Kim Jong-un's bellicose stance could signal conflict, or his preference for a President Trump

When a highly militarised dictatorship fires artillery shells in the direction of its neighbour, which it has just denounced as its "greatest enemy", then tests cruise missiles and underwater nuclear attack drones, it is reasonable to believe that armed conflict could follow. But when that country is North Korea, conventional geopolitical punditry is often left wanting. Even so, recent actions by Kim Jong-un's regime have been coated in more than the usual thin veneer of belligerence towards its adversaries in Seoul and Washington. The year was barely days old when Pyongyang sent hundreds of artillery rounds into the West Sea,…