Research Analyst Shawn Rostker wrote an op-ed for 38 North about how U.S. policy toward North Korea’s nuclear program must change.
For decades, US policy toward North Korea has ranged from bombast to paralysis. The Trump-Kim summits marked a rare moment of high-level diplomacy, but with little lasting progress. Today, with signs that the United States may be preparing for renewed engagement with the North, the challenge is not how to go big, but how to begin wisely.
Conditions on the Korean Peninsula demand a fresh strategic approach. North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has grown significantly in both scale and sophistication. At the same time, strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific has intensified, coordination between North Korea and its authoritarian partners has deepened, and political uncertainties have raised new questions about the cohesion of the US-ROK alliance. The risks are growing too fast for diplomacy to remain on pause. Read more
