India, June 14 -- By refusing to be predictable, by keeping his neighbours and rivals perpetually uncertain, he has guaranteed something his country has always craved: relevance.

Let's face it, by most conventional measures of statecraft, North Korea should not have survived. A tiny, deeply isolated country with a crumbling economy and a hereditary dictatorship should have collapsed decades ago. Yet in 2026, Kim Jong Un continues to manoeuvre between the world's major powers with remarkable effectiveness, keeping Beijing nervous, Moscow grateful and Washington perpetually off-balance. Whether one approves of his methods or not, Kim's diplomatic balancing act has become one of the most striking examples of strategic opportunism in modern ...