The news that North Korea had carried out a second underground nuclear test, on May 25th, nearly three years after what it claimed was its first, and that it created a bigger bang this time, drew swift international condemnation. The United Nations Security Council speedily condemned the nuclear effrontery. Even China, a supposed friend of the rogue regime, piled in. Unabashed, the forces of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s oddball dictator, subsequently fired off a handful of short-range missiles for good measure.

These fireworks follow the launch in April of a three-stage rocket over Japan and the Pacific. Until that point, it was still possible to argue that increasingly belligerent rhetoric from Mr Kim’s regime was just his way of catching the attention of President Barack Obama’s new administration. The pariah state had long said it wanted an accommodation with the United States that guaranteed its security. But engagement with the outside world now looks near the bottom of its priorities.

North Korea also says it has torn up the truce that ended the Korean war in 1953. This was provoked, it says, by South Korea’s decision to join the American-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a group that aims to block shipments of weapons of mass destruction and related contraband. South Korea was reacting to Mr Kim’s nuclear test; North Korea accused it of a “declaration of war”. With American and South Korean troops put on a higher alert, some kind of military clash looks possible.

North Korea has also said it is restarting its plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, closed since 2007 as part of a disarmament deal negotiated with America, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. International nuclear inspectors have been kicked out of the country. There is also concern that North Korea will resume selling nuclear technology abroad.

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