In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Knights of Camelot are on a quest for the Holy Grail, but find their way barred by a group of ornery French knights – never mind what they are doing in England – who have walled themselves inside an impregnable castle. After a pathetic attempt to breach the walls fails, Sir Bedivere the Wise devises a scheme to do through guile what could not be done through force. He persuades King Arthur to build a large, hollow wooden rabbit, leave it at the castle gate just before nightfall, and wait for the curious French knights to pull it inside. The French do so, at which point it occurs to the Englishmen that they were supposed to be inside the rabbit. Bedivere’s “ingenious” plan ends with the French catapulting the empty rabbit back onto the humiliated English.

On several levels, this scene is a near-perfect analogy for South Korea’s and our own failed efforts to “engage” North Korea, right down to the French knights’ vitriolic-yet-awkward taunts. (The Korean Central News Agency, for example, has a curious affinity for the word “brigandish.”)