The Middle East has witnessed another devastating attempt at a bloodbath over nuclear proliferation. The complex case of Iranian denuclearization efforts turned violent when Israel launched attacks on Iranian targets, sparking another devastating conflict in the region, which has been costly for both nations. Donald Trump threw away the non-violent stance towards Iran over denuclearization and ordered airstrikes on several of the nuclear sites. Trump’s decision did not just crumble the Iranian nuclear facilities but also crumbled confidence in Washington’s denuclearization efforts to prevent proliferation in the coming days.

Israel launched the strikes over Iran just when the US and Iran were on the path towards a deal. But all hopes crumbled with Israeli intervention. The last hopes had been sealed after Donald Trump chose an aggressive response. Trump’s action raised questions for experts and policymakers in East Asia, who are not unfamiliar with American efforts of denuclearization diplomacy. The region, several times, had to digest the failure of American denuclearization diplomacy towards North Korea. The strikes on Iran have just brought another question: are hopes for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula fading?

Aggressive Policies of Trump:

The strategy that US implemented towards Iran will be viewed as a warning by Kim Jong Un and North Korea. The tactic of baiting Iran towards a deal and backstabbing with military attacks portrayed a negative image of American diplomacy, which North Korea probably has already taken note of. Trust towards the US for any denuclearization efforts has declined. For Kim, the strikes on Iran have given him a message that maintaining a hold on a nuclear arsenal is crucial for self-defense. Iran played hide-and-seek with American diplomacy for a long time instead of developing arsenals. The country, ultimately, had to pay a heavy price for missing that deterrence. North Korea will not want to repeat that same mistake.

Donald Trump’s previous attempt towards a denuclearization deal with North Korea did not end well. Trump attempted a denuclearization diplomacy towards North Korea during his first tenure. In 2019, a summit in Hanoi between North Korea and the US once again raised hopes. But that hope died when both the nations brought an abrupt end to the Hanoi Summit. North Korea demanded a complete withdrawal of all sanctions, while the USA aimed for a complete dismantlement of the North Korean nuclear program. The reluctance from both sides to allow concessions ultimately caused the talks to end without a deal. Apart from a few talks, there had not been much progress. By 2020, any hopes for reviving the talks died.

The Role of Russia:

Trump’s attempts to pressurize Kim will not be an easy task this time. A lot has changed in global geopolitics since Trump’s first term in office. The war in Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza, and the clash with Iran have changed the scenario of global affairs. Trump’s tactics of intimidation succeeded in bringing Kim to the table for talk last time. But a lot has changed in the last few years. North Korea has begun to walk out of the isolation maintained for decades and cemented ties with the neighbor at North Russia.

Since Putin’s plan to swiftly capture Ukraine spilled into a long conflict, Russia focused on reviving the old ties to new levels. Isolated from the West by sanctions and struggling to supply ammunition to a war that turned long, Putin focused on cementing ties with North Korea again. In November of 2024, Russia signed a strategic partnership with North Korea, which included a mutual defense provision. Under the treaty, both Moscow and Pyongyang pledged to defend each other with military support. The treaty echoes similar alliances like NATO. In April of 2025, North Korea acknowledged that they sent troops to Russia to fight at Kursk. The close military alliance ultimately means that the same pressures cannot be applied on Kim again. Sanctions and pressures failed to do much on North Korea, and with the close alliance with Russia, there will not be much impact.

New Leadership in South Korea:

South Korea’s former President Moon Jae-in pursued a softer stance towards North Korea during his tenure. Moon’s left-dovish approach temporarily melted the icy relations between both countries. Moon’s détente effort showed glimpses of peace, and it was during his tenure that Trump managed to persuade Kim to talk. However, Moon’s diplomacy failed in the long run and ended with some high-profile diplomatic exchanges between both countries. His dovish approach lost both success and popularity, pushing back North Korea into isolation again. His successor, Yoon Suk Yeol, on the other hand, shifted stance and took a more hardline approach. Yoon believed in unification by absorption, an idea in which North Korea will become part of South Korea. He highlighted the human rights abuses in North Korea by Kim’s regime. Yoon’s support for the USA and Europe to send aid into Ukraine soured relations with Russia, a situation that North Korea did not hesitate to utilize.

After failed experiments with both approaches, South Korea is now in the hands of a new leadership. The recently elected president, Lee Jae-myung, has a daunting task ahead of him. He will have to deal with North Korea at a time when most stakeholders have shifted to a hardliner approach and will not be willing to make any concessions. The Moscow-Pyongyang alliance and the collapse of the Iran-US talks have made any prospects of talks difficult. Since 2023, North Korea has earned US$5.5 billion from selling war material to Russia, an amount that is much higher than the amount earned from the Kaesong Industrial Complex and humanitarian aid. Therefore, it is unlikely that Kim will dump his newly reaped fortunes for fruitless talks again and suffer consequences similar to that of Iran.

Although Donald Trump expressed interest in sitting for dialogues with North Korea again, there has been silence from Pyongyang. A source revealed that North Korean officials refused to accept a letter from Trump. The silence from Kim is enough to signal that the isolated regime is no longer afraid of new pressures from Washington. Instead, Iran has been an example for Pyongyang of how an absence of nukes is an invitation to aggression. The isolated regime will lean more towards vertical proliferation. Any possibility of a breakthrough is low. Washington and the global community will have to digest the harsh fact that any possibility of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula has gone far beyond reach.