Editor's note: Robert Kelly is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.

President Moon Jae-In of the Republic of Korea (ROK) flew to Washington this week to meet U.S. President Joe Biden. The meeting was cordial enough. Biden agreed to give the ROK COVID-19 vaccines for its military. The ROK contained the virus well last year but has stumbled on vaccination. But on the core issue between the allies – the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and its nuclear and missile programs – the policy gap remains wide.

Moon is a unique president in ROK history. He is progressive and deeply committed to détente and engagement with the DPRK. The ROK has only had two liberal presidents in the past, and neither was as pro-engagement as Moon. Moon has worked harder than any of his predecessors, liberal progressives included, to forge a diplomatic breakthrough with the DPRK. Moon's efforts have included midwifing a meeting between DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and former U.S. President Donald Trump, trying to formally conclude the still unended Korean War, and multiple economic cooperation projects with the DPRK.

Little has come of these initiatives, but they represent a major deviation from the U.S.-ROK status quo on DPRK issues. Most ROK presidents to date have been conservatives with hawkish views on the DPRK. The United States shares that basic hawkishness disposition. ROK conservatives have a long, deep relationship with the U.S. foreign policy community, and there is a shared ideological consensus that the DPRK is a failed communist experiment which would best be absorbed by the ROK, much as the East Germany was absorbed by West Germany in 1990.

For most of the history of the ROK-U.S. alliance, this hawkish consensus dominated. Pyongyang should be met by containment, deterrence, sanction, and isolation. The U.S. and ROK might engage the DPRK to mutually accommodate and reduce tension on the peninsula. But the basic notions that the DPRK was not a normal country, should not be recognized as a separate Korean state, and should eventually disappear as East Germany did, were never seriously questioned.

ROK progressives, however, dissent from this traditional hawkishness. They worry that the confrontation with the DPRK makes peninsular tensions worse. They fear that the DPRK is not imminently going to collapse, so a hawkish U.S.-ROK foreign policy just makes the DPRK more paranoid. Instead, the ROK left would like to reach out to the DPRK and pursue détente, to bring Pyongyang out of global isolation and into the global economy as a normal state. This could even mean recognition of the two Korean states as permanently separated.

This approach would revolutionize the peninsula. It would accept the DPRK's right to exist – and presumably, its right to possess nuclear weapons. It is not clear how countries near the DPRK would respond to the legitimization of its nuclear arsenal. China, Russia, and Japan have all voted for sanctions on the DPRK over these weapons, and while none are as hawkish as the U.S., all would like to see a less erratic, more moderate DPRK.

But most importantly, the U.S. is strongly opposed to the ROK liberals' vision for acceptance of the DPRK. Even the American left – the Democratic Party – is hawkish on the DPRK. Biden is a Democrat, and he has long supported the isolation and sanction of the DPRK.

For this reason, this week's Biden-Moon summit will produce little movement on the core issues. Moon is an enormous outlier in U.S.-ROK alliance history. His vision of the peninsula differs dramatically from that of most of the U.S. foreign policy community, and from U.S. allies. (Moon has approached European countries about rolling back sanctions on the DPRK, and he has failed there as well.) Moon almost certainly implored Biden to meet Kim Jong Un, as Trump did. He also likely asked Biden to lighten sanctions on the DPRK. Biden's answer to both was almost certainly no.

This is not a crisis in the alliance. Moon will leave office in a year. Biden will likely simply wait out Moon, politely ignoring his entreaties. Biden will not support Moon's aggressive outreach. Biden will manage the DPRK issue as best he can; his administration's policy review on the DPRK suggests it will simply "muddle through."

Moon, corresponding to his deep progressive ideological convictions, has bet his presidency on a deal with the DPRK. He is failing, and he is unlikely to convince Biden to take such a huge risk too.

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