Why have US-DPRK nuclear negotiations failed? Existing studies have focused on the failures of specific negotiations between the US and North Korea. This article presents an alternative view on the issue, utilizing coercive diplomacy to understand repeating escala-tion and de-escalation patterns between the US and North Korea. North Korea engages in dialogue only when the regime is threatened by the US with a credible military threat. However, as negotiations begin, de-escalation inevitably occurs, allowing North Korea to defect from negotiations. When North Korea does defect, the US cannot simply return to pre-negotiation levels of escalation because political momentum has been lost. This has resulted in a vicious cycle that has plagued the resolution of the issue.