How to Engage the Enemy: The Case for National Security Diplomacy with North Korea

For decades, US policy has worked to isolate North Korea from the international community as well as from the United States itself. North Korea threatens US allies in the region and, increasingly, US territory directly. Its pursuit of nuclear weapons, illicit trafficking, and missile testing has repeatedly flouted international laws and norms. Domestically, it commits human rights abuses at scale. For all these reasons, the United States has used international diplomacy to politically ostracize North Korea and impose a stringent regime of economic sanctions. These coercive measures have been designed in large part to convince the Kim family regime to denuclearize, cease threatening neighboring states, and conform to the standards of the international community.