It is clear that US President Donald Trump is pushing hard for a fresh summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the coming months. To achieve that, he appears prepared to downgrade and jeopardise the US-South Korea alliance, as seen in his recent move to scale back joint military exercises.
For Trump, this will be a purely bilateral exercise, with both Seoul and Beijing totally sidelined, let alone Moscow and Tokyo. Equally, there is now a general acceptance that the issue of denuclearisation will not be on the table at any future summit. Trump is looking for an outcome that protects US security interests, while Kim’s interests are in de facto recognition as a nuclear weapons state, sanctions relief and investment.
Kim has a functioning nuclear arsenal but lacks any reliable intercontinental delivery system. South Korea and Japan are easy targets for his short and intermediate range missiles, but Pyongyang currently has only tested engines for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can hit the mainland United States. It lacks re-entry technology, payload capacity for multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles and pinpoint guidance capacity.
In these circumstances, constructing a bilateral deal where both sides can credibly claim a win – at least to their own domestic audiences – is a challenge but nevertheless possible with some misdirection. However, this will come at considerable cost to their friends and neighbours who will suffer serious collateral damage. Washington and Pyongyang can be expected to collude to save face.