Initiating dialogue with Pyongyang is currently one of the most challenging foreign policy issues for the White House. The North Korean leadership has repeatedly stated that they will not engage in talks with the U.S. if denuclearization is presented as the goal of such negotiations. 

But nuclear weapons are the necessary component for any U.S. administration to justify negotiations with Pyongyang in the first place. Of course, total disarmament of North Korea has long since become an unrealistic pipe dream, but much of the U.S. public and political class have yet to accept this reality.