By Zachary Keck
Despite their reputation for irrationality, North Korean leaders have always been masterful strategists.
The country’s founding leader and eternal president, Kim Il-Sung, masterfully exploited the Sino-Soviet split throughout the Cold War to extract aid from both without having to offer much in return. When the foundation of that strategy collapsed with the end of the Cold War, Kim Jong-Il turned to stoking China and America’s deep-seated fears of instability and nuclear weapons proliferation respectively, as well as South Korea’s longing for reunification, to continue receiving the aid that North Korea’s economy had become dependent on.
Indeed, for a state in as precarious of a situation as North Korea finds itself in, having a prudent grand strategy becomes something of a necessity. And yet it seems increasingly apparent that Kim Jong-Un lacks the skills as a strategist that his grandfather and father relied on to sustain the regime.
Read the full story at The Diplomat