What is North Korea doing? Ryan Lorig

With many news outlets and political scientists alike scratching their heads over the sudden, random end to the Korean War, one would like to know; what is North Korea thinking? Now this, as President Trump hopes, would be a sudden realization of America’s military power or of a higher power, some may even call an epiphany. However, most others are skeptical of Kim Jong-Un’s intentions regarding this issue as it is unwarranted. Michael J. Green, author of Pyongyang is Playing Washington and Seoul, would agree, suggesting that Kim Jong Un’s intentions are to reaffirm North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state while diluting both Chinese and South Korean support for sanctions against North Korea. That is to say that North Korea did not take any steps to commit to denuclearization. Green also argues, based on a memorandum sent from Kim Jong Gak, director of the Political Bureau of Korean People’s Army, to Kim Jong Un that this move is set to push Americans to abandon their hostility and unfavorable policies towards North Korea. I would argue that this idea is gaining momentum in a sense that this move humanizes North Korea. For the first time in many years, we have seen North Korea take steps toward diplomacy in what started as a march of solidarity between the Koreas in the Olympics to Kim Jong Un crossing the DMZ this past weekend. No doubt this has been nothing but a series of extremely odd moves to someone like myself, but to someone like me, a (now) average thinker on international relations, these are moves that make North Korea look culturally relatable. Doing things that make sense, abandoning their stubborn ways, and attempting to reach an “agreement” with the United States that would make both sides satisfied. These are all very confusing to me and one would have a right to be skeptical as North Korea seemingly has little to gain from this and a decades-old nuclear program to lose. So why is North Korea doing what it is doing?

http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/27/pyongyang-is-playing-washington-and-seoul/