Thae once passionately defended the Kim dynasty as deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom and now fervently denounces it as an émigré-dissident with bodyguards in tow, but has yet to shed the role of the dapper, suit-and-tie-clad diplomat. Speaking to me in between a speech to a think tank and testimony to Congress in Washington, D.C., he acknowledged that the Trump administration’s approach to North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program is “very controversial.” But he said that he saw “a lot of positive aspects” to it.

Thae applauded the administration for imposing severe economic sanctions on North Korea and advocated for targeted sanctions to be expanded. Yet he counseled patience with a country like North Korea, which is already relatively isolated from the global economy and has built up “war reserves” of food and oil for these very moments. Sanctions could take months or years to prove effective, he predicted, just as North Korea didn’t immediately descend into crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. In the meantime, he argued, the United States shouldn’t only rely on sanctions and military hardware and help from traditional North Korean allies such as China and Russia. It should also wield “soft power” to undermine the Kim government from within, by funneling outside information—movies, TV shows, literature—into North Korea so that its people learn more about freedom, democracy, and human rights.

The current war of words between the United States and North Korea isn’t all that surprising given Trump’s style and the North Korean government’s longstanding practice of linguistic escalation, Thae said.“What happens is that if an American president attacks the North Korean leader, the North Korean Foreign Ministry or the other ministries [are expected to] find even more aggressive words to deliver their anger. It’s a competition of loyalty” to Kim Jong Un.

Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho has recently warned that North Korea might shoot down U.S. bombers, fire missiles at the U.S. mainland, and conduct an atmospheric nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean. But Thae, who worked closely with Ri at the North Korean embassy in London and admires him as a “very knowledgeable” and “very gentle diplomat,” described these threats as “just rhetoric.” While such official statements are carefully reviewed and approved by Pyongyang, Thae explained, they are primarily intended to reflect the North Korean leader’s emotional state at any given moment—not necessarily to indicate what actions the North Korean government will take next. “If Kim Jong Un is angry then Ri Yong Ho should be angry!” Thae said. If Ri Yong Ho isn’t angry, or doesn’t sound angry, Ri Yong Ho might be purged.

Thae said he stood by one of the arguments he often made as a diplomat: that North Korean leaders think of nuclear weapons in defensive terms—as a means of deterring foreign, and particularly American, military intervention. If an Arab Spring-style uprising were to occur in North Korea and the government brutally suppressed it, Thae explained, Kim Jong Un doesn’t want to end up dead like Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, who prior to NATO’s bombing campaign had bowed to international pressure and abandoned his nuclear-weapons program. North Korea is not inclined to use the nuclear weapons that it’s amassing, Thae stressed: “Kim Jong Un knows well that once he uses his nuclear weapons against America or South Korea, then that could end up with the total destruction of the North Korean [political] system.”