With South Korean President Lee Jae-myung set to visit Washington for a summit with President Donald Trump today, the familiar debate over North Korea will again take center stage. Lee is expected to promote the idea that reconciliation with Pyongyang will naturally lead to peace, casting himself as a “peacemaker” in the mold of past liberal leaders. But this optimism is not only naïve—it is dangerous, and it ignores decades of evidence that North Korea exploits “dialogue” as a cover for provocation and survival.

Each time a left-leaning administration rises in Seoul, a familiar refrain sounds. If South Korea simply pursues reconciliation with the North, tensions will ease, and the specter of war will fade. The narrative is enticing, built on the promise of dialogue over confrontation and economic cooperation over deterrence. But it is a dangerous illusion, one that ignores the regime’s unbroken record of duplicity and the strategic logic that underpins its survival.

North Korea has never truly entertained the notion of peaceful coexistence. The regime’s rhetoric remains hostile, its posture belligerent, and its actions consistent with long-term confrontation. Kim Yo-jong, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s sister and one of Pyongyang’s most powerful voices, has in recent weeks dismissed Seoul’s peace overtures as nothing more than “

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