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Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign appearance in Las Vegas

A war of discourse is raging in Washington diplomatic circles. The focus of the battle is on what will become of US policies on the North Korean nuclear program under the next administration, especially if Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton is elected.

A recent Washington Post opinion piece by Woodrow Wilson Center director Jane Harman and researcher James Person was significant in this regard. Breaking a long silence among mainstream think tanks, its message - arguing that the US should begin negotiations toward freezing Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs - took direct aim at the Barack Obama administration’s North Korea policy. Already, it has prompted its share of counterattacks. The battle for public opinion looks poised to intensify.

Both the North Korea hardliners and proponents of negotiation have clear aims. Once the election finishes on Nov. 8, the next administration will spend the next three to six months considering and formulating new policies. By February to April of next year, the new administration’s foreign affairs and national security control tower and its policy approach will have roughly taken shape. The goal on either side right now is to make sure their North Korea policy views are reflected as much as possible beforehand.

Clinton in particular is said to place major importance on public opinion. This means that whoever steers the course of Washington opinion in that short time window could decide the overall course of Korean Peninsula policy to come. It’s a sensitive moment - and a crucial one.

Would a new administration under Clinton pursue negotiations with Pyongyang around the first half of 2017? The situation certainly poses some issues. Romain Rolland famously spoke of “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”: if your goal is to change the reality, you should be wary of jumping to pessimistic conclusions about the possibility of negotiations with the North.

The first scenario is one in which North Korea conducts additional nuclear testing and/or long-range missile launches while the new administration in Washington is mulling over its policy approach. Incoming administrations tend to be in a triumphal mood early on. The likely response will be to apply maximum pressure on Pyongyang, and some time will be needed before support for negotiations gains traction again. It’s also not hard to predict the response from the Park Geun-hye administration, with its blind faith in predictions of an imminent North Korea collapse. If it goes on the attack with talk of a military strike, the peninsula could end up swept into a crisis of possible war.

A second scenario is one where North Korea actively signals its willingness to negotiate with Washington, and the US public begins leaning in that direction. Even here, there isn’t any guarantee that negotiations on the nuclear issue would actually happen. A lot of variables pose the threat of a potential ambush.

First, not only hardliners but even proponents of negotiations in the US have generally stressed cooperation and coordination with Seoul. Washington would be hard-pressed to enter negotiations with Pyongyang on its own if hamstrung by the Park administration. Indeed, quite a few instances of this have occurred under Park and her predecessor Lee Myung-bak (2008-13). On the other hand, if domestic support for the Park administration drops sharply from its current levels, this could leave some room for the US to act alone. The US tends to see popular support for foreign administrations as a key factor in its foreign policy decisions.

The mood in Congress is a key variable influencing opinion in the US. The presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton saw the signing of the Agreed Framework with North Korea in Geneva, but its actual implementation was repeatedly hampered by the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives. It’s for this reason that the outcome of the Senate and House elections - which will take place alongside the presidential vote on Nov. 8 - warrants attention.

Relations between Washington and Beijing are also among the chief variables. If conflict does intensify between China and the new US administration, Korean Peninsula issues are likely to be used as leverage. At a moment when Seoul needs to decide what to do for the sake of stable US-China relations, its frictions with Beijing over the decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the recent sinking of a South Korean Coast Guard vessel by a Chinese fishing boat bode poorly.

In the long term, things may ultimately progress toward negotiations. It’s the only path to avoiding disaster and destruction. But the longer it takes, the bigger the price and burden snowball for the South Korean public. One possibility is that the Park administration could gamble with the lives of its public. What the current moment calls for most of all is action - based not on optimism, but on rationality and a sense of what’s at stake.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]