Editor's Note: North Korea announced May 20 that it had successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads and are now capable of mounting them on short and long-range ballistic missiles. To provide context to this statement, we are republishing this tactical analysis from December 4, 2013. North Korea's regime is often casually dismissed as "crazy." Indeed, the existence of a hermetically sealed state — a combination of communism and national fascism — so closed-off to the outside world that the Internet does not exist except for a privileged few, strikes outside observers as beyond belief. Many aspects of North Korean totalitarianism, especially the personality cult surrounding its leader, Kim Jong Un, and trade and agricultural policies that cause widespread shortages, may border on the insane. But in one key aspect, in particular, there is nothing insane about it: its nuclear weapons program. North Korea's nuclear program makes perfect sense.