North Korea Policy Needs an Overhaul, But Biden and Trump Won't Do It

The policy being proposed here requires boldness, imagination, and political courage, and none of those things has been in evidence on foreign policy for the last three years.

John Delury urges the U.S. to make a new effort at engaging with North Korea:

The key to any new overture to North Korea is how it is framed. The White House won’t like to hear this, but success will probably depend on Mr. Biden putting his fingerprints all over the effort, by, for example, nominating a new White House envoy with the stature of someone like John Kerry and announcing a sweeping policy on North Korea and an intelligence review. Only the president can get through to Mr. Kim, and only Mr. Kim can change North Korean policy.

Mr. Biden also would need to use radically different language in framing a new overture as an effort to improve relations and aid North Korea’s economy — not to denuclearize a country that in 2022 passed a law declaring itself a nuclear weapons state. Yes, that would be a bitter pill for America to swallow: Denuclearization has been a guiding principle of U.S. policy toward North Korea for decades. But it is unrealistic to pretend that Pyongyang will surrender its nuclear weapons anytime soon. Disarmament can remain a long-term goal but is impossible if the two sides aren’t even talking.

Delury is right that the U.S. should make an effort to engage North Korea, but it is hard to imagine Biden doing any of this. The policy being proposed here requires boldness, imagination, and political courage, and none of those things has been in evidence on foreign policy for the last three years. Democratic politicians have also largely defined themselves on this issue by their opposition to Trump’s pseudo-engagement, so it will be difficult to get many of them on board for a serious effort.