Over the past weeks, the Biden administration policy for North Korea has started to come into focus. Yet the central dilemma of any North Korea policy remains — what is a realistic and achievable goal?

The joint statement that concluded the Joe Biden-Moon Jae-in summit affirms “their shared commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” This wording differs from other U.S. statements that have called for the “denuclearization of North Korea,” and it raised some eyebrows about whether the objective had changed. 

Though analysts have debated the implications of these different versions, their