"For decades, North Korea has been one of the thorniest global security problems. Its recent advancements in ballistic missile and nuclear technologies under leader Kim Jong Un have intensified the urgency to understand the regime’s intentions and capabilities. In this deeply researched book, Dr. Ramon Pacheco Pardo chronicles North Korea foreign policy behavior from the 1990s to the present and argues that Pyongyang’s tactics are rooted in the regime’s sensitivity to and assessments of regional and global developments and its perception of the drivers shaping decisionmaking in Washington and East Asian capitals. The book benefited from scores of interviews with US, South Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian policymakers, enhancing Pacheco Pardo’s analysis of North Korea’s past bargaining behavior and providing a lens with which we should view the present and future of North Korean nuclear negotiations." – Jung H. Pak, SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
"In a lucid and readable style, Dr. Pacheco Pardo frames North Korean behavior in an original theoretical context of small power bargaining and learning theory. He fills a void in the literature with extensively researched accounts of the two major nuclear agreements between the US and DPRK during the Clinton and Bush administrations, in addition to relations during Obama and Trump. I recommend this book highly." – Victor Cha, Author, The Impossible State; Professor and Vice Dean, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, and former U.S. deputy head of delegations to the Six Party talks.
"What drives US-North Korea relations? Dr. Pacheco Pardo examines this question by focusing on the North Korean side. Making use of a wealth of interviews of American, South Korean, Chinese and other policy-makers and experts combined with careful content analysis of North Korean statements, he concludes that Pyongyang's ultimate goal is to normalize diplomatic relations with Washington. The book sheds light on the strategic motivations behind North Korea's US policy during the Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un era, which adds new insights to our understanding of these most complex relations since the end of the Cold War. Highly recommended." – Sung-han Kim, Dean & Professor, Graduate School of International Studies, Korea University; former Vice Minster of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea
"In this updated edition of his book, Pacheco Pardo guides readers through the labyrinth of North Korea–US relations, now including recent developments under the Kim Jong-un regime and the Trump presidency.This is a valuable contribution, as it helps readers see North Korea less as a rogue state and more as a negotiator that is not always careful and faces a steep learning curve in dealing with a much larger opponent." - Carolin Wefer, The German Marshall Fund of the United States.
"Based on his analysis of North Korean behavior, Pardo contends that denuclearization of North Korea, if an option at all, should most probably only take place after the normalization of relations between Pyongyang and Washington, and that a multilateral framework should be useful to support the steps to be taken before normalization takes place." - Taehwan Kim, Global Asia, 2019.
