North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has scheduled North Korea’s first communist party congress in decades in May. The U.S. should encourage reform by proposing talks on drafting a peace treaty and normalizing relations.

Dealing with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has taken on an air of futility in Washington. The Obama administration refuses to talk with North Korea unless the latter first “takes irreversible steps toward denuclearization.” Yet expecting Pyongyang to yield its most important security assets in return for conversation ensures continued failure.

The first party congress since 1980, when Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, ruled, portends significant policy changes. Kim Jong-un likely will formalize both consolidation of power and new economic initiatives.

The government has been pushing creation of a “knowledge economy.” Private enterprise is expanding. In this way, argued analyst Michael Bassett, Kim is “liberating” the DPRK.

A de facto property market has arisen in this once most tightly controlled society. Private financing has developed. North Korean and foreign banks are providing cash cards.

The number of official open-air private markets has more than doubled since 2010 to 406; another 1000 unofficial markets are thought to be operating. Eight of ten North Koreans have shopped at private markets.

Noted the Guardian, “Unlike most aspects of life in North Korea, one’s ability to shoot up through the company ranks is less contingent on background: even those with poor songbun, a caste system delineated by family background and political loyalty, can be a boss.”

As a result, a more prosperous, brightly dressed middle class has taken root. Jang Jin-sung, a psychological warfare officer who defected in 2004, wrote: “The key to change lies outside the sway of the regime—in the flourishing underground economy.”

Of course, economic reforms so far are modest, and have not yielded a fully private economy. Moreover, such changes can go only so far in transforming North Korean society.

As I wrote for Forbes: “China demonstrates that autocracy can coexist with free enterprise. In this regard the North has very far to go. But the PRC also shows rising economic liberty to offer the best hope yet for positive evolution over time.”

There are no serious alternatives. War would have devastating consequences.

Enhanced sanctions are a panacea oft-proposed in the U.S. However, there’s no guarantee that increased hardship would cause Pyongyang to capitulate. Moreover, despite Beijing’s evident displeasure with its troublesome neighbor, China remains unwilling to cut its economic lifeline to the North.

Nor would a North Korean implosion be pretty. Pyongyang could choose to strike out militarily. Collapse could send violence and refugees across the DPRK’s borders and loose nuclear materials even further. China might occupy the North and install a friendly regime.

The only other option is engagement, with a conscious attempt to moderate the threat environment facing both Koreas. But eliminating nuclear weapons cannot be the starting point. The possibility of bribing or coercing the North to abandon its nukes disappeared long ago.

Instead, Washington should begin where the North has suggested: negotiate a peace treaty. The best reason to talk may be the simplest: nothing else has worked.

Responding to North Korea’s initiative would offer two practical benefits irrespective of the outcome. First, the North tends to eschew provocative military actions when engaged in negotiations. Second, Beijing long has urged the U.S. to address Pyongyang’s security concerns. Taking the PRC’s advice might make the latter more likely to cooperate with Washington.

However, the most important reason to negotiate remains to encourage the DPRK to move further and faster along the reform path. Such a result might be a long-shot, but Kim Jong-un is dismantling the North Korean status quo.

Of course, discussions should be conducted without illusion. But refusing to engage ensures future failure.

North Korea’s upcoming party congress offers a possible opportunity to dampen hostilities. It’s time for the U.S. to attempt to finally end the Korean War.

On Friday, European Union envoys agreed to extend sanctions on Russia, continuing the restrictions placed on Russian businesses and citizens following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and aggression in Eastern Ukraine. The sanctions prevent some of Russia’s largest companies from raising capital in the West, restrict the export of technology and technical services for unconventional oil and gas drilling, and freeze the assets and travel of Russian elites.

Unfortunately, as I show in a study published in the January/​February edition of Foreign Affairs, sanctions on Russia have been largely unsuccessful. The Russian economy is certainly hurting, but most of this damage was done by the extraordinary drop in oil prices over the last year:

The ruble’s exchange rate has tracked global oil prices more closely than any new sanctions, and many of the actions taken by the Russian government, including the slashing of the state budget, are similar to those it took when oil prices fell during the 2008 financial crisis.

And economic damage itself isn’t necessarily the best measure for sanctions success. Ultimately, sanctions are a tool of economic coercion and statecraft. If they do not cause a policy change, they are failing:

After the initial round of sanctions, the Kremlin’s aggression only grew: Russia formally absorbed Crimea and upped its financial and military support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine (including those who most likely shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight).

The performance of modern targeted sanctions –which promise that damage will be narrowly focused on elites rather than the population in general – is also questionable in the Russian case, where the Kremlin has effectively redirected the economic burden of sanctions onto the population:

By restricting access to international financing during a recession, the sanctions have compounded the fall in oil prices, requiring Moscow to slash spending on health care, infrastructure, and government salaries, which has created economic hardship for ordinary Russians. The crash of the ruble, meanwhile, has not only destroyed savings but also increased the monthly payments of those who hold mortgages denominated in foreign currencies.

Perhaps worst of all, the sanctions are costing US and European companies billions of dollars in compliance costs, lost business and broken contracts:

The brunt is being borne by Europe, where the European Commission has estimated that the sanctions cut growth by 0.3 percent of GDP in 2015. According to the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, continuing the sanctions on Russia could cost over 90 billion euros in export revenue and more than two million jobs over the next few years. The sanctions are proving especially painful for countries with strong trade ties to Russia. Germany, Russia’s largest European partner, stands to lose almost 400,000 jobs. 

Ultimately, as I argue in the article, the success of sanctions can be judged by a variety of standards. Yet by virtually all of them, they are failing. This is a blow for those – myself included – who seek restrained policy options to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. Yet given the costs to U.S. businesses, it’s probably time for policymakers to consider whether continuing sanctions on Russia is really the best option, or whether there are more effective diplomatic or economic policy tools we can use instead.

You can read the whole article, with more data and policy recommendations, over at Foreign Affairs. 

Happy Star Wars launch day! As the newest film in the Star Wars franchise is exciting fans around the globe, it’s also offering a unique opportunity for foreign policy scholars: attempting to shoehorn Star Wars parallels and metaphors into foreign policy debates.

It’s certainly easy to do. Over at Foreign Policy, authors examine why the rebel victory at Endor may not have been the decisive battle it initially appeared:

Much of the chaos following the Rebel Alliance’s victory was predictable. Its wartime leaders were overwhelmingly focused on avoiding missteps and destroying their vastly more powerful enemy while ignoring the problems of violence, factionalism, and criminality that plague post-conflict environments across the universe.

You don’t have to work hard to see the clumsy historical metaphor here: the rebellion’s victory gave way to a ‘failed democratic transition,’ with the Rebel Alliance unable to turn their victory into a durable political settlement. In a post-Arab Spring world, the parallels are obvious.

Others examine Luke’s path to radicalization from his first encounter with Obi-Wan (a charismatic mentor with a strange new religion), to his return home to find his family killed by the Empire (presumably by drone strike), to his decision to join the rebels and overthrow the government. When the movie was initially released at the height of the Cold War, a decision to join the rebellion and fight the ‘evil empire’ was heroic. Today, with parallels to ISIS, it can seem less clear-cut.

Some commentators have gone even further, asking whether the Empire was really so bad. Neoconservative icon Bill Kristol noted on twitter that the Empire was a liberal regime with meritocracy and upward mobility. The post-Arab Spring Middle East certainly lends some credence to the idea that even a dictator might be better than chaos, though it requires us to overlook the Empire’s many war crimes.

But what each of these accounts gets wrong is their assumption that Star Wars should be interpreted as a representation of today’s world. Sure, the zeitgeist influences writers, directors, and musicians. Yet the great strength of the science fiction and fantasy genres has always been the ability to explore complex political issues, including foreign policy, in a setting distinct from today’s world.

HBO’s Game of Thrones presents a fantastical world with dragons and wights. But at heart, the story is about power, territory, and what people are willing to do for it. It’s hard to describe author George R.R. Martin as anything other than a pure Hobbesian realist, exploring the consequences of the anarchy that follows the demise of state authority.

Recent dystopian films illustrate the workings of non-democratic societies — The Hunger Games is fundamentally about the ways in which authoritarian regimes keep their population in line – while shows like Battlestar Galactica illustrate the unpleasant compromises societies at war often make within themselves and with the enemy.

With greater space, science fiction books can explore these issues more effectively. Robert Heinlein’s classic works focus on issues as diverse as Starship Troopers’ military-dominated society, and the asymmetric warfare required of a small colony (the moon) trying to escape a larger empire. Despite its futuristic mileu, Joe Haldeman’s Forever War is one of the best fictional explorations of the difficulties veterans face when returning home from war. And in Iain M. Banks’ culture novels, we find both a utopian socialist society, and the disturbing implication that its existence relies on a willingness to engage in covert, morally questionable actions.

The point is: don’t read too much into pundits’ claims that Star Wars is a metaphor for today’s politics. Science fiction’s strength is its ability to explore different governance structures, wars, societies, and political trade-offs in context. So if you want to understand politics, you shouldn’t just read philosophers and theorists. Start with Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, or Morgenthau. Continue with Heinlein, Herbert, Orwell, Asimov, Banks, Stephenson, and Gibson. 

And may the force be with you. 

Much is said these days about the mismatch of missions and resources for the military. A recent Rand Corporation report warned that failing to deploy a large enough Army could “lead to a failure of the U.S. strategy and subsequent regret.”

But as I point out in National Interest online, “the solution is not to spend more. It is to reassess foreign policy objectives. Better to scale back an over-ambitious strategy than to waste scarce resources pursuing dubious goals.”

For instance, Rand pointed to 2007–2008, when the Bush administration decided to increase combat forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The report explained: “Unfortunately, insufficient ground forces existed to meet the demands in both Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Yet what was achieved by both of these wars? The disastrous Iraq invasion was misguided from the start. Little more has been achieved in Afghanistan after14 year of nation-building.

The problem was not too few troops. It was the wrong objectives.

That continues to be the case. Rand addressed contingencies involving the Islamic State, Russia in the Baltics and Ukraine, and North Korea. To “limit regret” in confronting such challenges, Rand advocated adding more soldiers.

Better would be reducing requirements. After relying on America for decades, Washington’s defense dependents should do more to protect themselves.

First there’s the Middle East and the Islamic State. If the mission in these areas changes, noted Rand, then U.S. forces “would need to increase significantly.”

Yet Yemen long has been a mess and the Houthis have been fighting the central authorities for decades. There’s no reason to believe that keeping combat forces in Afghanistan for another year will do more than prolong failure.

As for ISIL, where are America’s supposed Arab allies? Most have essentially gone AWOL. Yet the Islamic State is essentially at war with every major country in the Middle East. Counting paramilitary forces, more than a million men are available to deal with a couple tens of thousands of ISIL fighters.

The second “threat” to the U.S. comes from Moscow. In the Rand analysts’ view, some 120,000 additional U.S. army personnel are required to confront possible Russian aggression.

Yet while the lawless dismemberment of Crimea offends Americans’ sense of justice, it threatens neither the U.S. nor Europe. As for garrisoning the Baltics, where are the Europeans? The European Union has a larger population and economy than America.

Finally, there’s North Korea. Even Rand acknowledged that “a wealthy and technologically advanced South Korea can now provide well-trained and armed forces to defeat a conventional invasion.” But the researchers cited the North’s artillery, missiles, and unconventional capabilities and feared collapse would leave nuclear materials vulnerable to theft.

Nearly 200,000 extra U.S. soldiers could be needed.

But where are the South Koreans? With around 40 times the economic strength and twice the population, they could put more men under arms.

And how about neighboring states? The studious refusal of the South Koreans and Japanese to cooperate depends on Washington’s continuing willingness to step into the gap.

Moreover, China would not be comfortable with 150,000 U.S. soldiers heading toward the Yalu. Beijing might intervene to preserve a puppet rump state, keep U.S. forces away from the border, and collect nuclear materials.

Pushing defense responsibilities back on those who actually are threatened is the best way to close the strategy-resource mismatch. Rand’s objection is striking: “this approach ignores the fact that the most capable U.S. allies are currently cutting their ground forces more than we are and that they rely on U.S. ground forces for much of the combat and logistics support they receive during deployed operations.”

Yes, because Washington allows them to do so. But if they won’t defend themselves, why should Washington do so?

Facing an entitlement tsunami, Americans soon will have little choice but to expect their foreign “friends” to do more. The U.S. should start shifting defense responsibilities now.

There has been a recent surge of allegations that the underlying motive for outrages such as the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino is that radical Islamists hate Western values. Senator Marco Rubio is perhaps the most blatant in pushing that thesis. One of his campaign commercials asserts flatly that such violent extremists target us because we let women drive and girls attend school.

That argument is simply an updated version of the meme that President George W. Bush highlighted in the period following the 9–11 attacks. According to Bush and his supporters, Islamists hated us “because of our freedoms.” Just nine days after the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush addressed Congress and emphasized that theme. “They hate our freedoms,” he said, “our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” Such an argument was simplistic and misleading then, and it is simplistic and misleading now.

That is not to say that it is impossible to find a jihadist somewhere who is so unhinged that he would want to slaughter Americans simply because of a virulent hatred of Western culture. But even the bipartisan commission that investigated the 9–11 attacks conceded that the primary driving force for Islamist terrorism was anger at U.S.-led foreign policy in the Middle East. And there were no pacifists, “blame America first” types, or “isolationists” on that commission. The members made the grudging admission that Western actions in the Middle East were root cause of Islamic terrorist blowback because there was overwhelming evidence that it was true.

The Marco Rubios of the world act as though Western policy and the wreckage it has caused in the Muslim world is an irrelevant factor with respect to terrorism. But the United States and its allies have been meddling extensively throughout the region for decades. Indeed, beginning with the military intervention in Lebanon in 1982, they have been almost continuously imposing punishing economic sanctions on, bombing, or invading Muslim countries. Such conduct, and the acute suffering it has caused, might have a little something to do with the rage that is now directed at the West.

Indeed, there are more than a few hints of that motive from the statements of radical Islamic operatives. Osama Bin Laden responded directly to Bush’s facile argument that al-Qaeda attacked the United States because of a hatred of Western values. Bin Laden noted that his group had not attacked countries such as Sweden. That was true even though Scandinavian culture (especially its liberal sexual mores) was far more offensive than American culture to conservative practitioners of Islam. The reason for the restraint, Bin Laden emphasized, was that Sweden had not attacked Muslim countries. Indeed, he stated categorically that “any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked.”

It is also pertinent to remember the words of the terrorist gunmen at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. They did not shout out: “This is because you let women drive!” Instead, they shouted: “This is for Syria!” France (along with the United States and other Western allies) had been bombing areas controlled by ISIS in Syria for more than a year. The Paris attacks were bloody payback.

Lest the usual flock of neoconservative hawks try to distort this analysis as a “justification” for terrorism, let’s make it perfectly clear: deliberately attacking innocent civilians is never justified, no matter what the underlying grievance. But stressing that point is far different from pretending that there is no underlying grievance, which is what Rubio and his ideological cohorts are attempting to do.

Ending the U.S.-led policy of militarized meddling in the Middle East might not mean the end of radical Islamic terrorism directed against the West—at least not immediately. But the old adage that when you find yourself in a hole, your first action should be to stop digging, applies here. As a first step, we need to stop pursuing the policies that have produced such catastrophic blowback.

After claiming a special expertise in foreign policy, GOP presidential wannabe Marco Rubio finds himself under fire because of his neoconservative tendencies. He’s responded in the usual way for someone whose policies would keep America perpetually at war: accuse his critics of being “isolationists.”

Trying to defend his record of supporting such disastrous misadventures as Iraq and Libya, he denounced unnamed foes who sought “to derail the postwar consensus about America’s role in the world.” This outrageous yet anonymous “they,” he added, “will never call themselves isolationists, but that is exactly what they are.”

Against Ted Cruz, the likely intended target, the claim obviously is nonsense. After all, Cruz recently proposed carpet-bombing the Islamic State.

What Rubio unintentionally illustrated was the fact that “isolationist” today has been stripped of almost all meaning to become an all-purpose epithet. Indeed, if “isolationist” means anything today, it simply is “you don’t want to intervene where I want to intervene.”

There are no isolationists in America today, or at least any seriously involved in influencing foreign policy. Even the strongest critics of Rubio’s militarism tend to promote free trade, liberal immigration, and international cooperation. That’s hardly “isolationism.”

And most everyone is for at least some military action. The number of analysts who opposed social engineering in the Balkans, nation-building in Afghanistan, democracy-promotion in Iraq, and humanitarian intervention in Libya would fill a Washington phone booth, if one could be found.

Perhaps the greatest irony is how Rubio and his fellow neoconservatives parade as internationalists even as their policies disrupt the international order. Indeed, it is a curious internationalism which views itself as in full flower when the U.S. military is bombing, invading, and occupying other nations. As I point out in National Interest online: “Anything else—diplomacy, economic sanctions, even threatening future military action—is the worst form of ‘appeasement,’ another meaningless yet all-purpose insult.”

Certainly doing nothing is utterly inconceivable. No handing off the problem to those states with the greatest interest.

A better definition for isolationist would be someone who wants America to be isolated. The starting point would be military—no alliances, of course, but also no other cooperation of any sort. There actually aren’t many of those people around, even among non-interventionists.

Next would be economic isolation, or autarchy. It’s an ancient yet stupid economic policy held by few in America, even among avowed protectionists.

Then there are people. Even Donald Trump is at most a selective isolationist in this regard, targeting Muslims, and for reasons other than an abstract desire for Americans to be alone.

Thus, it would be more helpful if Rubio dropped the name-calling and participated in a serious debate over how the U.S. should engage the world. That should begin with examining the catastrophic consequences of the military policies which he supported in Iraq and Libya.

Indeed, Rubio might discuss whether he believes peace itself to be an “isolationist” policy. For instance, he declared: “I will use American power to oppose any violations of international waters, airspace, cyberspace or outer space.” Any violations?

He also promised to treat as a casus belli “the economic disruptions caused when one country invades another, as well as the chaos caused by disruptions in choke points such as the South China Sea or the Strait of Hormuz.” Does that mean America has to fight any war involving any trading partner?

When it comes to Rubio, “isolationist” really means good old-fashioned common sense. Don’t go to war unless you have to. Don’t risk your own people’s lives and money in misbegotten crusades abroad.

Far from highlighting Rubio’s qualifications for the presidency, his foreign policy views demonstrate a world view which is both simplistic and dangerous. When coming from the Florida Senator, “isolationist” should be viewed as a compliment.

This fall, the Department of Homeland Security and its pro-national ID allies staged a push to move more states toward complying with REAL ID, the U.S. national ID law. The public agitation effort was so successful that passport offices in New Mexico were swamped with people fearing their drivers’ licenses would be invalid for federal purposes. A DHS official had to backtrack on a widely reported January 2016 deadline for state compliance.

DHS continues to imply that all but a few holdout states stand in the way of nationwide REAL ID compliance. The suggestion is that residents of recalcitrant jurisdictions will be hung out to dry soon, when the Transportation Security Administration starts turning away travelers who arrive at its airport checkpoints with IDs from non-compliant states.

At this writing, DHS’s “REAL ID Enforcement in Brief” page lists just two non-compliant jurisdictions: Minnesota and American Samoa. You’d take this as a signal of broad compliance. But look closely at the list of “Compliant/​Extension” jurisdictions, and you see that more than half of them are non-compliant and enjoying extensions themselves.

But here’s the kicker: Even the ‘compliant’ states aren’t compliant. DHS treats states as ‘compliant’ if they’re synched up with a pared-back “material compliance checklist.” It’s DHS reducing the obligations of the law by fiat, and it’s no different than extending the deadline indefinitely on a subset of the law’s actual requirements.

When DHS bureaucrats tell state elected officials that the agency can no longer offer them extensions, this is false. DHS is currently giving every state in the union, including the ones it calls “compliant,” extensions with respect to provisions of the law and regulations that don’t appear on its checklist.

To help clarify what REAL ID compliance actually is, we’ve compiled a list of REAL ID’s actual requirements, what the law and regulations would mean for states. REAL ID has nearly 100 requirements, ranging from very easy, standard ID-card practices to things that are currently impossible and ill-advised. States have to do all of them to be compliant.

We’ve grouped the requirements together for easy reading. Many are back-end mandates, requiring states to meet standards for facilities, data storage, employee background checks, and so forth. Notably, REAL ID requires states to make driver data available to every other state, which means that every DMV must open its state’s residents’ data to the risk of exposure to any state that lacks sufficient information controls. That ill-advised policy is currently impossible, luckily, because the data sharing network has not yet been built. Congress puts money into the project annually in the DHS appropriations bill.

The full REAL ID requirements make it easy to see why no state is in compliance today, and why no state should expend their taxpayers’ money on the onerous, complex scheme to implement the U.S. national ID law.

Data Storage and Sharing Requirements

The regulations governing REAL ID require issuing authorities to meet certain standards for data storage, as well as to engage in data sharing with issuing authorities in other states and with DHS. This data sharing is the heart of the national ID, creating as it does a network of ostensibly state-level databases linked together according to federal standards.
• States must maintain copies of source documents, applications and signed declarations
• If the state allows for/​recognizes name changes, it must maintain copies of the evidence of name change
• If the state allows for/​recognizes name changes, it must maintain a record of both the original and recorded names
• If the state allows for alternate documents, it must maintain copies of the alternate documents
• Paper copies of documents must be maintained for at least 7 years; digital copies and microfiche copies must be maintained for at least 10 years
• States must store photo images (the aforementioned “mandatory facial image capture”) in JPEG 2000 format
• States must maintain copies of the digital photograph of the applicant for a minimum of five years if no card is ultimately issued or for two years past the date of the card’s expiration if issued
• States must store signature copies in TIF or TIF-compatible format
• States must make photos retrievable for law enforcement, who can access said photos if they request properly
• States must maintain databases that contain all fields printed on licenses/​IDs and SSNs of holders
• Databases must contain full legal names of drivers
• Databases must contain all other data presented by driver to the DMV but not printed on license
• Database must contain full drivers’ histories
• States must provide electronic access to the driver database(s) to other states

“Visible” Card Regulations

These are regulations that are the most basic visible requirements of REAL ID: the physical format of the license/​ID card and what information has to be displayed on it. These include the most basic information of the license holder, some of which are common to both REAL ID and “non-federal” licenses. They include:
• Full legal name
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Unique license/​ID number
• Digital photograph (black-and-white or color)
• Holder’s primary address
• Signature of holder (or an alternate mark/​signifier for those unable to sign)
• Machine readable bar code
• Visible expiration date
• Date of issuance
• State/​jurisdiction of issuance
• Compliance mark (“Gold Star”)
• Text exclusively in Latin script
Many of these requirements have been standard components of driver’s licenses for decades. The machine readable bar code requirement and the REAL ID compliance mark (the “Gold Star” on compliant licenses) are new with the act. In the event that the state/​jurisdiction continues to make non-compliant licenses and IDs available to residents alongside compliant versions, two additional visible requirements exist:
• Non-REAL ID licenses and IDs must prominently state on face that they are not for federal purposes
• Non-REAL ID licenses and IDs must use unique designs and/​or color indicators to differentiate them from compliant versions

Non-Visible Card Regulations

These are regulations which also deal with physical requirements for compliance. However, they are requirements which are not apparent from a casual inspection of a license, or which would not be apparent without some knowledge of REAL ID’s regulatory requirements or without special equipment. (Encoded information is dealt with in the next section). They include:
• A digital photo which meets ISO/IEC 19794–5:2005(e) requirements (an international standard for identity document photographs)
• A digital photo which is either black-and-white or color
• A digital photo which has been taken with facial image capture technology
• Name field of no less than 39 characters, and with truncation of longer names in case of extreme length
• Multi-layered anti-fraud features (like watermarks, holograms and non-standard inks)
• Durable physical materials used in production, which are unavailable to the general public and able to withstand inspection and use

Barcode Regulations

Machine readable barcodes are typically placed on the back of compliant licenses. These barcodes are encoded with the bearer’s personal information, largely duplicating the visible printed data, and including information on the card’s current design and how it was produced (an inventory control number). The barcode is designed to be scanned by law enforcement, government entities, and others with access to the appropriate reader.
• Encoded legal name
• Encoded date of birth
• Encoded gender
• Encoded address
• Encoded state/​jurisdiction of issuance
• Encoded expiration date
• Encoded date of issue
• Encoded identification number
• Encoded revision date of license/​ID design
• Encoded inventory control number

Application Requirements

These requirements deal with what has to be presented by the applicant during the application process for a REAL ID compliant license or ID card. They are the only set of requirements incumbent upon the applicant; all the other requirements are incumbent upon the issuing authority or the Department of Homeland Security. To receive a compliant license or ID, the applicant must present:
• Recognized photo ID document
• Proof of name change (if applicable)
• Proof of date of birth
• Proof of Social Security number OR proof of ineligibility for a number
• Documentation of permanent address
• Proof of lawful status
• No foreign documents allowed, except for a foreign passport
• Signature
• Signature upon document attesting, under penalty of perjury, validity of everything presented

Issuing Requirements

These requirements are the counterpart to the application requirements; they are the requirements incumbent upon the issuing authority during the application and license/​ID issuance process.
• Verification of photo ID
• Verification of date of birth
• Verification of full Social Security Number
• Verification of documentation of permanent address
• Verification of proof of lawful status
• Verification of presented ID documents with issuing authority
• Subject each applicant to a photo utilizing “mandatory facial image capture”
• Resolve any issues arising from SSN verification or document verification
• Confirm with other appropriate states/​jurisdictions that any prior out-of-state licenses have been terminated (or will be terminated upon receipt of the new license)
• Make a reasonable effort to ensure that the applicant does not hold a license in another jurisdiction under a different name
• Verify out-of-state REAL IDs (if presented as a form of ID) with the issuing authority
• Limit validity of new license/​ID to 8 years maximum
• States are not required to comply with all of the requirements if the license/​ID is to be issued in support of federal, state, or local criminal justice (i.e. witness protection programs, federal judges with protected addresses, federal law enforcement officials etc.)

Renewal Requirements

These requirements follow from the issuing requirements, and deal with additional protocols during a renewal. One non-in-person renewal is allowed for a REAL ID compliant license/​ID during each renewal cycle; the next renewal must be in person.
• States may permit remote renewal, if state law allows for it
• During a remote renewal, the state must re-verify the license holder’s SSN
• However, states must require in-person renewal of the license/​ID no less frequently than every 16 years
• Re-verify the license holder’s SSN during an in-person renewal
• Re-verify the license holder’s proof of legal presence if the holder is a non-citizen/permanent resident
• Take an updated digital photograph of the holder
• If there has been a material change in the applicant’s material information (i.e. a name change, a sex change etc.) an in-person renewal is mandatory
• Renewed licenses issued prior to the material compliance date set by DHS will be accepted for official purposes until that date

Exemption/​Alternate Requirements

• States may establish a well-documented and DHS-approved exemptions process for applicants able only to present alternate/non-standard documents
• States with exemption processes must make an effort to authenticate alternate documents and they must note the use of alternate documents in their records
• States must conduct period reviews of the exemptions process
• States will only issue temporary REAL ID-compliant licenses/​IDs to persons under certain categories of legal status (like refugees, certain visa holders)
• Temporary licenses/​IDs shall only be valid for the period of authorized stay or, if indefinite, one year (subject to renewal)
• Temporary licenses must prominently display expiration date
• Temporary licenses shall only be renewed upon presentation of valid documentary proof of continued/​extended status
• Presented documents for continued/​extended status must be verified with the appropriate federal authorities

DMV Security/​Physical Requirements

• States must produce a security plan, which must be submitted to DHS as part of REAL ID certification
• The plan must ensure the physical security of locations where licenses and ID cards are produced
• The plan must ensure the physical security of document materials and papers from which licenses and IDs produced
• The plan must address the security of personal information held at responsible DMV facilities
• The plan must address document and physical security features of the card, consistent with regulations
• The plan must address access control for employees and systems
• The plan must establish fraudulent document recognition training programs for DMV employees
• The plan must address emergency/​incident response at facilities
• The plan must address internal audit controls
• The plan must include an affirmation that the State possesses both the authority and the means to produce, revise, expunge, and protect the confidentiality of REAL ID driver’s licenses or identification cards issued in support of Federal, State, or local criminal justice agencies or similar programs that require special licensing or identification to safeguard persons or support their official duties
• States must ensure the physical security of materials and locations used in the production of licenses/​IDs, consistent with security measures detailed in the security plan
• The state must subject all persons authorized to manufacture or produce licenses and IDs to appropriate security requirements
• The state must perform background, criminal history, employment history, and reference checks on REAL ID-responsible DMV employees
• Employees subject to checks prior to 2006 need not be rechecked