Over the next two years, the tenuous status quo on the Korean Peninsula, never far from chaos, will be acutely challenged by the convergence of democratic transitions in the United States and South Korea, coupled with the imminence of North Korea’s deployment of nuclear-tipped missiles. How an emboldened Kim Jong-un exploits these near-term trends could plunge the Korean Peninsula into war or push it to the precipice of peace.

At present, a rising sense of crisis is supplanting a policy of strategic patience in Washington and Seoul. A Council on Foreign Relations Task Force report warns that the next U.S. administration cannot afford to put North Korea on the back burner, and it calls for sharper pressure mixed with renewed diplomacy. Another assessment, even more keen on diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang, is about to emerge from a triumvirate of research institutions, including Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Additional voices are urging Seoul and Washington to initiate new talks with North Korea.

Yet, at the moment when calls for opening diplomatic channels with North Korea abound, South Korean policy circles seem filled with foreboding and stern resignation. At least based on meetings I engaged in with officials and leading scholars this past week in Seoul, the main attitude is the need to remain steadfast with this current phase of pressure and sanctions, a phase that started in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January. Pressure on Pyongyang is not unusual, but there has been loose talk of preempting North Korea. South Korean defense minister Han Min-koo testified recently that Seoul could unleash a special unit to assassinate the North Korean dictator should Seoul feel under immediate threat of attack.

Sensing outside division and always in fear of a loss of internal control, Kim’s regime has threatened to wipe Seoul and the U.S. territory of Guam off the map. North Korea could well conduct a sixth nuclear test (the third this year) before the U.S. election. But even more worrisome are North Korea’s potential probes, missteps and miscalculations that might arise over the next couple of years during this confluence of democratic transition and nuclear deployment that together create a dangerous Korean vortex.

This essay seeks to disentangle this swirling mass of political and nuclear issues, describe the mostly unsavory economic, diplomatic and military policy options facing decisionmakers, and offer strategic guidance for the incoming U.S. administration. How resolutely and wisely decisionmakers in Washington and Seoul deal with this phase of potential upheaval will also determine the future of the alliance and go a long way to shaping America’s strategic influence in Northeast Asia.

Political Transitions and Nuclear Imminence Heighten Risk

President Barack Obama is counting down his final days in office, hoping to prevent any bad precedents from being set—such as conflict or nuclear deployments in North Korea—during the short duration of his tenure. After that, however, it will take six to nine months for a new administration to fully install most of its senior political appointees. Thus, for the next year, America’s untidy democratic transition process will create a window of opportunity for North Korea to act up.

September 2017 is also just about the time when South Korea’s election choices will clarify. The next Korean administration after President Park Geun-hye’s ends in early 2018, may well be a more progressive government. Hence, the United States may have to switch from working with an ally focused on zero tolerance for provocation to an ally more intent on a “sunshine policy” of diplomatic and economic engagement.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is likely to seek the nomination of the ruling conservative Saenuri Party. Ban is known for being even-tempered and is likely to be more focused on multilateral diplomacy than is President Park. Or course, in part because of Ban’s less muscular approach to security, there is bound to be a competitive contest within the conservative party.

The notion of diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang will figure even larger in the policy pronouncements of the two major opposition parties. Both the liberal Minjoo Party of Korea, which overtook the Saenuri Party with the most seats in the National Assembly this past spring, and the centrist People’s Party are likely to call for elevating diplomacy over ever-tighter sanctions. The December 2017 election in South Korea and the March 2018 inauguration of the next leader in the Blue House will almost certainly bring forth a new plan for dealing with Pyongyang. Thus, the current, precarious phase of political transitions will carry through the early months of President Park’s successor, roughly two years from now.

The rest of Northeast Asia will not stand idly by waiting for democracies to achieve maximum operational capacity. President Xi Jinping’s Nineteenth Party Congress in late 2017 will provide an indicator of how much nationalist-led assertiveness may be expected during the second half of Xi’s decade-long tenure atop the Chinese Communist Party. This matters because China will not be left out of major decisions regarding North Korea’s future, and seeking China’s cooperation will be even more complicated if tensions rise in the South China Sea or across the Taiwan Strait. For instance, further steps by Beijing to militarize the South China Sea will meet stiff resistance from a new U.S. administration, which in turn will further erode China’s already ambivalent interest in working with the United States to curb North Korea’s nuclear appetite.

Meanwhile in Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to follow through on his legacy of creating a stronger, more independent Japan. His quest to replace Japan’s postwar “peace” constitution—even if supported by Washington officials eager for Japan to be more of a provider of public security goods—will rankle relations with China and create yet another obstacle in the way of collaboration with Korea. Ironically, even while Japan is mostly worried about a rising China, the deployment of nuclear weapons by North Korea may be the catalyst Prime Minister Abe needs to achieve his goal of fully lifting Japan out of its post–World War II identity crisis and forging a reputation as a “normal” power. Japan’s deal making with President Vladimir Putin, likely to result in mostly a one-way flow of money to Russia, has been driven by Abe’s obsession with demonstrating Japan’s newfound independent line while at the same time separating Russia from China.

In the Republic of Korea (ROK), the North Korean question is a divisive domestic political football. That is why President Park began her one-term tenure with a balanced agenda focused on Northeast Asia: a stronger bilateral alliance with the United States, a broader and deeper set of relations with China, and a North Korea policy that included “trustpolitik” engagement enroute to realizing a “unification bonanza.” Her policies, while conservative, thus made an effort to reach out to more progressive elements of South Korean society.

But President Park has enunciated and continued a sharp reorientation of inter-Korean relations as a result of North Korea’s serial provocations this year, which thus far includes two nuclear tests and an unprecedented number of missile launches. She is focused on refining sanctions and deterrence, which with fifteen months left in her presidency could start to produce diminishing returns.

North Korea is poised for an October surprise and further provocations in the coming months. Kim Jong-il preempted a diplomatic opening with President Obama—the first president who ran on a campaign of wanting to open up dialogue with his North Korean counterpart—with a nuclear test in May 2009. His son, Kim Jong-un disregarded a missile- and nuclear-test moratorium struck on Leap Day of 2012. The two experiences tainted Obama’s own attitude about talking with the Kim family. In contrast, President Obama forged ahead with reducing sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Myanmar.

Kim Jong-un is likely to want to test the next U.S. president—particularly if Donald Trump wins, given that he is more of a mystery to Pyongyang. It was Trump who famously said that he would want to have a hamburger summit with Kim Jong-un. Furthermore, North Korea is certain to meddle in next year’s South Korean election. In addition to a variety of potential military provocations, Kim may want to take a page out of the Russian playbook and use cyber hacking to wreak havoc inside democratic South Korea’s election cycle.

These political transitions in the United States and South Korea provide ample reason to be on guard for North Korean provocations. But the fact that they are occurring at the same time when North Korea is inching ever closer to weaponizing nuclear missiles and deploying them, perhaps even on a road-mobile launcher, makes Kim’s likely brinkmanship even more potentially escalatory.

North Korea is on the cusp of deploying its first nuclear weapon. The deployment or perceived near deployment of long-range, nuclear-tipped missiles that could strike not just the ROK and Japan but also U.S. soil could be a game changer. As the political economist Nicholas Eberstadt has argued, North Korea could well embark upon a future crisis hoping that the United States and South Korea will be paralyzed for fear of igniting a regional nuclear war. The alliance, as a result, would effectively lose its clout overnight.

North Korea’s offset strategy for besting the superior conventional forces arrayed around it combines classical political strategies with unconventional tools in the form of nuclear weapons, missiles, cyber attack and space-operations forces. North Korea is also deploying advanced long-range, precision conventional forces to hold all of South Korea hostage. While President Park was talking about unification and President Obama was touting a nuclear-free world, North Korea was single-handedly defying the international system and gaining leverage.

Choosing Among Inadequate Policy Options

It is easier and more sensational to be a spoiler in international relations than it is to keep the peace. Accordingly, the economic, diplomatic and military policy options under consideration in Seoul and Washington are inadequate. None of them offer the likelihood of halting North Korea’s nuclear deployments or provocations, and yet the idea that Pyongyang will want to cut a reasonable deal under such circumstances stretches credulity.

Economic carrots and sticks are the tool of first resort within the U.S.-ROK alliance. Although sanctions have always been seen as merely a means to an end, the pursuit of increasingly painful sanctions appears to have become an end in itself of late. In the wake of the January nuclear test, the UN Security Council passed its most restrictive sanctions yet on Pyongyang (UNSCR 2270). South Korea also closed down its major economic bridge with North Korea when it suspended operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex. The United States then undertook the first human-rights-based sanctions on North Korea and did not shy away from calling out Kim Jong-un himself.

The latest financial pressure cracks down on North Korea’s illicit trading network, in part, by imposing sanctions on those companies and individuals acting as middlemen for North Korea. This process is fueled by an upsurge in big-data analytics and open-source information that can highlight suspicious activity. A landmark report by two nongovernmental organizations, the Asan Institute and C4ADS, has placed a spotlight on suspect Chinese business activities, and the evidence is at least compelling enough for Beijing to take some action. Even the most thoughtful and informed discussion of next-generation sanctions envisions only modest steps for North Korea—especially greater multilateral cooperation to improve the gradual imposition of punitive financial measures on North Korea.

Ultimately, Washington must convert its strength in the form of defense and pressure into political objectives. Unfortunately, the idea that Kim will negotiate even a moratorium on nuclear weapons just when he appears to be gaining greater leverage seems unlikely. At a minimum, the price of a deal with Pyongyang would be very clear: accepting North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state, relaxing sanctions and increasing economic engagement, and scaling back military presence and exercises. This is not a quick recipe for slowing nuclear proliferation or enhancing the credibility of American power and commitment.

But just as we must avoid conflating North Korea’s weapons with war, we should also avoid confusing modest arms control with appeasement. After all, as bad as the diplomatic options look, the military options can be even more frightening. Talk of a preemptive strike to prevent North Korea’s nuclear deployment—or possibly even an ICBM reentry vehicle test—is easier said than done. On previous occasions, when the United States enjoyed far more favorable force advantages, it ultimately decided the risks were too high.

Policymakers are in a difficult position, as available means offer no sure path of achieving desired strategic goals. There is a swelling body of expert consensus in the United States that the next administration needs to move the North Korea problem higher up the policy agenda. But while policy consensus is usually welcome by political leaders, in this case the consensus is also a constraint. While most agree on the need to block North Korean nuclear deployment, few are willing to pay the potential price of doing so.

In short, it is easier to criticize President Obama’s policy of strategic patience than it is to offer a compelling narrative of what might have been done to alter the present course. More draconian sanctions and pressure? More engagement with China to force North Korea into submission? More diplomacy with Kim Jong-un on the theory that he is not wedded to nuclear weapons as a means of regime survival?

Certainly, North Korean nuclear weapons are a regional and global challenge and not simply a problem for the United States. Nuclear weapons are older than North Korea itself. A determined dictatorship fixated on the pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles can eventually pick apart the seams of our fragmented world. South Korea and the United States have been satisfied with strategies of limited pressure and limited engagement, and China has sought to ensure neither strategy went too far toward destabilizing its neighboring buffer state. Even so, it will take years for North Korea to deploy a proven, tested arsenal of nuclear weapons. At this point, it is merely cashing in on the perception that it will be able to pull off the ultimate act of international defiance: establishing a nuclear-weapon state despite the opposition of major powers.

Kim Jong-un has many goals. Beyond basic survival he would like to exert his authority over the Korean Peninsula. To achieve that, he would like to break the ROK-U.S. alliance, win acceptance as a nuclear-weapon state and then demand more favorable terms. By playing all the outside powers off one another, he could well prevail in keeping the world at bay. Here is the ultimate catch: if North Korea were to "win" greater power and influence, the need to be more open to the flow of information, people, and money—in short, the need to be integrated and interconnected with Northeast Asia—would doom the legitimacy and mystique of the Kim dynasty.

Washington needs a comprehensive, long-term plan for attacking North Korea's strategy. Tenets of this approach are well known and include strengthening both defense and diplomacy, while finding ways to apply pressure on Kim Jong-un. Using big-data analytics to track and then crack down on Kim's illicit global network is one way to obligate China to do more to pressure North Korea. Information operations are another way to create divisions within North Korea. Over time, new military technologies may give defensive weapons the upper hand over offensive weapons.

Meanwhile, the United States and South Korea need to preserve deterrence while remaining open to a possible diplomatic off-ramp, one that could take us out of this vicious cycle on the Korean Peninsula. We must keep open diplomatic channels to determine whether it might be possible down the road to establish a less threatening relationship. North Korea could, in theory, return to the idea of a nuclear and missile moratorium, but it is unlikely to do so over the next couple of years. During that time, Kim will try to fully exploit the democratic transitions in the United States and South Korea, coupled with the perception of being a threshold nuclear-weapons state.

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is senior adviser and senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

Image: Participants in the Arirang Mass Games in Pyongyang, North Korea. Flickr/@fljckr