| Summary/Abstract |
Despite the media attention to North Korean missile launches and American shows of force in 2017, war was never a realistic possibility. Deterrence and the costs of war are far too high for either side to seriously contemplate using force to resolve the Korean Peninsula standoff. Deterrence will also continue to hold into the future, barring some unforeseen circumstance. In this case, when war is not an option, what do countries do? What role does soft power play in diplomacy? States resort to hard power rarely and with great caution, precisely because the stakes are so high.
But just because countries are not going to war over an issue does not mean it is unimportant. In this sense, exploring how countries compete or engage in the push and pull of diplomacy below the threshold of hard and military power is a relatively understudied phenomenon. For North Korea, it is clear that a long-term strategy of focusing on diplomacy abroad and economic reforms at home is following a push to nuclearize. Only by understanding this emerging North Korean strategy can the United States and South Korea craft appropriate strategies for dealing with this intractable problem.
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