North Korea’s famous for being a black box, one of the most secretive and authoritarian countries in the world. It has a nuclear stockpile. A history of erratic behavior. And a particular fixation on antagonizing the outside world — especially the United States.

This cycle of antagonism isn’t an accident – the U.S. has played a formative role in the history of North Korea. And North Korea’s leaders have been invoking that history from the very beginning.

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