My main impression is that the policy environment in the Korean capital feels different from that of previous years. I've been coming here since 1990, so my contacts form a broad cast of characters. Now that President Moon Jae-in has lobbied President Donald Trump in New York, pressures inside the U.S. government are rising. Three responses from Koreans put the current moment in context.
Excitement
The unprecedented dimensions of inter-Korean contact are both obvious and hard to evaluate. They are obvious because many images since the PyeongChang Olympics are just groundbreaking and myth-challenging.
These images also produce fear and disorientation among important groups in Seoul and Washington. Even non-professional observers in Korea ― and a few in the U.S. ― are moved and intrigued by the possibilities that have been tantalizingly glimpsed in the past nine months.
Putting aside much overheated rhetoric from interested parties, the economic, security and strategic implications of a cooperating and at-peace Korean Peninsula are staggering. Of course they are.
Such implications were at the heart of the deals successfully reached 20 years ago between the Koreas and between the U.S. and North Korea. That is why those deals were broadly supported by all parties. The prospect that excites so many, and induces fear in so many others, is that this time the key players of Kim Jong-un and Moon-Jae-in will return to those understandings with a greater prospect of success. Moon's efforts at the U.N. this week add to both.
The new U.S. role ― ever since President Trump agreed six months ago to meet Kim in Singapore ― contributes to this prospect. By doing so, the U.S. president broke the stranglehold that 17 years of disastrous White House floundering had on policy.
Buried amid the Trump theatrics is a rare and probably singular alignment: the U.S. president's reptilian sense of his own interests corresponds significantly ― on this issue ― with the perceived interests of Kim and Moon, not to mention leaders in Europe, China and Russia. It also corresponds with deep and enduring U.S. interests. There are very solid reasons to be excited about unfolding developments.
Waiting
Many Koreans know ― since they have been here before, going back 20 years ― that two elements still must fall into place if there is to be real progress on a scale that will improve their prospects for security and economic growth. And for most, that is what inter-Korean rapprochement is all about.
The first element is that their president must demonstrate that he is capable of increasing Korea's role as both broker among parties and leader of policy, so that other actors with far less at stake do not diminish or derail the enterprise. Those other actors include China and the U.S.
Koreans have also just emerged from a decade of corrupt and backward-looking presidents who had little interest in North-South reconnections. After an unprecedented national civic awakening that helped oust President Park Geun-hye from power in March 2017, the return to a more modern and pragmatic government is a relief.
Nevertheless, the Moon administration still must continue growing democratic institutions, empowered only 20 years ago, while at the same time practicing a complex multilateral diplomacy that would challenge any government.
The other element is that the history of the U.S. impact on modern inter-Korean affairs is mixed, and for the past 17 years it has often been as a spoiler of Korean engagement. The U.S. impacts have had much to do with domestic politics back home, and little or nothing to do with North Korea, denuclearization, or South Korea.
If the U.S. had prioritized supporting the South, tension reduction, or denuclearization of the North, the successful agreement of 1994 would have been followed up, and the peninsula could have experienced 20 years of warming relations, with no nuclear weapons to deal with.
Aware of their risk-averse and careful president, and of this history of the U.S. role, many are waiting for concrete indications that this time development and peace will win out over confrontation. Despite President Moon's efforts at the U.N., this waiting may go on for a long time.
Pessimism
Among many policy professionals in Seoul, the concern about President Moon is both that he will go too fast, and cause a break in the alliance with the U.S.; and that he will go too slow, be too timid, and allow the U.S. to once again prevent North-South rapprochement. Sometimes one individual feels both at once.
The bigger fear is that Moon will go too slow. Three leadership changes produced this moment of opportunity. Kim Jong-un seems to have a more realistic approach to DPRK development and security than his predecessors; Moon Jae-in has returned the South to practical agreements with the North after a lost decade of corruption and shallow ideological policymaking; and Trump has shaken off the constraints of 17 years of counterproductive U.S. policy.
And yet people find reasons to be pessimistic in either case. If he goes too fast, the alliance will be damaged, and conservatives in Korea will have ammunition with which to attack the President. He might also make too many concessions to the North, without achieving an end to the nuclear and missile programs.
On the other hand if he goes too slow, he will allow the U.S. to prevent North Korea from realizing the fruits of its steps toward denuclearization. If that happens, Kim Jong-un will lose his reason to cooperate, and this historically precious moment will be lost.
In the end Moon's ability to manage this critical time will depend almost exclusively on whether he chooses to use the U.N. to gather support for relieving some sanctions in exchange for real North Korean moves to disarm. Sanctions are key. A coalition for supporting South Korea already exists.
Much reporting in the past three weeks in the U.S. has revealed how broad and deep the opposition is to any exchange that Moon, Kim and Trump could agree on. That opposition begins with most of the White House staff, and may include Secretary of State Pompeo.
It may be a mistake to think that these forces can be "convinced" that a structured deal will be in the U.S. interest. That has been clear for a long time. The U.S. opponents of a deal apparently want a coerced surrender or nothing ― there is no other explanation for their rhetoric of maintaining all U.N. sanctions until the DPRK denuclearizes. This will not realistically happen, yet Moon has helped the opponents of a deal maintain this posture.
Moon may be betting on the wrong horse. Trump would likely agree to a structured exchange with North Korea, but no other figure in the U.S. government agrees with him. A normal president, experienced in Washington bureaucratic battles, might win this fight. Trump may not. How much time can Moon waste finding this out? And what is his Plan B?
Stephen Costello (scost55@gmail.com) is a producer of AsiaEast, a web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C.