The Hanoi Summit – We Asked John Dale Grover What Happens Next in U.S.-North Korea Relations

John Dale Grover

Security, Asia

"Yet diplomacy has and always will remain key. The door to diplomacy remains open, and that is the most important thing."

The summit in Hanoi between America and North Kora didn’t have to go the way it did. Political leaders and pundits can get wrapped up in history and in assuming that the way things have always gone is the way they always will. But the problem is that there is always a choice. Diplomacy with North Korea is not always and forever preordained to failure. To assume otherwise is to prematurely close the door to a future in which the North Korean nuclear threat is managed instead of ignored or made worse.

I have written many times that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will never give up his nuclear weapons. He knows that they are the only thing that really causes any U.S. president to pause when considering military action against him. No matter how hated Kim is or what he has done, he wants to survive and he knows that his nuclear weapons will protect him. Why risk the death of hundreds of thousands or millions just to bring him down? Pyongyang knows Washington and Seoul would not consider the cost worth it.

Yet diplomacy has and always will remain key. That is the case even now despite the disappointment over the lack of progress at Hanoi. The door to diplomacy remains open, and that is the most important thing. Consider that U.S. president Donald Trump could have stormed out of the meeting and tweeted once again about “fire and fury.” Imagine what would have happened if Kim had immediately ordered a nuclear test or missile launch. Both leaders could have acted even tougher in order to show up their critics at home and to attempt to intimidate each other.