In January 2018, a remarkable transformation began to occur in the Korean Peninsula Conflict. The political dynamics between the DPRK, ROK and US began to shift from cycles of provocation to diplomatic engagement and cooperation. This improvement in relations became possible due to the manner in which domestic political events unfolded in each country over the past several years, paired with the strategic decisions made by the three national leaders to seize the opportunity.

This analysis was written after a series of Inter-Korean Summits and the DPRK-US Summit in Singapore. It was published in January 2019, one month before the Hanoi Summit. The author discussed why the unique window of opportunity must be capitalized on immediately, before it would expire as early as mid-2019.
The DPRK took several concrete measures to demonstrate their dedication to a negotiation process with the ROK and the US. Therefore, ahead of the Hanoi Summit, the onus lay on the US to participate in a reciprocal negotiation process by choosing to make equal concessions in kind. If not, the stalemate would continue and the citizens and government leaderships of all three countries would lose patience, and this exceptional opportunity would be forfeited.