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Michèle Flournoy on North Korea’s Nukes: Now a “Risk Management” Problem?

If you are a reader of this publication you know quite well I have given up on any hopes of North Korea agreeing to CVID, FFID or any other silly acronym that alludes to them becoming a non-nuclear weapons state.

It seems others, even more hawkish elements in the Democratic Party, are also quietly coming around to the idea.

In a webinar-style video interview for Defense News (link here, sorry, they don’t allow embedding), Michelle Flournoy,  former undersecretary of defense for policy gave a detailed talk on the future of U.S. defense policy along with some sharp criticism of the current Trump Administration on China strategy.

However, her comments on North Korea are pretty fascinating–considering she could very well be Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense.

Go to  40:14 in the interview. She calls North Korea’s nuclear weapons program a “really hard problem” and that “from a disarmament perspective…hard to see this leader and this regime completely accepting nuclear disarmament.”

I would say that is a big deal. Combine that with Susan Rice’s op-ed from back in 2017 that “[H]istory shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea — the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the Cold War” and we might be witnessing a shift in what is normally a more hawkish stance on the DPRK. Considering Rice would also be in line for a senior Biden Administration position, we could be in for some surprises on North Korea should we have a change in government come November 3rd.

Image: Creative Commons. 

 

Written By

Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is Editor-In-Chief of 19FortyFive and President of Rogue States Project, the think tank arm of the publication. Kazianis recently served as Senior Director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest. He also served as Executive Editor of its publishing arm, The National Interest. Kazianis has held various roles at The National Interest, including Senior Editor and Managing Editor over the last decade. Harry is a recognized expert on national security issues involving North & South Korea, China, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and general U.S. foreign policy and national security challenges. Past Experience Kazianis previously served as part of the foreign policy team for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz. Kazianis also managed the foreign policy communications efforts of the Heritage Foundation, served as Editor-In-Chief of the Tokyo-based The Diplomat magazine, Editor of RealClearDefense, and as a WSD-Handa Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): PACNET. Kazianis has also held foreign policy fellowships at the Potomac Foundation and the University of Nottingham. Kazianis is the author of the book The Tao of A2/AD, an exploration of China’s military capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. He has also authored several reports on U.S. military strategy in the Asia-Pacific as well as edited and co-authored a recent report on U.S.-Japan-Vietnam trilateral cooperation. Kazianis has provided expert commentary, over 900 op-eds, and analysis for many outlets, including The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, Yonhap, The New York Times, Hankyoreh, The Washington Post, MSNBC, 1945, Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, USA Today, CNBC, Politico, The Financial Times, NBC, Slate, Reuters, AP, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, RollCall, RealClearPolitics, LA Times, Newsmax, BBC, Foreign Policy, The Hill, Fortune, Forbes, DefenseOne, Newsweek, NPR, Popular Mechanics, VOA, Yahoo News, National Security Journal and many others.

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