Daily Inspiration Quote by Mitchell Reiss

Treating North Korea as a normal negotiating partner is the first mistake baked into most talks. Mitchell Reiss, a diplomat trained to read the fine print of power, strips the romance out of diplomacy with that brusque line: any deal worth signing can’t rest on intentions, because intentions are unverifiable, performative, and easily reversed. In the North Korea context, that’s not cynicism for its own sake; it’s an operating manual written by decades of broken pledges, calibrated ambiguity, and a regime that uses negotiations as both shield and leverage.

The subtext is a rebuke to the familiar Western temptation to personalize geopolitics. Leaders change, summits feel historic, handshakes look like breakthroughs. Reiss is warning that this theater is precisely the point. Pyongyang knows how badly Washington and Seoul want a narrative of progress; “trust” becomes a rhetorical shortcut for wishful thinking. His line insists that the only durable currency is structure: verification regimes, inspection access, phased concessions, snapback sanctions, and agreements designed to survive bad faith.

There’s also a quieter message aimed at domestic audiences. Policymakers sell deals by promising they’ve “built trust” with an adversary, because that sounds humane and statesmanlike. Reiss is saying: don’t confuse a diplomatic vibe with enforceable constraints. If you need trust to make an agreement work, you don’t have an agreement; you have a hope, and North Korea has a timeline.