Last year, it seemed like war between the United States and North Korea was a real possibility.
“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” President Donald Trumpsaid at the United Nations on September 19, 2017. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” he continued, using his favored nickname for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Flash-forward to March 29, 2018, when Pyongyang and Seoul announced that Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet face to face in April for talks. It’ll be only the third in-person meeting between the heads of both countries, and the first since 2007. But that’s not all: The Kim-Moon summit will lay the groundwork for an even more historic meeting between Kim and Trump sometime in either May or June, although it remains unscheduled.
How did we get here? How did North Korea and the US go from talk of potential nuclear warto actual, well, talks? Here’s one explanation: Experts tell me the war threats may have actually scared leaders like Trump.
“I’d like to believe that while President Trump talks tough,” Leon Panetta, the former defense secretary and CIA director, told me, “deep down, he also is concerned about involving this country in another war that is going to cost thousands of lives.”
But others simply give credit to North Korea. “North Korea has 100 percent changed its tactics,” Sue Mi Terry, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told me. “I think this is all North Korea actually driving this.”
Whatever the reason, top officials want to take advantage of this moment. “We must not let this historic opportunity for diplomacy go to waste,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, told me.
What follows is a guide to how the two countries went from a nuclear standoff to a rare moment of cautious optimism.
Kim pivots from bombs to talks………..
The coming Trump-Kim summit made the South Korea meeting possible
On March 8, South Korean envoys who had just met with Kim Jong Un relayed a message to Trump: The North Korean leader wanted to meet with him. Trump reportedly accepted the offer on the spot.
The president even tweeted about his excitement.
Moon, the South Korean president, seemed relieved by the news. He campaigned in part on easing tensions with North Korea and continually advocated for a diplomatic solution to the US-North Korea standoff. After Trump agreed to meet with Kim, Moon offered three-way talks between him and the other two leaders.
That, however, is not in the works. Instead, Moon and Kim finally set a date for their face-to-face meeting in April. But Terry, the North Korea expert, told me she doesn’t expect much from the Kim-Moon summit. Instead, she said “South Korea’s chief goal is to set up that [the] Trump-Kim meeting goes well.”
As for Kim, he likely wants a greater sense of how badly Moon wants to strike some sort of deal.
Kim is already preparing for both encounters. This week, he took a secret trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Oriana Skylar Mastro, a China expert at Georgetown University, told me in an interview that Kim wanted to ensure he had China’s support ahead of talks with the US. Having Beijing’s backing could help Kim not concede too much in talks with Moon and Trump.
Kim needs the help. Trump will want Kim to give up his nuclear weapons, but experts are unanimous that Kim won’t agree to do so. Having China’s support allows the North Korean leader to feel more comfortable defying the American president.
“I think the North Korean leader made some very smart moves and has put himself in a good position,” Panetta, the former Obama Cabinet official, told me. “He has given himself greater leverage ahead of these meetings.”
Put together, the Kim-Moon meeting serves more as a prelude to the Trump-Kim summit. And if those talks fail, Harry Kazianis, an Asia security expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank, thinks the chances of war might increase.
“We are putting all of our eggs in the summit basket,” he told me. “This is the ultimate Hail Mary.” https://www.vox.com/2018/3/30/17176316/north-korea-south-trump-fire-fury-moon
The North Korea nuclear standoff: how we went from “fire and fury” to talks in under a year Vox, “North Korea has 100 percent changed its tactics.” By 
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