2017 arguably represented the most dangerous year for U.S.-DPRK relations in decades, with a feeling among many that either intentional or accidental military conflict could have erupted surrounding several flashpoints throughout the year.

But while events of the last quarter of 2017 saw tensions raised to spectacular highs – punctuated by September’s hydrogen bomb test, Donald Trump’s incendiary UN General Assembly speech, and November’s Hwasong-15 ‘monster missile’ test – an inter-Korean Olympic détente has since January 1 provided gravity to otherwise mounting geopolitical turbulence.

Facilitated in part by Washington and Seoul’s decision to