Despite decades of strategic arms-control agreements and unilateral disarmament, the international community has no standardized way to guarantee that a country claiming to disarm is actually doing so.

The initial steps that Kim and Moon have taken are encouraging, and they provide the foundation for a lasting peace on the Peninsula. But they are just initial steps, and many thorny obstacles remain.

There are several possible outcomes to the DPRK nuclear issue.

If we’re optimistic about the outcomes from last week’s monumental inter-Korean summit, the positive overtures North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seems to be making bode well for the Korean Peninsula. In anticipation of the upcoming Trump-Kim summit, American negotiators should note that being a bit more cautious with expectations and drawing lessons from past Korean negotiating behavior could lead to lasting change on the peninsula.

The Trump administration’s aggressive nuclear posture will deal a blow to nuclear non-proliferation.

Irresponsible unilateral scrapping of the agreement will turn years of international cooperation into dust and ashes.

It’s commonly acknowledged that North Korea won’t give up its nuclear weapon program anytime soon, so there’s no use being unhappy about it. It is also unhelpful to regret past opportunities to stop the program

China and the U.S. have cooperated well on the North Korean nuclear issue. But recent U.S. actions puts this cooperation at risk.

To follow a common security approach that recognizes the interrelations and interdependencies between countries, Washington must step back and reassess the moral and practical implications of its foreign-policy commandment “Do as I say, Not as I do” when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Changing the goal from denuclearization to resuming talks is something worth trying, since other options are becoming dead ends or getting increasingly risky.