204: Rocco Santurri on Korea stabilization

Today, we welcome Rocco Santurri, who wrote "Spoils of the Status Quo," an article that describes the current stalemate in Korea as the best option for the international community.

 

Spoils of the status quo: https://divergentoptions.org/category/writers/rocco-p-santurri-iii/

Other points in the discussion

1-Beginning with the historical and current foundations of KJU’s legitimacy as Supreme Leader, how those could be degraded, and which internal groups could exploit that degradation. Given KJU needs the US “threat” to substantiate his narrative to his domestic audience, how de-escalating tensions through de-escalatory IO works against the KJU regime.

2-Expanding bilateral and trilateral relationships, and/or new relationships with NATO countries or the bloc itself to offset increased Russian influence in the region (more of a Eurasian Theatre-outlook, versus EUCOM and PACOM).

3-The rapidly expanding relationship between RUS/DPRK also presents an opening for the US; DPRK is still heavily dependent on China, especially economically, far more than any other country.  China might be receptive to assisting US efforts to remind RUS/DRPK of their standing as lesser powers in the region.  

4-The dream of denuclearization might need to die; it is very difficult to imagine a scenario in which KJU would voluntarily agree to any level denuclearization, and even if so, proof of compliance would be problematic. Taking that off the table could advance other foreign policy efforts, many of which it currently inhibits.

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and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

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Music by 
Escape One 
Best of Japanese Jazz Fusion and Japanese Jazz Funk with Japanese Jazz and Japanese Jazz Music
Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z64nA4F_pbQ

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Transcript

00:00:05    Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Today we welcome Roko Santuri, who wrote Spoils of the Status Quo, an article that describes the current stalemate in Korea as the best option for the international community. So let's get started.

 

Jack Gaines

So where'd you get the idea of Spoils of the Status Quo? I was thinking about how could I say that there's benefit from a stalemate because you don't really get too much verbiage about that.

00:00:58    ROCCO SANTURRI
was thinking about how could I say that there's benefit from a stalemate because you don't really get too much verbiage about that. You always hear spoils of war. We're used in that regard. And I thought, what about spoils of status quo? Because it definitely is providing some rewards to people. For Korea, I was looking at the four options, war, peace, reintegration, a stalemate. Looking at it and putting them all against each other for all the parties, stalemate was the one that actually had some type of significant interest for each party involved.

00:01:25    JACK GAINES
Okay. Everyone had what they wanted from it.

00:01:28    ROCCO SANTURRI
At least a strong portion of it, not ideal, was usually better than the alternatives. Yeah.

00:01:33    JACK GAINES
If the option is a fight or to get along awkwardly, most people will go for the awkward relationship. Absolutely. But people never rate you on able to keep the stability in a region. It's not as heard of, but it does make sense because if you are able to maintain a dam, So the floods don't come down and kill everybody in the town done well. So it's an interesting perspective. Can you tell me a little more about what your thinking was on the article? You mentioned this when we talked previously about Korea.

00:02:09    ROCCO SANTURRI
Korea. The idea of stalemate is definitely vastly superior compared to what the alternatives might be. And with the Korean War not being too far in the past and with politicians mentioning that as well, too, it's a thought that. Even though it's not ideal, we don't want to have a redo of what happened with the Korean War. And the previous president for the current one mentioned this specifically, saying that we cannot afford to have another catastrophic war on the peninsula and destroy all that we've built.

00:02:38    JACK GAINES
I think Kim Jong -il would use nuclear weapons if he was about to lose his regime. Absolutely.

00:02:44    ROCCO SANTURRI
I think that's the consideration of his decision -making calculus. And if KJU comes to that point, what really would prevent him from doing that? And that's what... A lot of people have been trying to get into that thought process and what that might look like. Right. Without question, an extreme threat. And now the advances in weaponry, it's just on the peninsula.

00:03:04    JACK GAINES
And the thing is, everyone's worried about Seoul, but he'd probably be just as happy blowing up forces inside his border with a nuclear weapon. The behavior of the regime seems to be fairly callous towards its own people and military.

00:03:21    ROCCO SANTURRI
It's tough to argue that the entire country isn't living in a horrible condition for the sake of one family to basically be billionaires. That argument could be made. This is not about the country. It's about the family. So you have a rare instance where a dictatorship is multiple iterations. He has a template going forward, which is good in a way because that did not involve nuclear weapons. But if it's all crashing down, one has to wonder. what his mindset would be like then and what he would be willing to do. And in that case, he might not have much to lose.

00:03:53    JACK GAINES
to lose. Could be that that template has other pages that we haven't read or seen. And that is the, what if it all comes down? What do you do? And his father has said, look, if this is what happens, this is who's in place for this reason. And you have him hit that button and you have this person do these things. and we just haven't encountered it because we haven't gotten into those phases of reality. Absolutely. And that's the great unknown,

00:04:20    ROCCO SANTURRI
great unknown, and that's something that it's really difficult to determine what that might look like, especially right now with the rhetoric, with the vitriol between the two sides. Sometimes it's difficult to separate between the two, and that might equate to actually some type of significant action. Fortunately, it seems as though it has settled somewhat. It's tit for tat. But it seems like that has sort of fallen into a pattern where it's not escalation. It's sort of a coordinated response, and it's almost expected at this point, particularly when it comes to the balloons, some of the other issues that are going on now as well.

00:04:57    JACK GAINES
Right. Shows of belligerence. No one's dying. Once people start dying, that's the peak, and then it all backs down from there.

00:05:05    ROCCO SANTURRI
I think so. There have been border issues, and soldiers have been killed, and those resonate still decades later. So I think that's very accurate. I think a lot of what happens right now in terms of balloons, I think a lot of this is for domestic audience consumption, to show that there is no backing down, to show that there is a response. But I don't think it's much beyond that at this point.

00:05:28    JACK GAINES
But you do have some thoughts about how his position and how his legitimacy can be degraded. You want to talk a little bit about those? His legitimacy with the domestic audience is extremely important.

00:05:39    ROCCO SANTURRI
the domestic audience is extremely important. And in some ways, he is facing threats that have been historic, even with his grandfather and his father. Some of those are similar threats, which include from the elites and from the military. He has purged a lot of the military, and he's, for the most part, seemed to have kept the elites relatively happy. He's a lot more secure in power than he was earlier in his ring. But there are still threats. From the younger demographic, he seems very fearful of South Korean K -pop culture influencing younger generations. And he's responded with very severe penalties against individuals who've listened or viewed bad content, including executions not long ago of two 12 -year -olds. So what he has employed is sort of an imminent threat, enemy at the gate, domestic audience narratives. So he constantly pushes that. the country is under imminent threat, and that this substantiates the difficult existence that most of the DPRK civilians endure. If that threat were to exist, the populist might question why they have to live in a state of deprivation, limited freedoms, why in some ways they couldn't live more like South Koreans, which they have access to some of what is going on here, and they probably would be pretty accurate to ask questions about why they're living the way they are. And that's where his... narrative comes into this populism.

00:07:07    JACK GAINES
But also South Korean dramas. Absolutely. I remember where popular people in North Korea seem to be bringing them in to watch TV shows, which I think is great. From a pop culture standpoint,

00:07:19    ROCCO SANTURRI
standpoint, it's important and has an effect. It casts South Korea in a very positive light. And this goes against a lot of the propaganda that you have internally against South Korea, against the United States. It's well -optimated even with the war. The history has been rewritten. The DPRK did not invade. The U .S. invaded. This museum's there, what the U .S. did during that war. So any type of ability to sort of swing the info war is definitely something that he sees as a tremendous threat.

00:07:50    JACK GAINES
So it's mostly an IO war right now. That and shows of force. Definitely shows of force.

00:07:57    ROCCO SANTURRI
force. Obviously, the nuclear program is a high priority, and they've really done everything possible to expand that and remain. completely committed to it.

00:08:06    JACK GAINES
Is there any broadcasts of North Koreans that have integrated into South Korea and are just living their lives that are going up to North Korea so people kind of know what's going on? There's a good amount of interviews with defectors and they'll talk a little bit about what their life is like here.

00:08:17    ROCCO SANTURRI
interviews with defectors and they'll talk a little bit about what their life is like here. They'll talk a lot about what their life in the DPRK and show the tremendous contrast between the two.

00:08:27    JACK GAINES
So that is promoted to a certain degree. Well, there's one thing. If you've got a person... in an interview, you've got them sat down and they're just talking about their lives. It could look scripted. Sure. But if you're doing a day in a life where they've got a funky hat on and some whatever clothes and they're going down to the tables with all the baked goods, buy a little snack and they're a little coffee and they're walking over to their job, something like that where it's not that they have a convenient moment, but it's just they're hustling to go work and have a life. A day in the life type of coverage, I think, would be really effective because it shows that But there's people who have left North Korea. They have a life. You know, here's our apartment. It's a mess. But it's probably a lot better than what they had there. And just show that. Matter of fact, actually, wasn't there just recently a movie about a South Korean girl family who crashed in North Korea and they helped her get back? And so it's kind of sparked a romance between a North Korean elite and her. And you remember that? I've seen a lot of different movies and some YouTube series as well,

00:09:30    ROCCO SANTURRI
lot of different movies and some YouTube series as well, too, and it sort of vacillates between the two. It vacillates between what you're saying, where it shows a very positive spin and it really promotes cooperation. Others will talk some about the defectors, and it actually is a little more realistic in that it shows that they are benefiting from being in South Korea, but they also expand a little bit upon some of the challenges culturally coming into a society and how there's growing division between the two. even in terms of language and somewhat with culture. So there's a lot out there that will try to sway opinion one way or the other. But I think it's encouraging that it's still going both ways. It's not all negatives. There is some positive aspects as well.

00:10:11    JACK GAINES
The last time I was at an exercise in Seoul, we were having a conversation about options that weren't explored. And I recommended that they just offer to KGU to make him emperor. Give him... $100 billion to become the emperor of all of Korea. He has no judicial powers. He has no powers at all, except for as a title. But he gets to be a hundred billionaire and all of Korea will be under his rule as emperor, but the most he can do is a parade.

00:10:42    ROCCO SANTURRI
He definitely does seem to like his parades and ceremonies. That's for sure. There's no shortage of those.

00:10:48    JACK GAINES
Everyone's happy. The family's wealthy. They're emperors, emperors of all of Korea. They won. in that aspect. And then South Korea, North Korea can then become one unified state. So you make sure he gets all the shit he wants, but the government is run by basically South Korea.

00:11:06    ROCCO SANTURRI
And there's been talk too, from the standpoint of reunification, some of the pros and cons on that, and mostly from an economic standpoint, what that might look like. And there's been polling as well too about that. The numbers have been a little interesting, especially with South Korea. It's been... actually growing in terms of not wanting to reunify. In terms of the citizenship, I think that it is looking at more from a resolution and not what seems to be this perpetual state of affairs is. That's what the sentiment might be. But when I think the sides start to look at what some of the costs might be for something like reunification, I think that's when some of the enthusiasm starts to sour a little bit.

00:11:46    JACK GAINES
Oh, yeah. It'd be a massive humanitarian effort to stabilize the country. and then start the construction. It would be huge.

00:11:55    ROCCO SANTURRI
Absolutely huge. You'd be absorbing a bit of a dead elephant on the back of a very functioning capitalist -driven autonomy. The estimate would be as much as $5 trillion, and from what we know, that could be a low number, but it would be a tremendous amount. I think that, with the younger generation of South Koreans, has started to make them look away from that a little more than their previous generations.

00:12:17    JACK GAINES
Well, do you want to talk about... working with bilateral and trilateral relationships, either to stabilize the current status quo or to elicit change? With the U .S., I think it's important to expand bilateral and trilateral relationships, and also more along the lines of a Eurasian outlook,

00:12:30    ROCCO SANTURRI
important to expand bilateral and trilateral relationships, and also more along the lines of a Eurasian outlook, supporting some relationships with the NATO countries or the bloc itself. That's been a conversation as well. contributing to more of a Eurasian theater outlook versus a traditional UCOM or PACOM division. Some of the key relationships, obviously the Trilat with Japan and Iraq is critical, especially given the historical animosities between the two states. I think it's pretty noteworthy how far that's come along. I'd also look at AUKUS as a key relationship, especially with some of the overlap with the United Nations Command and with UK and NATO as well. And Department of State talks about their latticework of variable geometric relationships, and I think this is a good example of it, in that it adds to or it solidifies the isolation of the DPRK. And the Quad also provides some additional overlap towards that effort as well. I think U .S. encouragement of greater NATO coordination and formation, more of a Eurasian outlook, and also to the arms sales. Korea has had arms sales with Australia. with Poland and Ukraine, but not direct through the United States.

00:13:43    JACK GAINES
Looking at North Korea, though, are they still considered a prior state with no relationships, or are they starting to recognize the Russian and Chinese relationships? How do you see the North Korean network of relationships and partnerships?

00:13:58    ROCCO SANTURRI
I think it's pretty fascinating, actually. And what's happened this year with Russia, probably to the surprise of many. I think that the rapidly expanding relationship between the two does present an opening in a way for the U .S. actually, in that the DPRK is still heavily dependent on the PRC, especially economically, and also coming off of COVID far more than any other country. So the PRC has made it known that it's not terribly thrilled with the increased relationship between Russia and the DPRK. And that is an area where actually the U .S. and PRC have some overlap in terms of what their interest might be. PRC has ruled out any type of trilateral to date with Moscow and the DPRK. Russia now has also said that as well, but they only seem to have said that after the PRC. So it seems that the PRC is interested in making sure that their partners there are aware of what the pecking order is in terms of the region.

00:14:52    ROCCO SANTURRI
seems that the PRC is interested in making sure that their partners there are aware of what the pecking order is in terms of the region. So I think that in some ways the PRC could use better relations with the U .S. to sort of dampen some of the enthusiasm for the DPRK. But is it realistic that we would want the PRC to have a different attitude about a nation that is deeply in its orbit and in its pocket so that they can build the type of foreign policy they want through that nation?

00:15:08    JACK GAINES
it realistic that we would want the PRC to have a different attitude about a nation that is deeply in its orbit and in its pocket so that they can build the type of foreign policy they want through that nation? Thinking that they'll shift their behavior because we want it is not going to happen. It didn't shift the behavior when the relationship between China and the U .S. was strong. So I don't know. I think that that's wishful. I think so. The DPR can't provide PRC with strategic depth,

00:15:39    ROCCO SANTURRI
can't provide PRC with strategic depth, and they certainly do not want to have a U .S. ally on their border. So I think that the geographical aspects of it are not going to be changed. I do think they could voice their displeasure. They have strong elements of economic coercion. But it was a telegram that was leaked a long time ago and made the news, but they sort of saw it. The DPRK is like a petulant child that was causing some trouble. While they might be upset, they're not going to abandon the DPRK because there's too much intertwined interest with the PRC.

00:16:10    JACK GAINES
Flipping the script here, China has grown in its relationship with South Korea. There's now Chinese businesses in South Korea. There's more population. Matter of fact, there's a very strong PRC push to eject Americans out of the peninsula. It might be that unification will require that China and the U .S. separate themselves from the peninsula in order to allow reunification.

00:16:37    ROCCO SANTURRI
I think so. And I think with the PRC, principally, they would like to avoid any type of conflict and get back to where they feel like their strengths are. And that's economic. It will always be a strong interest for them. And some of this overlapping partnerships, while it helps the U .S., it also can potentially hurt as well, too. And the PRC and the ROC is definitely a case where that might be the case, especially on an economic level.

00:17:01    JACK GAINES
You ready to talk about denuclearization and why we need to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power?

00:17:07    ROCCO SANTURRI
I'll definitely talk about it. Start with. It's just very difficult to imagine a scenario in which KJU would voluntarily agree to denuclearization. Even if so, there's compliance issues as well. There's case studies that senior North Korean military officials reference pretty regularly to Slavadan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi as leaders who could have resisted U .S., quote, regime -changing tactics, end quote, if they kept their nuclear weapons. So it's difficult from that standpoint to see where they would be motivated to do so. The stalemate aspect of the peninsula, which in a way kind of forms a little bit of a Goldilocks zone or a geopolitical sweet spot for KJU, a lot of that is underpinned by his nuclear. So it just adds to another layer of why he would not be in his best interest to do so.

00:18:05    JACK GAINES
And he probably looks at what's going on in Ukraine and saying, see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. If you have nuclear weapons, Russia would have probably have stalled going in. Matter of fact, the first encroachment they did was to capture the active nuclear power plant.

00:18:21    ROCCO SANTURRI
I think that Ukraine puts it directly front and center to something that they can point to to say, this is why we would be foolish for us to do it. And obviously it would put the U .S. in a difficult spot because it's tough to debate that within reason. So again, I don't really see it. And it does seem in some of the open source articles that there is a little more talk now of... that it is more about deterrence. The official policy is going to be denuclearization, but there is more of an unofficial focus on deterrence because of how events have proceeded and the reality of the situation.

00:18:56    JACK GAINES
So what's the harm of declaring North Korea a nuclear power?

00:18:59    ROCCO SANTURRI
I would look at it a few ways. I'll actually start with some of the positives. Positives would be that you could focus on some other issues that have been held up in relations because it's been a non -starter because of the nuclear weapons issue. whether it's cybersecurity attacks, human rights abuses, overall improved relations between Iraq and DPRK. I do think from a negative standpoint, it does, in many ways, it shows that our efforts have been unsuccessful, that it simply did not work. And there's been a tremendous amount of technical effort that's been put into that. I think it also, it's a massive encouragement to other nations, especially when we're trying to stop proliferation, that it can be done and that the U .S. would agree to it. So it's a tremendously difficult position either way.

00:19:46    JACK GAINES
way. Do you think of that as a sunk cost fallacy the U .S. is holding on to?

00:19:51    ROCCO SANTURRI
There definitely is a lot of validity to that because it's something they're clinging to that they don't have. Right. So from that standpoint, and if you even reference something like the Cuban Missile Crisis, each side gave up something. And there are some articles that compare the two, usually compare the differences, but they will talk about... the missiles from cuba being removed but they also talk about the jupiter missiles that the u .s owned being removed from turkey and the pledge never to invade cuba now the the former in that was not released was more of a reputational issue where jfk did not want it to be released that the jupiter missiles would be removed but the inability to invade was known so Taking that into consideration, it's potentially giving up something we never had for movement on other issues that we deem to be very, very important, including some of the ones I mentioned previously, especially with cybersecurity attacks against the U .S. critical infrastructure.

00:20:46    JACK GAINES
There is no lever or enticement. They don't have a stick or a carrot to offer for it.

00:20:53    ROCCO SANTURRI
I don't see what would materialize where you would have something that would change the decision -making calculus. I just, I simply don't see it.

00:21:00    JACK GAINES
The denuclearization issue as white elephant, it kind of consumes up so much of the room and pushes out things that we could actually do to either make North Korea more accountable to the international community or a better partner in the South Korea -North Korea relations. Do you think of it as a balanced policy? Do you think it needs to be shifted? I think is it possible to pursue both?

00:21:28    ROCCO SANTURRI
to pursue both? It is, but by doing so, you are in a way unofficially de -emphasizing the denuclearization aspects of it. And this might also just be a product of time. It might come to a time where we realize that this has just gone on for so long that there might be a shift in the policy. But with those underlying issues, it would be extremely helpful if there was more dialogue on that. The question is the cost -benefit. Where does the U .S. government see the tipping point when overall policy shift has to be made?

00:21:59    JACK GAINES
Is there any points I'm missing?

00:22:01    ROCCO SANTURRI
The only major point that I think that adds context to this conversation beyond the DPRK and the United States is just the benefits that the stalemate has provided for a lot of the parties here. I think that aspect of it, while we would want to focus on this specifically, it's always the context of the region. And I think that's something that is extremely important to consider. that there are other interests out there that actually benefit from exactly how things are right now. And I think that sometimes we were not as regionally focused and didn't understand the effects of other states that we were attempting to engage. So I think that is an important context.

00:22:40    JACK GAINES
Can you give an example of someone or some organization that benefits from the stalemate?

00:22:46    ROCCO SANTURRI
Running through the entities with the ROC, there's no costly conflict, but they get U .S. support. We'll potentially reduce support with peace or reunification, and that would be very costly. For the U .S., obviously, the presence on the pen to protect Iraq, but we also have a big footprint in the vicinity of our pacing track, which is an added value. The PRC, the DPRK, they don't want to go anywhere. They want that strategic depth. And I look with Russia. This is a chance to reinsert themselves here with Korea if it's a stalemate, if it persists. They can oppose U .S. interests in the region, but it's not extensive economic and military commitment, and that's paramount for them given the fact of what's going on in Ukraine. So while the stalemate might not seem as beneficial overall, if you kind of dig into some of the individual countries and their interests, there is reason why I think it's had legs, and it's not specifically because of the two Koreas.

00:23:41    JACK GAINES
Any last thoughts? Do you have any new papers coming out, or any last thoughts on this paper?

00:23:46    ROCCO SANTURRI
Yeah, it's Engine and Journal APS, and it's a friend of mine I actually was at King's College with, and we decided to write something together. So that is in the submission process and editing. So that's probably the next stop in the shoot for me. And after that, I think I might try to reach out a little more and maybe go to a different region for a little bit and change it.

00:24:07    JACK GAINES
You mean out of the Indopaycom area?

00:24:10    ROCCO SANTURRI
I think so, yes. Okay. Very cool. I'd like to explore the relationship between the two a little bit more, more of that emergence of a duration theater. Dig a little more deeper into that.

00:24:21    JACK GAINES
One thing that I see that civil affairs can do that seems like a lot of other folks need to work on, and that is the global perspective of the PRC, counter -influence, the Russian global networks, and thinking more outside the theater on how our pacing competitor. acts in South America, in North America, in Europe, all the way into the Pacific Islands to its region in the India region. And that's something that I like to encourage. If you're someone who's working in Korea and you understand what Korea is doing there and you go to Europe, you'll find that North Korea has operations. And by knowing that can help. The rest of the theater commands understand what the influence is and how it applies because we're not thinking as if we're in a global competition. We're thinking in a multi -theater competition mindset. It's not helpful.

00:25:25    ROCCO SANTURRI
That's an absolutely critical point. And it's interesting with that outlook, Western audiences, when they look at adverts or they look at products, they have a tendency to look directly at the center of the picture. And this is, of course, generally speaking, but Eastern markets have a tendency to look at the outside of the picture. They look at the totality of it. They don't just look at the center of it. So these are eye tracking for stores where they just want to see what catches your eye and what you might buy. So I try to think of that in the same way that it is easy to get very down in the weeds and to be very, very focused, especially from a civil affairs standpoint. But having that overall global outlook. At the end of the day, you need to be cognizant of that on multiple levels. I think it just involves for a better, more informed civil affairs effort.

00:26:11    JACK GAINES
Absolutely. All right, my friend. Well, you have a good night and I'll talk to you soon. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

00:26:20    Close
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode. Email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. One CA Podcast.