2026-04-30
1 小时 4 分钟I'm Dan Kurtz-Falen, and this is the Foreign Affairs Interview.
I think it 's very hard for the U.S. Policy establishment to completely give up on denuclearization,
because when you give up on denuclearization, you are basically accepting North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.
That's something that's very hard for U.S. Policymakers.
It's hard for the NPT regime.
It's hard for our allies, South Korea and Japan, to accept that.
U.S. Policy aimed to isolate the Kim family's totalitarian regime.
Yet the North Korean leadership has managed to skillfully navigate the new geopolitics,
solidifying its role and bolstering ties with both China and Russia.
The commitment to pursuing nuclear weapons,
no matter the costs, has looked especially savvy in the wake of U.S. Attacks on Iran.
Victor Cha has long been one of the foremost practitioners and analysts of U.S. Policy toward North Korea.
In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, he argues that Washington must reckon with this long record of failure
and craft a new strategy for managing the North Korea problem.
One that gives up for now on denuclearization and tries to achieve what Cha calls a cold peace.
I spoke to Cha on Monday, April 27th about the misjudgments at the heart of U.S. Policy,
about the nature of the North Korean threat today, and about what a new approach would mean for the United States,
for the Korean Peninsula, and for Asia more broadly in the years ahead.
Victor, great to have you on the podcast and to have your provocative
and quite powerful essay on North Korea and our new issue.