Glyn Ford argues that North Korea’s past three decades of engagement, nuclear brinkmanship and missed diplomatic openings have now given way to a far more dangerous and settled reality. Tracing Pyongyang’s evolution from Kim Il Sung’s Cold War balancing act to Kim Jong Un’s nuclear-armed state aligned with Moscow, Ford challenges Western assumptions about irrationality and isolation. He shows how failed deals, broken promises and strategic misreadings—culminating in the collapse of the Hanoi summit—have closed the door on denuclearisation, reshaped inter-Korean relations and raised the spectre of a new, more volatile order in Northeast Asia.
You can access the article here: https://doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2025.2555752