North Korea's participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, has been a strategic victory for the Kim regime.

The temporary detente to allow for its participation has provided the North valuable political space to further consolidate its strategic nuclear deterrent — a deterrent designed to dissuade the United States from a pre-emptive strike to either remove North Korea's nuclear capabilities or destroy the regime itself.

The strategic calculation behind the apparent thaw in North-South relationship is several fold.