Ivana Hughes

But in the case of North Korea, it seems utterly crazy to me that you have a country like the United States, which let's for just a moment imagine that we live in a world free of nuclear weapons.

who's going to attack the United States?

You know, we've got the oceans, we've got the conventional military.

I've actually heard our mutual friend, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, say that the United States could be the safest country in the history of humanity.

You know, but...

In a world with nuclear weapons, we are so vulnerable and we're not just vulnerable with however you want to classify Russia and China, but let's call them peer adversaries or near peer adversaries.

We're vulnerable to them, but we're also vulnerable to a country like North Korea, which is relatively small, relatively poor country.

This is not a world superpower.

And yet North Korea could destroy the United States as we know it.

Iran has been enriching uranium to 60%, which is you don't need that for nuclear power.

It is not quite weapons grade, although if you wanted to make a weapon, you actually could make a weapon even out of the highly enriched uranium they currently have.

Now, my understanding is that they, and I actually listened to their statements in venues like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings at the UN.

They always say they're not interested in building nuclear weapons.

They do emphasize that their religion, you know, doesn't, you know, requires them not to pursue nuclear weapons.

I actually think that they're not pursuing nuclear weapons.

I don't think it would be very hard.

I think if they wanted a nuclear weapon, they could have had it a long time ago.

It is hard.

It is a huge investment of resources, both human and financial resources.

It is a hard thing to do.