Preparations are well underway for a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The shift over the last several months from escalating crisis and a potentially devastating military confrontation with North Korea toward diplomacy is prima facie a good thing. As I've been warning in these pages and elsewhere, though, diplomacy itself is not a guarantee of peaceful outcomes. Not only does not all diplomacy succeed -- in fact it frequently fails -- but also not all "successful diplomacy" produces good outcomes over time.
Following Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent trip to Asia, there are still pathways to success. An important context is that Trump, offered, or at least appeared to open up to, a peace agreement with the North during his first summit with Kim in Singapore in June.
