June was a rollercoaster ride for North Korea watchers.

In a protest against anti-regime leaflets sent across the border to the North by defector activists in the South, North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo Jong issued multiple statements warning of consequences in early June.

While the South Korean government did take multiple steps to ban and punish activists from launching balloons and rice bottles that may provoke the North, Pyongyang decided to blow up a potent symbol of inter-Korean dialogue: the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong.

But tensions were dramatically reduced when Kim