman Kim Jong Un, and South Korea President Moon, who want to make this work. I can say that the stars have lined up. Personally, based on the last two years of my own engagements as a senior U.S. official with Chairman Kim, his senior officials, as well as key South Korean officials, I have come to believe that we have a great window of opportunity to engage Pyongyang and resolve this long-standing North Korean nuclear issue once and for all. 
 
To me, Chairman Kim appears to have a strong desire to improve North Korea’s relationship with the U.S., as he appears to believe that it is the only way to lead his country into prosperity and to enhance regime security at the same time. However, there is still a strong debate as to whether Kim would truly denuclearize. 
 
As the old Korean saying “dong-sang-yi-mong” goes, we are thinking the same, but dreaming differently. Perhaps that is where we are. But I believe that there is only one way to find out what Chairman Kim’s true intentions are, namely, to continue to engage him directly and test his willingness to proceed with the diplomacy of denuclearization. Let me share what I observed and heard. 
 
In early April 2018, I accompanied then-CIA Director Pompeo to Pyongyang to meet with Chairman Kim. Our main objective was to confirm one single most important point that the South Korean special envoy relayed to us a couple of weeks prior. According to the South Korean envoy, Chairman Kim stated to the South Korean delegation that he is willing to denuclearize. When Director Pompeo asked Chairman Kim directly whether the Chairman intended to denuclearize, the Chairman said that he is a father and husband and he does not want his children to live their lives carrying nuclear weapons on their back. 
 
During the meeting, Kim not only confirmed his previous statement about his willingness to denuclearize, but he also strongly emphasized the need to improve U.S.-North Korea relations in order to build trust before North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons. 
 
What Kim appeared to have meant was that after over 70 years of hostilities between the United States and North Korea, both countries need to focus on building a warm relationship and confidence before he can trust the United States enough to give up his nuclear ambitions.
 
Against this backdrop, it appears that the overarching challenge has been how the two countries can improve bilateral relationship and built trust while pursuing denuclearization. It is clear that both processes of denuclearization and improving relationship include many secondary issues and questions that must be addressed.
 
It is clear that establishing effective communication is a good starting point in establishing a new relationship and engaging in the diplomacy of denuclearization. Building mutual trust is a process that takes considerable efforts and it begins with enhancing and increasing communication. Specifically, the denuclearization process requires intense negotiations and involves not only technical and political-based communication, but also communication that is culture-informed.
 
Increasing speed and bandwidth, combined with a positive attitude, are key to successful communication, which is yet to come. Also, it is not just the content that matters, but also how you deliver it. 
 
It appears that the current Trump administration officials are fully aware of the need to increase communication with North Korea and have attempted to speed up and raise the volume of communication with their North Korean counterparts in every occasion since the 2018 Singapore summit.
 
On the other hand, North Korea continues to proceed in a measured pace and has not demonstrated its willingness to change its traditional communication method, i.e., communicate only when it is required. It is doubtful whether North Korea can strike a new friendship with the United States if it only choses to talk when it is necessary. 
 
It is understandable that Chairman Kim’s diplomatic engagements in 2018 can be described as truly high-speed and unprecedented, as he had three meetings with South Korean President Moon, three meetings with PRC President Xi, and a summit with President Trump. All these events required an extremely large amount of resources before and after the meetings. It is particularly interesting to see that North Korea uses the same officials to prepare these meetings and follow up afterward. How much these officials are stretched during this period? Have they had capacity to keep up with the U.S. demand for increased communication and meetings? 
 
North Korea's government is built on a typical top-down model. Currently, the most powerful individual is the Chairman of State Affairs Commission (KJU) and the Worker's Party has the largest decision-making power. Within the Worker’s Party, various departments follow a top-down system under the Central Committee. The current main counterpart of the U.S. negotiation team is a department within the Worker’s Party, which is appointed by Chairman Kim. Unlike the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, functioning outside of the Worker’s Party, this department has a rather small pool of resources, but maintains a strong pride being a department within the Worker’s Party.
 
I raise this background of real communication challenges because it is a very important element to overcome in order to create the right atmosphere for success in the negotiation process.
 
Let’s go back to 2017. We all remember how intense the situation was at the time, as North Korea tested missiles of all kinds almost every other month and tested the largest nuclear weapon to date. I witnessed for the first time how many South Koreans, who had been immune to the North’s threats before, were taking this threatening situation seriously. I received many phone calls from friends in Seoul asking whether it would be safe to be in Seoul at the time. I told them that my daughter had been staying in Seoul for her study abroad program and would continue to be there. I think that reassured them. It is just an illustration of the situation at the time.
 
During that intense period, critics were very vocal about the lack of U.S. engagement with North Korea. Many were concerned about the situation and asked the U.S. to engage with North Korea to defuse the tension. Now that we are engaging, the critics have changed their tune and say we are going to be played by the North. Well, I have strong confidence in our folks as they are fully aware of the challenges they are facing. As Secretary of State Pompeo says all the time, the United States is going into this path with eyes wide open. 
 
I know there is a concern that President Trump or Secretary of State Pompeo may make concessions to North Korea because they might buy into Kim Jong Un’s appeasement strategy. But, based on my own experience sitting down with our current policymakers many times to discuss our strategies forward, I assure you that they have a clear understanding that the diplomatic engagement is one of many tools in their toolbox. They assume nothing and are consistently re-evaluating their approach to North Korea at every critical juncture. 
 
Before discussing what would be the prices to be paid by both the United States and North Korea to resolve the nuclear issue, let’s review what have been done so far since 2017. Also, I would like to point out what the United States provided North Korea during the past engagements. These are important data point as we are moving into a new set of negotiation: 
  • During the Agreed Framework from 1994-2002, the international community provided approximately 1.5 billion U.S. dollars and the U.S. government provided 400 million U.S. dollars in heavy fuel oil (HFO).
  • During the Six-Party Talks from 2003-2009, the United States provided approximately 200 million dollars for the cost of HFO and dismantling a part of Yongbyon.
  • We even released over 20 million U.S. dollars back to North Korea, an amount that was blocked by a Banco Delta Asia investigation.
  • We also removed North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
 
Since 2017, the United States has taken the following steps:
  • The Secretary of State rolled up his sleeves and proactively engaged the North Korean leadership by visiting Pyongyang four times within one year. This level of commitment is unprecedented and a remarkable demonstration of active problem solving from our country’s top diplomat. This was the first positive response from the United States to North Korea since the 2017 Missile crisis. 
  • President Trump provided a world stage for Kim Jong Un to debut and got him the global attention that he wanted.
  • The United States and South Korea also agreed to suspend joint military exercises. I recall how, during a meeting with Chairman Kim, the Chairman noted that he understood both the U.S. and South Korea claim that the joint military exercises were defensive in nature, but that the North Korean public feels these exercises are offensive. 
 
What are the actions that North Korea side has taken since 2017?
  • It suspended missile and nuclear testing. 
  • Pyongyang released detainees without protracted negotiations.
  • The North returned the remains of U.S. servicemen killed in action during the Korean War.
  • It partially dismantled Yunsong missiles engine testing site and dismantled Punggeri nuclear weapon testing site.
  • It once again tabled Yongbyon nuclear research facilities.
 
North Korea probably believes and publicly claims that it partially dismantled its WMD programs, and they are asking for immediate rewards. 
 
I personally heard that the North claimed their concessions are much more valuable than reciprocal actions the U.S. side has taken so far. They said they took these actions as part of their commitment to build trust with the United States on denuclearization. North Korea demanded several times to evaluate all the actions Pyongyang has taken since the June 2018 Singapore summit as some sort of a major denuclearization milestone. 
 
I believe that North Korea still has a long way to go and that it needs to further demonstrate its sincerity by dismantling key strategic weapons production infrastructure. Lessons of the past place the burden of proof on the North. Pyongyang needs to convince the international community that it means what it says, because the level of skepticism is sky high, and for a reason.
 
In the end, whatever horse-trading Washington decides to do with Pyongyang, our objective needs to remain crystal clear and not waver. Our leaders need to continue to stop and check our assumptions and check what demonstrable progress we are making against our goal. 
 
And our goal is simple, although it may be long and difficult to achieve: Final Fully Verifiable Denuclearization (FFVD). What does FFVD mean?
It means:
  • The North is to halt the testing of Nuclear weapons and launches of ballistic missiles.
  • North Korea is to permit U.S. and international technical experts access to key WMD-related sites throughout the process.
  • Pyongyang is to declare and shut down all nuclear facilities.
  • The North is to completely dismantle and remove its nuclear weapons, delivery systems, facilities, and associated material from the Korean peninsula with an agreed timeline.
  • North Korea is to provide a comprehensive declaration of its nuclear and ballistic missiles, as well as chemical and biological programs.
  • North Korea is to rejoin the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
 
And what are North Korea’s goals?
  • Pyongyang wants the removal all U.N. designated sanctions.
  • The North wants resumption of inter-Korea economic projects, including Kaesong industrial Park and Kumkang mountain tourism project.
  • The North wants to obtain an End-of-War declaration.
  • It wants to be recognized as a nuclear state, if possible.
  • It wants to improve its relationship with the United States, with an eye towards establishing a diplomatic relationship.
  • It wants to place a long-lasting peace mechanism in the Korean peninsula that reassures continued Kim family rule in the North.
 
What price would the United States and North Korea each be willing to pay?
On the U.S. side, I see three incentive categories:
 
Within the Economic Incentive category:
  • The United States would be able to provide humanitarian assistance to North Korea;
  • It could ease restrictions on North Korean banking transactions;
  • It could modify or ease existing import and export gaps;
  • It could provide exemptions for joint ventures to be implemented in economic zones.
 
In the Political Incentives category:
  • The United States could lift its travel ban;
  • It could establish a liaison office;
  • It could start promoting cultural exchanges;
  • It could lift the U.S. sanctions on Kim family members and senior officials;
  • It could delist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
 
In terms of Security Incentives:
  • The United States could sign an End-of-War declaration;
  • It could begin military-to-military engagement;
  • It could sign a Peace treaty;
  • It could establish a diplomatic relationship.
And for the last step, when FFVD is seen approaching,
  • The United States could lift U.N. sanctions.
 
What are the prices that North Korea should pay?
  • The North needs to completely shut down all nuclear facilities;
  • It needs to eventually hand over a comprehensive declaration of its nuclear and ballistic missiles, as well as its chemical and biological programs;
  • It needs to accept U.S. and international experts and provide access to its WMD facilities; 
  • It needs to agree to set a timeline and work with the United States and international experts to dismantle and remove its nuclear weapons, missiles, facilities and associated material from Korea;
  • It needs to agree to rejoin the NPT; 
  • It should reform its foreign investment rules and regulation to make investment a friendly environment for the international community;
  • It should improve its human rights record. And, perhaps, they should start with ease on freedom of religion. (There was a rich history of Christianity in Pyongyang 100 years ago.) 
 
Does all of this look like an impossible mission? Probably not. I believe these are all achievable. During the diplomatic process, I assumed that the North would push the U.S. counterparts hard to obtain as much concessions as possible and would demand a concession-for-concession approach. I also assumed that it would be a one-step-back and two-steps-forward process. In the end, North Korea would prefer a transactional negotiation, but Kim Jong Un recognizes that he has to compromise, and his negotiation position has evolved throughout the process.
 
I believe that Kim Jong Un delivered on his promise to his people already: better life and economic prosperity. It appears that most North Koreans welcome Kim’s engagement policy and support his attempt to improve the economic situation in North Korea. It gives them hope. It is not a good idea for Chairman Kim to walk back and ask his people to abandon hope at this point. 
 
Past engagements, including the Agreed Framework and Six-Party Talks, all started with ambitious goals focusing on denuclearization of North Korea, improving relations between the United States and North Korea, and establishing a lasting peace regime on the Korean peninsula. However, they did not work out because both sides tried to solve all the issues tactically rather than strategically. 
 
The conflict is not only about denuclearization, it is also about redrawing the geopolitical and geo-economic map for North Korea. I hope that this time around, both sides would continue to keep a clear eye on the objectives and approach the process strategically. Imagine how a successful outcome of the current negotiations would positively impact the people of North Korea, the Korean Peninsula as a whole, the entire region, and the entire world in three to five years.   
 
Thank You.
 
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The Second Trump-Kim Summit Must Settle the Big Questions

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Gi-Wook Shin
Joyce Lee
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Washington and Pyongyang must agree on key concepts and eliminate ambiguities if they want a real breakthrough. 
“There is no detailed definition or shared agreement of what denuclearization entails....” These words were not from critics of ambivalence in the Trump administration’s nuclear negotiations with North Korea. Rather surprisingly, they were the words of the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, during his speech at Stanford University last month. He had been asked whether the United States and North Korea had consensus on the technicality of the term “denuclearization.” Yet, this is only one of the many problematic ambiguities surrounding North Korean denuclearization.
 
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un will be shaking hands again in Hanoi, Vietnam on February 27-28. In the past year, the two adversarial countries have striven—probably the most in the history of their relations—to move away from the brink of war toward intensive communications and diplomatic endeavors. Still, amidst widespread skepticism, Trump’s diplomatic efforts with North Korea are often criticized in Washington and elsewhere for failing to produce adequate tangible deliverables on North Korean denuclearization. Even with a number of meaningful and voluntary gestures seemingly put toward denuclearization in the past year, North Korea has yet to give a clear indication of a firm decision to completely and entirely dismantle its nuclear capability. As Special Representative Biegun conveyed, progress on the nuclear front after the Singapore summit has been minimal, inviting criticism and greater skepticism regarding the upcoming summit and the Trump administration’s North Korea policy in general.
 
For this very reason, the Vietnam summit is all the more purposive. Trump and Kim must resolve the divergences and ambiguities implicit in their central questions, before they can make any meaningful progress toward denuclearization and whatever measures for the progress of denuclearization.
 
Read the full article on The National Interest.
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North Korea in 2018: A Q&A with Siegfried Hecker

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Siegfried S. Hecker
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In May 2018, Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) scholars Siegfried Hecker, Robert Carlin, and Elliot Serbin released an in-depth report analyzing the nuclear history of North Korea between 1992 and 2017 alongside a historical research-based “roadmap” for denuclearization.

Since then, tensions between North Korea and South Korea have thawed. United States President Trump met with Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June, and another U.S.-North Korea summit is planned for later this month.

Today, the CISAC researchers release a 2018 update to their report, chronicling and analyzing historic developments in North Korea over the past year. In this Q&A with Katy Gabel Chui, CISAC Senior Fellow and former Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Siegfried Hecker shares what the team learned:

Your research demonstrates that South Korean, North Korean, and U.S. efforts in 2018 were able to lower tensions and the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula. How? What actions were most effective toward this end?

At the end of 2017, the Moon Jae-in administration in South Korea made secret overtures to the Kim Jong-un regime. Kim Jong-un responded positively in his 2018 New Year Speech, proposing to send North Korean athletes to the South as part of a joint delegation for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Seoul.  He also initiated serious diplomatic overtures to Washington. These efforts led to the North/South Summit in April and the historic Singapore Summit in June.

Yet, in spite of these positive initiatives, you did not rate U.S. and North Korean diplomacy at your highest level, why is that?

We stopped one level short for both (a G2 instead of a G3) because progress in talks that followed the summit quickly hit a wall when the US side called for the North to produce a full declaration of its nuclear weapons program, to which Pyongyang responded angrily. The rest of the year was up and down. Nevertheless, the Singapore Summit took the critical step away from the brink of war. The North and South also continued to make remarkable progress toward reconciliation with two more presidential summits.

Most of the focus in the U.S. has been on an apparent failure of North Korea to denuclearize. But you note in your research that the Singapore summit pledged normalization and denuclearization. Why has progress stalled?

First, denuclearization is a poorly defined concept. We should focus on the elimination of the North’s nuclear weapons, the means of production and means of delivery. Second, Washington has so far not taken steps toward normalization. It has insisted on maintaining maximum pressure and sanctions, which Pyongyang considers incompatible with normalization.

Nevertheless, you claim that the threat posed by North Korea was substantially reduced. What about the North’s nuclear capabilities – were these reduced in 2018?

The diplomatic initiatives have greatly reduced the threat. Our study, which looks at the details of how the capabilities have changed in 2018, concludes that the rapid escalation of overall capabilities in 2017 and prior years was halted and in some cases rolled back.

But your research also shows North Korea continued to operate its nuclear weapons complex in 2018, and that it is still producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

We are not surprised that North Korea has not halted its fissile materials production in absence of formal negotiations. Our analysis of open-source satellite imagery of the Yongbyon complex led us to estimate they may have added sufficient plutonium and highly enriched uranium for an additional 5 to 7 nuclear weapons on top of our 2017 estimate of approximately 30 weapons.

There have also been reports that it has continued to maintain, produce, and deploy its land-based ballistic missiles. These activities don’t look like the North is denuclearizing.

In our study, we look at the three requisites for a nuclear arsenal – fissile materials, weaponization (that is design, build, and test), and delivery. The North did continue to produce fissile materials. But it took the remarkable step to end nuclear testing and long-range missile testing at a time during which North Korea had been rapidly increasing the sophistication of its nuclear weapons and missiles and their destructive power and reach. Therefore, we conclude that the North not only halted that rapid advance but also rolled back the threat we judged the North’s nuclear and missile programs to pose in 2017.

It sounds like there is a long way to go to denuclearize. In May of last year, you released a framework for denuclearization of North Korea based around a “halt, roll back and eliminate” process. Where does North Korea stand, if anywhere, in that process today?

Our color charts track the progress. Contrary to what we have heard in the media, North Korea has actually halted and rolled back some nuclear activities, with the most important being the end of nuclear and missile testing, which in turn, has significant consequences. In fact, in 2018 it did not flight test missiles of any range. However, the road to final elimination will be long and difficult, especially because of the serious trust deficit between Washington and Pyongyang. We suggested a 10-year time frame last year.

Haven’t you also suggested a way to speed up that process?

Yes, we propose that North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S. explore cooperative efforts to demilitarize North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and convert them to civilian nuclear and space programs. Such cooperation has the potential of accelerating the elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons program. It will, in the long term, also greatly improve the prospects of adequate verification.

How do you get North Korea to go along with any of these ideas?

That’s the job of our negotiators. When Special Representative Stephen Biegun was here at Stanford recently, he showed a lot of flexibility to have the U.S. phase denuclearization with normalization. I think that’s what it will take. But a lot of hard work lies ahead.

Full Report: A Comprehensive History of North Korea's Nuclear Program: 2018 Update

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Prices for Denuclearization of North Korea

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Note:

  • Members of the media interested in covering this event should contact Noa Ronkin at noa.ronkin@stanford.edu by 5:00 pm, Wednesday, February 20, to register. They will also need to present their press credentials for admission. 
  • No recording allowed.
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About the speaker: Andrew Kim recently retired as a senior intelligence officer from the Central Intelligence Agency after 28 years of service. He established the CIA's Korea Mission Center in April 2017 in response to a presidential initiative to address North Korea's longstanding threat to global security. As part of his role as head of the Mission Center, he managed and guided CIA Korean analysts in providing strategic and tactical analytic products for a range of policymakers. He accompanied CIA Director and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang in meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times. Formerly he served as the Agency's associate deputy director for operations and technology, leading all efforts to update operational technology and incorporate a state-of-the-art doctrine into CIA training curricula.

Earlier in his career, Kim served as the CIA's chief of station in three major East Asian cities, while also managing the intelligence relationship with politically and militarily complicated foreign countries and advancing U.S. interests. He speaks fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese.

 

 
Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Sung Andrew Kim

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Sung Hyun "Andrew" Kim was a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) through December 2019. Previously he was William J. Perry visiting scholar at APARC. Kim, who retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2018 as a senior intelligence officer after 28 years of service, was assistant director of the CIA's Korea Mission Center, where he helped secure the foundation for the Trump-Kim summit of June 2018.  At Stanford, he will contribute to studies of current North Korea diplomacy in comparison to previous negotiations with the DPRK, a research scope that he refers to as "U.S.-DPRK summit of the century and the tide of history."  Kim will also participate in policy engagement regarding North Korea issues through Shorenstein APARC and its Korea Program.

Kim established the CIA's Korea Mission Center in April 2017 in response to a presidential initiative to address North Korea's longstanding threat to global security. As part of his role as head of the Mission Center, he managed and guided CIA Korean analysts in providing strategic and tactical analytic products for a range of policymakers. He accompanied CIA Director and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang in meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times. Formerly he served as the Agency's associate deputy director for operations and technology, leading all efforts to update operational technology and incorporate a state-of-the-art doctrine into CIA training curricula.

Earlier in his career, Kim served as the CIA's chief of station in three major East Asian cities, while also managing the intelligence relationship with politically and militarily complicated foreign countries and advancing U.S. interests. In recognition of his many contributions, Kim was honored by the Agency with the Director's Award (2018), Presidential Rank Award (2012), and the Donovan Award (1990). He speaks fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese.

Visiting Scholar at APARC
<i>William J. Perry Visiting Scholar, APARC, Stanford University </i>
Seminars
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun Delivers First Public Address on U.S.-DPRK Diplomacy at a Shorenstein APARC Event

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Noa Ronkin
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The United States is prepared to pursue “simultaneously and in parallel” all of the commitments outlined at the Trump-Kim Singapore Summit, said the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun at an event hosted by Shorenstein APARC on Thursday, January 31.
 
Biegun's remarks, delivered as he prepares to travel to South Korea for meetings with North and South Korean officials, were his first public address since he began his appointment in August 2018. On behalf of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Mr. Biegun directs all U.S. policy on North Korea and leads negotiations.
 
Just prior to the event President Trump said he will announce next week the site and date for the second summit he plans with Kim Jong Un at the end of February. Biegun noted that the U.S. is prepared to move forward “provided that North Korea likewise fulfills its commitment to final, fully verified denuclearization” and that “there are many challenges that make it especially complicated for the United States and North Korea to embark upon a diplomatic initiative of this magnitude.” But he also highlighted several areas of progress and concluded his remarks by saying, “Now is the opportunity. Now is the moment. The United States is ready to turn the vision outlined by President Trump and Chairman Kim at Singapore into reality.”
 
Mr. Biegun’s public address was followed by a conversation with Robert Carlin, a specialist on U.S.–North Korea relations and a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. The event concluded with a question-and-answer session. 
 
Watch the full event, which was live streamed on Shorenstein APARC’s Facebook page and is available to view on demand. A transcript of Mr. Biegun’s remarks is also available. See also the Department of State's website.
 

 

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U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun to Speak at Shorenstein APARC Event

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JANUARY 30 UPDATE
 
A live video stream of the discussion with Stephen Biegun will be available through Shorenstein APARC's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/stanfordsaparc.

 

Stephen Biegun, the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, will deliver public remarks as part of a discussion on the DPRK hosted by Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) on Thursday, January 31, at 12 p.m. As Special Representative, on behalf of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Mr. Biegun directs all U.S. policy on North Korea, leads negotiations, and spearheads U.S. diplomatic efforts with allies and partners.
 
Following his opening remarks, Mr. Biegun will be in conversation with Robert Carlin, an expert on U.S.-North Korea relations and a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. The event will conclude with a question-and-answer session. It will be held at the Koret-Taube Conference Center at the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn SIEPR Building.
 
The event is open to the Stanford community and the public, but a Stanford or government-issued ID must be presented for admission.
 
The event is on-the-record but off-camera: no photography or video recording will be allowed. Cameras will not be allowed inside the venue.
Media Advisory:
Journalists interested in covering the discussion on the DPRK with Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun should contact Shorenstein APARC’s Associate Director for Communications and External Relations Noa Ronkin at noa.ronkin@stanford.edu by 12:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 30, to register. At the venue, they will be required to present a press credential from an established news organization. Freelance reporters should email a letter from the news organization for which they work to Noa Ronkin by the January 30 deadline. The press area is limited and press seating is not guaranteed.
 
As noted above, the event is on-the-record but off-camera.
 
Attendees and media should enter the campus via Galvez Street and park at the Galvez Lot or other designated, paid visitor parking. See also Stanford’s parking map. No parking at the Stanford Oval is allowed.
View Event Page
 

 

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Discussion on the DPRK with Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun

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UPDATE: This event will be live streamed on our Facebook page. Follow us there to make sure you don't miss the start.

This event is open to the Stanford community and the public, but a Stanford or government-issued ID must be presented for admission.

The event is on-the-record but off-camera. No photography or video recording will be permitted. Cameras will not be permitted inside the venue.

Members of the media: registration is required; please follow the directions below.

Join the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center for a discussion on the DPRK with the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun.
 
Mr. Biegun will deliver opening remarks followed by a conversation with Robert Carlin, an expert on U.S.-North Korea relations and a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. The event will conclude with a question-and-answer session.
 
Members of the media interested in covering the event should register with Shorenstein APARC by 12:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 30. A press credential must be presented for admission.
Read Our Media Advisory and Register

Speaker bio: 

Stephen E. Biegun was appointed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea in August 2018. As Special Representative, on behalf of the Secretary of State he directs all U.S. policy on North Korea, leads negotiations, and spearheads U.S. diplomatic efforts with allies and partners.
 
Biegun has three decades of experience in the Executive and Legislative Branches in government as well as the private sector. Most recently, Biegun was vice president of International Governmental Relations for Ford Motor Company, where—as a third generation Ford employee—he oversaw all aspects of Ford’s international governmental interactions including throughout the Indo-Pacific Region.
 
Previously, as national security advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, he provided analysis and strategic planning for the U.S. Senate’s consideration of foreign policy, defense and intelligence matters, and international trade agreements. Prior to that, Biegun worked in the White House from 2001-2003 as Executive Secretary of the National Security Council. He served as a senior staff member to the National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and performed the function of chief operating officer for the National Security Council.
 
Before joining the White House staff, Biegun served for 14 years as a foreign policy advisor to members of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. During this time, he held the position of Chief of Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1999-2000. In addition, he served as a senior staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs for six years.
 
From 1992 to 1994, Biegun served in Moscow, Russia as the Resident Director in the Russian Federation for the International Republican Institute, a democracy-building organization established under the National Endowment for Democracy.
 
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, and has served on the boards of the National Bureau of Asian Research, the US-ASEAN Business Council, the US-Russia Foundation for Economic Development and the Rule of Law, and Freedom House.
 

 

Koret-Taube Conference CenterJohn A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn SIEPR Building366 Galvez Street 
Stephen Biegun, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea
Date Label

Sung Andrew Kim

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Sung Hyun "Andrew" Kim was a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) through December 2019. Previously he was William J. Perry visiting scholar at APARC. Kim, who retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2018 as a senior intelligence officer after 28 years of service, was assistant director of the CIA's Korea Mission Center, where he helped secure the foundation for the Trump-Kim summit of June 2018.  At Stanford, he will contribute to studies of current North Korea diplomacy in comparison to previous negotiations with the DPRK, a research scope that he refers to as "U.S.-DPRK summit of the century and the tide of history."  Kim will also participate in policy engagement regarding North Korea issues through Shorenstein APARC and its Korea Program.

Kim established the CIA's Korea Mission Center in April 2017 in response to a presidential initiative to address North Korea's longstanding threat to global security. As part of his role as head of the Mission Center, he managed and guided CIA Korean analysts in providing strategic and tactical analytic products for a range of policymakers. He accompanied CIA Director and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang in meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times. Formerly he served as the Agency's associate deputy director for operations and technology, leading all efforts to update operational technology and incorporate a state-of-the-art doctrine into CIA training curricula.

Earlier in his career, Kim served as the CIA's chief of station in three major East Asian cities, while also managing the intelligence relationship with politically and militarily complicated foreign countries and advancing U.S. interests. In recognition of his many contributions, Kim was honored by the Agency with the Director's Award (2018), Presidential Rank Award (2012), and the Donovan Award (1990). He speaks fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese.

Visiting Scholar at APARC

Whence Korean Denuclearization

Authors
Andray Abrahamian
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

This post was originally published by PacNet Commentary, a publication of Pacific Forum.

North Korea’s state-owned news agency ran a wire story with tremendous significance just before Christmas, making clear that unilateral denuclearization is not going to happen. As part of a detailed explanation of Pyongyang’s position, it said: “When we refer to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, it, therefore, means removing all elements of nuclear threats from the areas of both the north and the south of Korea and also from surrounding areas from where the Korean peninsula is targeted. This should be clearly understood.” The text also states that “the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula means ‘completely removing the nuclear threats of the U.S. to the DPRK.’”
 
Pyongyang has long held that their nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent and has made similar statements in the past, but not so clearly, nor with such a detailed explanation, nor at such a crucial time. Why did they choose to do so at the very end of 2018? There is a degree of unsatisfactory speculation that must take place to try to answer such a question, but we can see a few key elements of the negotiating procedure.
 
The North Koreans have made it clear they want to deal with President Trump himself, probably correctly assessing that he is more likely to make concessions or take significant risks than are his subordinates. Moreover, working-level negotiations have moved slowly over the past several months.
 
The DPRK statement, released in a semi-public way on the newswire, might have been an attempt to get the issue clearly and squarely on the president’s desk. Perhaps the North Koreans don’t believe Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is relaying messages to Trump. Or perhaps the recent retirement of the CIA’s Andrew Kim, who has liaised with the North Koreans alongside and for Pompeo, worried Pyongyang. Stephen Biegun, the new US special representative for North Korea, is an unknown quantity to them. Pyongyang probably didn’t want to resume and rehash this year’s logjam with Biegun in the new year.
 
This shift in communication strategy fits the North Korean political calendar. The New Year Joint Editorial frames the Korean Worker’s Party’s positions for the year and all adult North Koreans study the adjustments in the party line for several weeks in January. This includes North Koreans who interface with the outside world: in 2019 they will present to their foreign interlocutors a specific set of demands based on this clearer definition of “denuclearization.”
 
This leaves President Trump in a bit of a bind. He has to decide if he wants to proceed with the peace and denuclearization process as North Korea has defined it. He could choose a couple different paths.
 
First, Trump appears to have very few deeply held beliefs about the international order, other than that the US has generally been taken advantage of on trade and multilateral defense. He certainly doesn’t care much for alliances. One could imagine him saying, “that’s fine, we could remove our nuclear umbrella from South Korea” once we move toward denuclearization of the north. This would face tremendous pushback from the policy and military communities in the US as well as from allies in Asia, however. It would be the sort of pronouncement that would leave him isolated from much of his administration, Congress, and the pundit community that comments on TV; it would be hard to sustain this position.
 
More likely, he could say, “fine, let’s talk about a freeze on your program and worry about denuclearization later.” This seems more plausible for several reasons.
 
First, his core constituency doesn’t really care about denuclearization. His base wants to see Trump keep winning and if he tells them this is a win, they will likely accept it and move on. He has shown he is rhetorically able to slip out of nooses that other presidents would have choked on. He could conceivably pivot toward a freeze and cap of the North Korean nuclear program as an attainable goal and let the experts – who again largely don’t matter to his base – fight about whether this is good enough.
 
In that regard, Trump may well have been aided by a shift in the professional North Korea-watching community. Since roughly the fall of 2017, when war rhetoric and tensions were escalating, an increasing number of commentaries, events, and lectures with titles along the lines of “living with a nuclear North Korea” began to appear. There are now clearly more voices in the analyst community willing to say that the United States can tolerate and deter a nuclear North Korea. Such an opinion was incredibly scarce in 2016.
 
This is a situation that Trump helped foster. His administration helped raise the prospect of conflict that really did highlight the absurdity of war on the Korean Peninsula. The administration was essentially saying “we are willing to risk a nuclear war to prevent a country from being able to wage nuclear war.” This focused a lot of minds and helped clarify the fact that deterrence remains viable. Whether that means seeking to cooperate or continuing to pressure and isolate North Korea remains up for debate.
 
In defining that debate, if Trump decides he wants to try to change the US-DPRK relationship, he can point to the text of the Singapore Declaration that he and Kim Jong Un signed at their June 12 summit. While the declaration was much pilloried by observers as a “nothingburger,” it did promise to “establish new US–DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries” and “to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.” Those clauses come before a promise by both sides “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
 
President Trump could conceivably articulate a position in which a freeze of the North Korean program is a realistic goal that takes place alongside improved relations between the two countries, putting the issues of the DPRK’s stockpile and the US nuclear umbrella in Asia off for a later date.
 
This formula would be unsatisfactory to many people, but Trump has shown a willingness to upset traditional stakeholders. Besides, this is North Korea policy. Past attempts at pressure and engagement have been unsatisfactory to one group or another. The status quo is basically unsatisfactory to many, particularly in South Korea. Satisfying everyone will be impossible. Who Trump decides to upset will define how the next round of negotiations with the DPRK goes.
 
Andray Abrahamian is the 2018-19 Koret Fellow at APARC, Stanford University. He is an adjunct fellow at Pacific Forum and Griffith Asia Institute, an honorary fellow at Macquarie University, and a member of the US National Committee on North Korea. His book, North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths, was published by McFarland in 2018.
 
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