" North Korea’s alleged penchant for irrational and erratic behavior is illusionary: the North Korean leaders actually know perfectly well what they are doing. They are neither madmen nor ideological zealots, but rather remarkably efficient and cold-minded calculators, perhaps the best practitioners of Machiavellian politics that can be found in the modern world. "

― Andrei Lankov , The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia