Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea and Moon Jae-in, president of South Korea, met face-to-face at a historic summit at the truce village of Panmunjom on April 27, 2018.

This meeting between the leaders of two Koreas surprised and baffled professional pundits and regular folks, as it appeared to have come almost abruptly after an intense period of strongly-worded threats and weapons-testing in the Korean peninsula only weeks before.

So, how did we get to this? Where is the logic? And what does it all even mean?

One Singaporean's perspective

The first brain to pick to get you started on any masterclass in international relations with a Singaporean flavour, naturally belongs to Bilahari Kausikan.

Kausikan is a former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and retiring Singaporean diplomat, who happened to spend 37 years in the foreign service.

On April 21, a week before the Kim-Moon meeting even took place, Kausikan shared on his Facebook page an article he wrote for The Straits Times:

It essentially laid down the terms of what the culmination of this current frenetic short-term North Korean diplomacy streak is about and what it hopes to achieve, as well as what it realistically can achieve given the unpredictability of the fragile relations of the countries involved.

Essentially, it is a sweeping analysis primarily about United States President Donald Trump's impending meeting with Kim in May or June that could take place in Singapore, following both sides' flirtation with the idea.

But reading Kausikan's piece after this meeting of two Korean leaders will help anyone situate this particular event better, seeing it as part of the lead-up to the Trump-Kim summit.

Pulling back the curtain

Moreover, in his piece, Kausikan pulls back the curtain to inform readers of what actually can be read into when looking at world affairs seemingly unfolding half the world away most of the time and what informs the credibility of his hot take.

What exactly though?

Kausikan takes into consideration the psychology of this delicate dance that is diplomacy, the logic of achieving stability through deterrence via more states eventually going nuclear in the foreseeable future, first-hand personal experiences interacting with very calculative and insightful North Korean diplomats, and unpacking the rationality of supposedly buffoonish leaders by stripping clean one's own prejudices.

The outcome is an incisive and prescient take that makes even more sense given how the Kim-Moon meeting has already played out with all its theatrics and lack of clear details -- keeping in mind that Kausikan's writing was done before the North and South Korean leaders even met.

Here's a summary, nonetheless

If we had to summarise Kausikan's piece, which will not do it justice, this is the skeleton of it:

• North Korea is opportunistic: It is striking a deal with the US via Trump, a president not bound by precedent.

• North Korea deserves an A-star for engagement: It actually put denuclearisation on the table to rein in its aggressive stance, after seemingly threatening the world with its hostile weapons-testing.

• To go all diplomatic is to avoid a miscalculation on North Korea's part, just in case its hostile actions get misinterpreted and accidentally go down the road of no return by actually starting a war.

• The US read the North Korean denuclearisation deal as a signal of being serious about engagement, as it is metaphorically an outstretched hand extended to Trump.

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• However, the Kim-Trump summit is just a start of a process of diplomatic engagement that could take a long time to bear real fruits.

• One summit between leaders is insufficient in erasing decades of hostility and not unwarranted suspicion on both sides.

• Kim’s recent surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping and his outreach to South Korea is better understood as creating manoeuvre space ahead of the summit with Trump.

• During the Cold War, North Korea also manoeuvred between China and the Soviet Union with great skill, deriving maximum benefit from both while ceding autonomy to neither.

• Talks buy time, therefore, talking, with a generous side of weapons-testing beforehand, enables regime survival by keeping at bay any offensives.

Following the Kim-Moon meeting, Kausikan shared this post commenting on North Korea's pledge to denuclearise: "Not new. Heard this before. However, this is all throat-clearing before Kim-Trump summit."

You can read Kausikan's full article on Facebook.

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