US President Donald J. Trump, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and former South Korean President Moon Jae-in talk together on June 30, 2019, outside Freedom House at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. (The White House/Shealah Craighead)

Getting to the First Steps Toward North Korean Denuclearization

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At best, Washington and Seoul can hope for reduced missile and nuclear arsenals on the Korean Peninsula.

For more than 30 years, South Korea and the United States have struggled to devise a North Korea policy capable of bringing about denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. In the 1990s, North Korea’s nuclear program was still limited enough that dismantlement did not look fanciful. Even later, agreements in 2005 and diplomacy in 2018 kept alive the possibility that the communist regime might eventually trade at least part of its nuclear program for security, political recognition, and economic benefits. That judgment was defensible when the outcome remained uncertain. It is much harder to defend today.

North Korea has continued producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium, improving its missiles and developing nuclear forces designed for use at different ranges. Plus, North Korea has enshrined nuclear weapons in its laws and state policy. Whatever one thinks of Pyongyang’s pompous claim that its nuclear status is “irreversible,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his acolytes plainly no longer describe the........

© The National Interest