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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One CA 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 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.
To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com
or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org
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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