“Dialogue” is just one of many disguises North Korea employs to keep South Korea in the dark about its true intentions.
With South Korean President Lee Jae-myung set to visit Washington for a summit with President Donald Trump today, the familiar debate over North Korea will again take center stage. Lee is expected to promote the idea that reconciliation with Pyongyang will naturally lead to peace, casting himself as a “peacemaker” in the mold of past liberal leaders. But this optimism is not only naïve—it is dangerous, and it ignores decades of evidence that North Korea exploits “dialogue” as a cover for provocation and survival.
Each time a left-leaning administration rises in Seoul, a familiar refrain sounds. If South Korea simply pursues reconciliation with the North, tensions will ease, and the specter of war will fade. The narrative is enticing, built on the promise of dialogue over confrontation and economic cooperation over deterrence. But it is a dangerous illusion, one that ignores the regime’s unbroken record of duplicity and the strategic logic that underpins its survival.
North Korea has never truly entertained the notion of peaceful coexistence. The regime’s rhetoric remains hostile, its posture belligerent, and its actions consistent with long-term confrontation. Kim Yo-jong, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s sister and one of Pyongyang’s most powerful voices, has in recent weeks dismissed Seoul’s peace overtures as nothing more than “a pipedream.”
She further declared that the North “will never” regard South Korea as a diplomatic partner. These words are not slips of the tongue. They reveal the essence of a state that thrives on hostility, sustains itself through perpetual confrontation, and views reconciliation not as an end in itself, but as a means to achieve its objectives.
History underscores the futility of believing that warmer rhetoric or unilateral concessions from Seoul can change this trajectory. The Sunshine Policy, championed in the early 2000s, funneled billions of dollars into North Korea to encourage bilateral engagement. For a time, the optics suggested progress: leaders shook hands, border villages buzzed with cautious optimism, and the Demilitarized Zone felt a brief lull of tension.
Yet, the resources delivered during those years were not invested in the well-being of ordinary North Koreans. Instead, they were diverted to weapons development and luxury goods for the Kim family. The missile tests that followed were not anomalies; they were the fruits of misguided generosity.
What engagement advocates often fail to grasp is that North Korea has always used dialogue tactically. The regime does not intend negotiations to end in a compromise. Rather, they are meant to buy time. Each cycle of talks provides Pyongyang with the breathing room it needs to advance its nuclear and missile programs, reinforce domestic legitimacy, and prepare for the next provocation. South Korea’s gestures of goodwill have consistently been met not with reciprocity but with exploitation.
The greatest danger of such misplaced optimism is that it erodes deterrence. If Seoul reduces joint military exercises with the United States, scales back missile defense investments, or weakens sanctions enforcement, Pyongyang responds with provocations, not gratitude.
The 2018 inter-Korean summits exemplify this dynamic. Amid images of smiling leaders walking across the border, South Korea scaled back its vigilance. Yet within a few years, North Korea had escalated missile testing to record levels, reaffirming its commitment to military supremacy. These are not ad hoc reactions; they are part of a deliberate strategy, one that seeks to capitalize on every fissure in allied resolve.
The risks extend beyond deterrence. Reconciliation narratives also threaten the foundation of the US-ROK alliance. The security architecture of Northeast Asia rests on the premise that Washington and Seoul act in concert. If South Korea prioritizes unilateral engagement with the North at the expense of alliance cohesion, it weakens the credibility of extended deterrence and emboldens adversaries. Today, with Russia and China deepening their coordination with Pyongyang, Seoul cannot afford the luxury of drifting from its most essential ally.
Perhaps most insidiously, the rhetoric of inevitable peace dulls public awareness. If citizens are convinced that reconciliation guarantees safety, vigilance erodes. The reality, however, is that North Korea oscillates between gestures of conciliation and acts of aggression not because it is conflicted, but because both serve its survival depending on the context. Concessions from the South buy resources, and provocations sustain internal control by justifying repression. To believe otherwise is to indulge in self-deception.
True peace cannot be built on sentiment alone. Dialogue is valuable and should never be dismissed out of hand, but it must be anchored in a clear-eyed understanding of the adversary. North Korea has repeatedly demonstrated that it sees engagement as a means to strengthen its military capabilities and prolong its dictatorship. Any strategy that ignores this reality would be deluding itself.
South Korea’s left-leaning optimism rests on the hope that Pyongyang might one day choose cooperation over conflict. This hope has always been a forlorn one. Peace must be underwritten by deterrence, grounded in alliance solidarity, and sustained by an unflinching recognition of North Korea’s true nature.
In an era defined by authoritarian revisionism and great-power rivalry, the stakes could not be higher. The mirage of peace through reconciliation tempts policymakers to trade vigilance for illusion. History, recent and distant, warns us of the cost. For the United States, for South Korea, and for the security of Northeast Asia, the lesson should be unequivocal: reconciliation without deterrence is not peace. It is surrender.
About the Author: Hyun Seung Lee
Hyun Seung Lee is a North Korean escapee and lead strategist at the Global Peace Foundation, with prior experience in North Korea’s shipping and mining sectors and as a sergeant in the DPRK Army Special Force. He defected in 2014 due to severe governmental purges, and he holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and a Master’s in Public Administration from Columbia University.
Image: Alexander Khitrov / Shutterstock.com.
