


WASHINGTON — North Korea has gone two months without test firing a missile, the longest such dry spell this year.

Is it reason for hope?

“Any answer is speculative,” said Jonathan Pollack, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “The reasons could be technical. The reasons could be political.”

The problem is that that the United States has very little insight into the isolated country and its enigmatic leader, Kim Jong Un.