Several factors I think came together in a kind of perfect storm over the Korean Peninsula last year. First, the moribund Six-Party Talks, as well as the suspension of substantive bilateral talks between the North and particularly South Korea and the United States, made it impossible for Pyongyang to extort concessions from the international community through diplomatic negotiations. North Korea’s only recourse, from its standpoint, was to act out and force the international community to respond to its provocations. This is a time-honored pattern of behaviour by North Korea and was, to some degree, not surprising—although the lethality of its belligerence was.
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