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The threat of North Korea's nuclear weapons, the threat of nuclear war in Asia.

But it is impossible to ignore the fact that NATO is not home-based anywhere near East Asia.

And yet, Peter, a very good evening to you. Thank you for this.

I was surprised by this headline given that Ukraine war is now overwhelming the arsenal in NATO and in the US.

However, in recent days, we've had the news that Prime Minister Kishita of Japan is entering into an alliance in some fashion to defend from China.

And now we have Stoltonberg. So I get suspicious, Peter. Has something happened in South Korea? Has something happened in NATO that NATO is no longer the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but the Global Treaty Organization? Good evening to you, Peter.

Good evening, and thank you, John, and thank you, Gordon, for having me discuss these issues on your show.

What's going on in South Korea is quite interesting, and that is that the South Korean government, the new government, is very worried that the North Koreans will not take our nuclear umbrella seriously,

and may in fact attack whether terrorism or with conventional forces or even nuclear.

And the South Korean people in public are very worried about the threat from the North, particularly the enormous number of missile tests that the North did in the last 12 months.

Plus, the fact that they have anywhere between you pick a number, 2030, some people think closer to they're going to 80 nuclear warheads.

So that the South Korean government not only wants reassurance, they, there's a lot of pressure in the government to go build their own nuclear force, or at least bring Americans, nuclear forces back to the peninsula.

Remember in 1991 President Bush got rid of the nuclear forces in South Korea, and the Washington Post exclaimed that day that it was a wonderful day, because now North Korea had no reason to build its own nuclear weapons, and had promised to allow inspectors in from the United Nations to make sure that their nuclear program was kosher.

And so, you know, fast forward from that time, we now know none of that came true that the North Koreans actually went nuclear, which was their intention all along.

So what Stoltenberg is doing is trying to say extended deterrence works, because NATO thinks it does, and that's apropos Ukraine.

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