Sometimes a hard-line conservative is the only person able to pull off a game-changing policy shift that would be howled down by their own supporters if had been proposed by the other side.

Neither Clinton or Obama, the last two Democrat Presidents, gave serious consideration to talks with the highest level of the North Korean leadership.

They felt there was too much to lose. Also, if they were perceived as going soft on North Korea, it would have been used against them by the Republicans.

They dithered, North Korea grew stronger, and, by the time Trump was elected in 2016, Kim was well on the way to having working nuclear weapons and the missiles to launch them.

That, given the fragile state of the ceasefire, was never going to be acceptable.

The fear was Trump, who was widely perceived as a blatant egotist, a self-promoting bungler and a babe in the woods on international diplomacy, would push the North into a catastrophic confrontation.

While the "rocket man" comment and other insults did little to allay these fears, it now appears as if Trump was further across his brief than anybody thought.

It seems unlikely, for example, that if Hillary Clinton had become president a US-North Korean summit would be kicking off in Singapore about lunchtime EST on Tuesday.

Given Kim has made a career out of staging confrontations and then backing down, and raising hopes and expectations and then dashing them with sudden, and out of left field, changes of heart, this could be a case of just why you should never play a player.

Trump, who also made a career out of playing fast and loose with the truth, not honouring commitments and putting himself front and centre in any negotiation or deal making process, seems more adept at this type of thing than Kim.

The President proved he had Kim's measure late last month when, after the North Korean leader threatened to walk away from the talks,  he essentially said "that's fine by me" and unilaterally cancelled them.

This had the salutary effect of reminding Kim he, as much as and possibly more than anybody else, needed the talks to go ahead in order to ease the sanctions that have been imposed on his country over many years.

They were quickly back on.

If Mr Trump's claim he will be able to tell whether or not they will be successful in the first few minutes then there is a real possibility this could also be the shortest summit in history.

That said, its hard to see a downside at this point.

"Jaw, jaw", as Winston Churchill so famously observed, "is always preferable to `war, war."

While ever people are negotiating they aren't killing each other.

Although it is unlikely today's summit will mark the end of the 60-year-old Korean crisis there is just a chance they mark the beginning of the end or at least, to borrow from Churchill once again, "the end of the beginning".