Reply #15: Yep, it's a negotiation tactic.

[sofa king]

The North Koreans, and to a lesser extent the Chinese, still have the habit of making the worst case scenario a centerpiece of their negotiation rhetoric. Or maybe it's that the Western press has a little trouble understanding that's what they're doing. That misunderstanding creates a lot of lucrative headlines like this one.

When the North Koreans and the Chinese are really planning to fight, they don't say jack about it and unload like a truckload of elephant crap on you when you least expect it.

So in a perverse way, threatening nuclear war is actually probably a healthy indicator of the state of relations between North Korea and the rest of the world.