Joel S. Wit writes about how the North Koreans have played their cards extremely well despite the appalling nature of their regime. See link to an article in the New York Times, by Joel S. Wit, who is a Senior Fellow of the US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/opinion/sunday/how-crazy-are-the-north-koreans.html
John Laurence Menadue is the publisher of Pearls & Irritations. He has had a distinguished career both in the private sector and in the Public Service.