At Foreign Affairs, we’ve been tracking Korea since before the peninsula was divided, and we’ve collected these highlights from our coverage to put the current uproar over North Korea’s weapons program into proper context. A failure of deterrence would be devastating, so even small changes in the odds are worth watching closely. And new situations may call for new tactics to strengthen deterrence or seize opportunities for diplomatic progress. But as so often in the past when dealing with this problem, wise policymakers today would try to dampen tensions rather than escalate them. To understand why, read the book.