So, I spend a week every year with a cousin by marriage who is one of our country's go-to guys on North Korea. He's met Kim more than once, has toured certain nuclear facilities, negotiated for hostage releases, the whole deal. He has briefed folks in the current administration several times. He just got back from a recent meeting with one of the other nations that took part in the six party talks back in the day.
He had both positives and negatives to say about where we are.
1 -- The DPRK is a nuclear power. It is going to remain a nuclear power. They are never going to give up their weapons, and why would they? Truly, we're the only nation that seems to still have that as a goal.
2 -- now that they have nukes, they're probably SAFER to deal with than they were before. They're not scared. Everyone in the room has a gun, now they do too. That makes them feel much less nervous.
So, what should our goals be? Most importantly, limit the number of nukes that they have. That means letting them keep the weapons they have, but having them surrender fissile material and plutonium. IF you have a limited number of nukes, the games you can play are limited. If you have 100, you can play much more dangerous games (survive a first strike, counterstrike selected targets, and still have more weapons for a second counterstrike).
How do we get there? Well, it's a slow game, like it always has been. We could trade a relaxation of sanctions, but that cat's already out of the bag (at least by South Korea and China). Honestly, we don't have a whole lot of leverage -- Trump gave it away.
BUT, he also gave credit for Trump. Sure, he'd have much preferred that he went into the summit prepared, having spent time negotiating a pre-packaged deal that ended the war, expressed a commitment to denuclearize the peninsula, and actually had the DPRK surrender some fissile material (and of course, formal relaxation of some sanctions). But he did say that only a Republican could meet with Kim, and an outlier like Trump was the kind of guy who could do it. And, even if no concrete terms were agreed to, the relationship created and general commitments made should mean no war in the near future (and that's, you know, a good thing).
He also observed that Pompeo's recent visit was a disaster, mostly because the admin wasn't listening to the experts. Pompeo went to North Korea thinking he was going to meet with Kim. He didn't, and it was embarrassing. And the DPRK has the upper hand right now. They can slow-play all of their "commitments," and there's not much we can do about it.
Good news: war unlikely.
Bad news: negotiations with this new nuclear power will take strategy and finesse, and the admin has demonstrated neither.
So, there you go. I plied him with several good Ballast Point beers to get this info. Enjoy.