Um, What Is Going on with North Korea?

I don't even:

North Korea dramatically escalated its warlike rhetoric on Thursday, warning that it had authorised plans for nuclear strikes on targets in the United States.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast," the North Korean military said, warning that war could break out "today or tomorrow".

Pyongyang's latest pronouncement came as Washington scrambled to reinforce its Pacific missile defences, preparing to send ground-based interceptors to Guam and dispatching two Aegis class destroyers to the region.

Tension was also high on the North's heavily fortified border with South Korea, after Kim Jong-Un's isolated regime barred South Koreans from entering a Seoul-funded joint industrial park on its side of the frontier.

In a statement published by the state KCNA news agency, the Korean People's Army general staff warned Washington that US threats would be "smashed by... cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means".

"The merciless operation of our revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified," the statement said.

Last month, North Korea threatened a "pre-emptive" nuclear strike against the United States, and last week its supreme army command ordered strategic rocket units to combat status.

But, while Pyongyang has successfully carried out test nuclear detonations, most experts think it is not yet capable of mounting a device on a ballistic missile capable of striking US bases or territory.

...US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel earlier said Pyongyang represented a "real and clear danger" to the United States and to its allies South Korea and Japan.

"They have nuclear capacity now, they have missile delivery capacity now," Hagel said after a strategy speech at the National Defense University. "We take those threats seriously, we have to take those threats seriously.

"We are doing everything we can, working with the Chinese and others, to defuse that situation on the peninsula."

While experts believe North Korea doesn't yet have the weapons capability to hit the US, the major concern right now is that North Korea's belligerence could instigate "incidents on the tense and heavily militarised border between North and South Korea." South Korea's defense department has said it will take military action "if the safety of its citizens in Kaesong was threatened."

Meanwhile, China, which is North Korea's only major ally, "appealed for 'calm' from all sides," which seems like a pretty mild response, but that's pretty much China telling North Korea to back the fuck down before they cause an international incident.

The White House called North Korea's posturing "unhelpful and unconstructive threats," which is polite.

I feel so bad for the North Korean people. What a nightmare of a government they've got, who is putting them in unnecessary danger, once again.