On January 9, the DPRK’s Permanent Mission to the UN sent out a press release reproducing a portion of a much longer report that North Korean media sources had released on the first days of the Party Congress. It appeared to contain a mildly hopeful message, taking note of the Singapore summit declaration that “assures the establishment of new DPRK-U.S. relationship.” Could the Biden administration perhaps avoid the downward spiral both Obama and Trump faced in their first years in office?

With Joe Biden headed to the White House, North Korea watchers are speculating how the incoming administration will deal with this long-standing foreign policy irritant. One place to look for cues is to review the spate of Obama-era memoirs to outline his administration’s first year with North Korea. In Part 1 and Part 2, I detailed the early Clinton gambit on denuclearization, its swift rejection by the North Koreans in their satellite launch of April and the nuclear test in May, and the passage of UNSC Resolution 1874. In this post, I consider the effort to restart talks. This is the third in a three-part series.

With Joe Biden headed to the White House, North Korea watchers are speculating how the incoming administration will deal with this long-standing foreign policy irritant. One place to look for cues is to review the spate of Obama-era memoirs on his administration’s first year with North Korea. In a previous post, I detailed the early Clinton gambit on denuclearization and its swift rejection by the North Koreans in their satellite launch of April. This is the second in a three part series.

With Joe Biden headed to the White House, North Korea watchers are speculating how the incoming administration will deal with this long-standing foreign policy irritant. One place to look for cues: how Obama’s first year with Kim Jong Il panned out. In doing so, we now have the advantage of several new memoirs—from Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes and from President Barack Obama himself—in addition to others, such as those by Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and Jeff Bader that came out earlier. Memoirs—like journalism—are first drafts of history, capturing how the principles viewed the problem. Equally if not more interesting are their silences: the way other issues seemed in retrospect more pressing and consequential, particularly for the president. Obama’s account of his first year in office, for example, gives little attention to North Korea after the satellite launch in April. Today, I start with the administration’s initial approach and how it was dashed by that test.