thoughtful way. >> watch the communicators monday night at 8:00 p.m. on c-span2. >> now, the latest on the tensions between the u.s. and north korea, from washington journal, this is about 30 minutes. of the super pac. joining us now from los angeles is peru's bennett, the senior international defense researcher he isd corporation and here to discuss u.s. and south korea military exercises taking place this weekend the threats from north korea. the you for joining us. guest: good morning. host: tell us what will take place tomorrow. the exercise, which is about to take off, is mainly a command post exercise. command post for

combined forces with north korea and links them all together with all of the other commands helpghout the peninsula, the new leaders arrive on the peninsula learn how to work together. this is mainly a coordination activity of the commanders. what is the purpose? is this in reaction to the recent rationing -- ratcheting up of rhetoric between the united states and pyongyang? or is this different? long-term thing done for decades. usually in the june and july timeframe. by august, you're ready to get the people in the command posts working with each other and trying to establish good relationships. does it have other political limitations, certainly, but primarily a training effort.

host: some people believe given the heightened tensions between and north states korea, that maybe these might be postponed. a piece says north korea has warned that this will cause a catastrophe by holding their annual joint military drill in the korean peninsula. the u.s. and south korea claim , the military journal have take place monday, just regular actions. furtherh korea drill of drive the situation in the korean peninsula into catastrophe, what do you think? think it isnot anything quite that serious. north korea would love to see the exercises terminated so we weaken the alliance. the chinesese where

proposal is clearly biased with a say the u.s. should quit its whileses with south korea north korea stops its missile launches. north korea doesn't zone exercises every summer and but china has said nothing about north korea terminating its exercises. why is the focus on the u.s. and south korean exercises? we are talking with bruce bennett of the rand corporation about the joint military exercises taking place this week between the u.s. and south korea. -- host: give us an idea of what

drills, whats -- are they testing out? guest: we're working with the basic concept of dealing with the north korean invasion of the south or other north korean provocations. train andrying to prepare people to coordinate and also, it is a test of the concepts they have laid out in planning. those are the things they are trying to do with the exercises and have enduring frack -- for decades. a call from chuck, you are on with bruce been, good morning. -- bruce bennett, good morning. caller: i have a question. given the high level of threats forth, wouldn't it

be wise to postpone his military until the rhetoric owned down for a while? the difficulty is several cases. you postpone an exercise in the again and again and it never happens. that is what happened back in the 1990's. it is regular exercise and north korea is not offering to determine -- terminate its exercising. this is potentially a problem and north korea has expressly tried to make it look like one, but what does it say about their ability to try to manipulate the united states? china has called for a

freeze to the military exercise. explain why they would make the call and what to expect? how will this affect, if at all, the u.s. and chinese relationship? guest: we have to remember the leader of china said he will not allow war or chaos to occur on the peninsula. he cannot even stop north korea from dumas alonso -- doing missile launches. thatuld prefer to avoid and so he is in some degree, desperation trying to convince the south and the u.s. in the do things that are problem or the north knows that so they are trying to manipulate

the chinese, americans, and south koreans. host: we are talking with bruce bennett, the rand corporation's -- or set to take place this week between the u.s. and south korea calling in from south carolina on the republican line. go ahead. we are going to do the exercises anyway. back to the previous , these groups are coming out -- have bruce now we bennett here to talk about north korea. answer to going

he will do what he wants to do. 80's to go ahead and take action, military wives or whatever. host: what do you think about the president passes rhetoric and the ongoing escalation? we do not know for sure how it will eventually play out been think kim jong-il has absolutely surprised an american president is prepared to stand up for -- to him. north koreans for a long time beenblustered, unreasonable in their arguments, they threaten all the time to create a sea of fire in south korea which suggests the use of a nuclear weapon.

this kind of case, i think president trump has done a good job of saying that we will no longer be that kind of a passive country. what that leads to is an interesting question. so far, it costs kim jong-il to step down, we have to see moving forward. he is realizing he has now got a president prepared to stand up to him. --kimkim jong-il and un back down and the he made a wise and well reasoned decision. the alternative would have been catastrophic amount acceptable. the united states was locked and loaded, you said you believe that was a causal connection to

north korea standing down? if you look at the 35tory over the last year, or so ballistic missile tests, multipleis and by solutions, very little is done to north korea because of that. it can takelearned actions contrary to what the un security council says. it is time for them to realize there are consequences to such bad behavior. host: randy is on our independent line from maine. caller: i keep thinking, if you

get china involved, we are still dealing with the world war ii problems. it takes care of it only. trying to take care of north korea will leave and he will my and have us on the southern peninsula. thank you very much. guest: first of all, china was to hedge minute of each stage a we don't want china in charge of that already because we are introducing a missile defense somethingsouth korea

like $10 billion worth of economic penalties for south korea because they dealt -- byed deploy defenses because the way, china has to put opposite north korea because china does not trust north korea either. the solution if we want to give up american power in the region, sure, we could pull out. at this stage, we need to be there because our interests are there. this is an incredibly economic important area to the united states. we do not want to allow china to be ever more assertive. they had tos what say the global times, a chinese state-run newspaper. be makingina should

clear of north korea launches missiles first and the you -- host: what is china's's in funny against the present -- in fighting against the peninsula? if they took action against north korea, the north koreans would go crazy. during the first nuclear crisis over korea, the leader of north korea, the grandfather of the he calledader, together his military people and asked them if he could beat the and then asked if they lost, what would happen and his son spoke up and

said if we lose, i will destroy the of because what good is the earth with north korea? withannot really do that nuclear weapons and biological agents, but he can make a -- ofdous amount of him damage. china worries they could fire missiles at them on the peninsula and the chinese have deployed a mintz -- missile defense system because they are worried. host: joe osama line. caller: -- joe is on the line. caller: you are doing a wonderful job as most hosts do. many don't realize we are still officially at war with these

folks. i want to know from a diplomatic point of view, what can the united states and china and north korea do to get together and say look, let's stop the war ? what would you propose? i think the difficulty is north koreans are unwilling to negotiate at this stage and they keep throwing out the notion of but theya peace treaty are unprepared to compromise on any of the things the united states was concerned about. theh korea is trying to get list of missile and perhaps even eventually new york and washington dc with a nuclear weapon. we are not anxious to have that ability. this is a country potentially extreme actions and they want to limit the

threat. if north korea is prepared to talk about giving up or severely limiting nuclear weapons, maybe that is the basis for talking about peace. at this stage, -- north koreans chain -- train their kids from kindergarten on how to bayonet americans. is that a condition for peace with north korea? talk a little bit about the u.s.'s readiness in the event of a strike. toward grommet -- qualm as it is threatened, there is a chance that the u.s. military or any ally will be able to shoot it down but it is not a surefire thing. an important but limited degree of protection. perfecthinks it is a shield. how perfect or in permit is the u.s. defense system?

guest: even what is far more simple, occasionally burn up. that is no technology 100% certain. we have the capability to put naval assets out into the area to intercept missiles outside the atmosphere. we have a missile defense system that could intercept missiles in the atmosphere. it gives a good chance we can test y it claimed it would fire 30 to 40 kilometers off the coast. up next, prudence calling .n good morning. i worry about the fact

we do not seem to be making much effort to do subtle things diplomatically. i know when bill clinton left office, north and south korea were on the verge of getting together and becoming one country. as soon as republican said office, that was over peer they don't want this. why, i don't know, except they simply like worse. we almost always have one assumes there is a republican office. we have not quite gotten to that stage yet. a lot is going on that was not going on before.

rather than everybody shooting everybody else, to decide who will -- let's let bruce respond. www.c-span.org i think you have got -- thet: i think you have got right idea but north korea does not look at diplomacy the way we do. north korea agreed to never field enrichment capabilities. reprocessing, they made a treaty with south korea and they were doing everyone of them at the time. they continue doing everyone of them despite the treaty. north korea tries treaty relationships but only to bridge to the next agreement only to give them some advantage.

i believe it was president obama said we multiple times made deals with north korea that andh korea had reneged on he was not going to pay a third or fourth time for yet again tried to get north korea to do what they already agreed to do. the difficulty is getting north koreans to truly negotiate. we have not been able to do that yet. the washington post at five myths about nuclear missiles. u.s. can destroy the arsenal on we talked a little bit about that. first generation nuclear weapons are hard to make and all of these are missed. what you think is the biggest

misconception about nuclear missiles, threats, and deterrence? the article is probably got the biggest myth saying deterrence does not work. been doing this for well over 60 years. north koreans have not done it here they have done a variety of provocations but have been deterred because they knew the and they areong deterred from using nuclear weapons now. potentially, they could have used in one way or another for many years and have not. deterrence is working. as they develop new capabilities and as the numbers go up, how do we continue deterrence? that requires strong u.s. action. you do not deter someone if you look weak, like you do not have

the resolve to take action. that is what president trump is trying to reconcile. he is trying to indicate he is prepared to act. host: we're talking to the rand corporation's reuss bennett -- bruce bennett. japan,rces, korea and we are talking, about the military exercises that take with this week. right off the coast of north korea there. cynthia is calling in from evansville, illinois. i do not understand why for donald crazy trump taking a wise and strong stance. they came out the gate with, if

you do not do what i say i will nuke you. un just laughed in his face. 5 miles to north korea, your guest just said it is working. maybe we should worry about the president -- troops on the border. i think the problem is north korea's abilities. the objective of the obama administration was strategic patience. we were simply going to wait out north korea until they decided to reasonably negotiate. they never got there. just let them continue building capabilities. you have to ask, are we ok if we

let north korea build several and 30 nuclear weapons or 40 ibms? i am not comfortable letting them and that is what the current administration is tried to say. we no longer will accept strategic patience. we will act with north korea to to have that not capability but it is hard to get there. this is not easy. if north korea a rigged -- resists negotiating, south korea has offered to give humanitarian aid and north korea said not interested. we have a difficulty trying to get north korea's to take us seriously. host: our republican line in new york, good morning. caller: first of all, i feel the

imbalance between the north and should be addressed by allowing the south to develop whichown nuclear weapons, will probably happen eventually and you cannot have one side with nukes and the other side with not -- without. probably japan will get their own nukes. maybe then the chinese will pay and take more restrictive action. the kim family does not want to lose their immense wealth. -- cold liket structure were people did not know what is going on and they live in fear -- host: in the minute or so we have left, i want bruce to have

a chance to respond. with them problem having nuclear weapons is japan would likely get nuclear weapons and with nuclear weapons and auntries, the test to be nuclear arms race phenomenon that develops and we don't want the chinese saying, well, south korea and japan now have 400 nuclear weapons between them, so we need 1400 or 2000. it is not the u.s. best interest. it causes an immense problem. ok, bruce bennett, senior international defense researcher >> c-span's coverage of the

solar eclipse on monday starts at 7:00 on monday. re a nasas a research space scientist and the chief scientist at goddard. at noon eastern, who joined nasa tv as they provide live views of the eclipse shadow passing over north america. reaction.m. eastern, to the solid eclipse over the continental united states. live all date coverage starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern at c-span and www.c-span.org. also listen on the c-span radio app. night, president trump addresses the nation on future military involvement in afghanistan. live coverage of the president's speech at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >>