What a difference a few months can make. Late last year, the Koreas were facing the very real prospect of a US-initiated war on the peninsula. Elements in the Trump administration, including noted Adult in the Room H.R. McMaster, were clearly laying the groundwork for military action against the North. This group was not yet a majority, but many feared that personnel shifts could cause the hawks to gain the upper hand, making war with North Korea a virtual certainty.

Personnel changes did occur — and despite McMaster’s departure, they did not bode well for peace. McMaster was replaced as national security adviser by uber-hawk and George W. Bush administration alumnus John Bolton. And CIA director Mike Pompeo, known for yukking it up about the agency’s long history of regime change abroad, was promoted to secretary of state. It would not have been unreasonable to interpret these changes as the assembling of a war cabinet.

Fast forward to today, though, and a new Korean War seems less likely than it has in years. The Olympic truce blossomed into a major diplomatic opening between North and South. The Koreas held a landmark summit at Panmunjom in late April — the first in eleven years and only the third in history — and issued a joint declaration that commits them to replacing the “unnatural armistice” with a “robust peace regime.” This big-picture thinking was paired with practical steps to reduce tensions, including establishing a joint liaison office in Kaesong (the site of a shared industrial complex), turning parts of the West Sea into a “maritime peace zone,” holding military-to-military talks, and ending propaganda broadcasts and leaflet distribution at the demilitarized zone.