| Keyword |
detente, Moon Jae-In, Donald Trump, North Korea, United States, South Korea, veto players, bargaining, foreign policy analysis, international negotiation |
South Korean President Moon Jae-In pushed harder for a transformational inter-Korean detente than any of his predecessors. That his tremendous effort still failed demands explanation. This paper suggests four interlocking reasons, derived from bargaining theory applications in foreign policy analysis: 1) The North Korean Kim Jong Un regime, secure behind its nuclear weapons and domestic repression, preferred its status quo BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) to the capacious American demand for complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament. Pyongyang can afford to wait for the Americans to offer better terms. 2) South Korean centrist and conservative ‘veto-players,’ trading on the high popularity of the U.S. alliance in South Korea, blocked Moon from pursuing a Korea--only negotiating track after U.S.-North Korea negotiations stagnated--including a ‘future veto’ threat to roll back Moon’s detente when conservatives next won the South Korean presidency. 3) U.S. domestic players, of unique importance in South Korea because of the tight alliance, also resisted. Moon and U.S. President Donald Trump were unable to win over the deeply skeptical U.S. foreign policy community. 4) Cognitively, Trump himself undercut Moon’s effort as much he helped it. Trump’s impatience, disinterest in detail, and general disorganization crippled him as a reliable negotiating counterparty for Moon (and Kim). This paper concludes with a narrative of these causes dynamically interacting to illustrate the collapse of Moon’s initiative.
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