The stalemate over talks with North Korea are actually an improvement in that in the past the North Koreans extracted financial concessions and then did not respond with actual talks. We've at least broken that pattern to keep squeezing North Korea:
In the last few days North Korea has announced it is no longer interested in negotiating with the United States over denuclearization and sanctions. At least not until there is first some reduction in the economic sanctions. The Americans refuse to consider that because in the past the North Koreans have used such threats to get some relief and then refused to do anything about reducing their military threats to South Korea, the U.S. and Japan and allowing that to be verified.
The only bright side to our suspension of military training is that our (the UN coalition) edge is growing despite that because North Korea's military is rotting away.
I worry that my old advocacy of a "talk, talk, die, die" strategy becomes incredibly risky once North Korea has a deliverable nuclear arsenal.
