North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been at the receiving end of many unpleasant epithets from the free press and first world politicians since commandeering the hermit kingdom in December 2011 following the death of his father, “Great Leader” Kim Jong-il. His country’s fifth and most powerful nuclear test to date on September 9 is sure to add a few more. Jong-un is adamant that North Korea’s nuclear programme is purely defensive in posture, conceived and in the process of enhancement to deter the United States, South Korea and Japan from effecting forcible regime change in the communist state. Similar to China, albeit in a more strident tone, he rejects the notion of nuclear apartheid born of an international system of rules that North Korea had no part formulating. Viewed in isolation from Jong-un’s repressive rule and many human rights violations, this is a reasonable position and one advocated by most nations on the nuclear threshold. Since the end of World War II and especially once the Iron Curtain crumbled, major powers in the US-led global order have sought to monopolise the destructive potential of A-bombs and H-bombs to safeguard ‘freedom and liberty’. Through this lens, the free trade of weaponised fissile materials is kosher only to the west of Berlin and latitudes north of Mexico City. Everyone else (barring Israel) must pay for the indiscretion, dearly. When wedded to a crusading US president like George W Bush, this parochial distillate of nonproliferation produced the inferno that is Iraq today. The international response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test followed a predictable rhythm, mixing full-throated condemnations with America’s now customary show of force in the skies over the Korean Peninsula and the threat of ever-tighter sanctions. It is a choreography of clichés that has persistently failed to cap the regime’s appetite for atomic bombs. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon again deplored Pyongyang’s belligerence and called on members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to stand united in censuring the rogue state. Washington concomitantly flew its strategic, nuclear-capable bombers the B-1B Lancers over South Korea to restate its “unshakeable commitment” to peace in the region. Seoul, meanwhile, plans to foreclose “the worst case scenario” of incoming North Korean nukes by reducing Pyongyang “to ashes” at the slightest hint of mobilisation. It is no accident that the Kim dynasty started by “Dear Leader” Kim Il-sung has maintained its iron-fisted grip on power in North Korea for over six decades. Three generations of its “supreme leaders” have elevated anti-imperialist rhetoric aimed at the US to an art form, and turned fearmongering into a finely tooled instrument of domestic statecraft. At the heart of their longevity lies a carefully cultivated and ruthlessly enforced cult of personality. Akin to every textbook dictatorship, the regime thrives because enough North Koreans — especially in the communist party — believe in the ever-present threat of malicious encirclement by America and its allies. Although North Korea has a history of small-scale military provocations against the South — almost 1,300 incidents resulting in 1,600 fatalities since 1961 — Jong-un’s grandfather and father were quick to back down before open war became imminent. The unprecedented intensification of the regime’s nuclear programme under the youngest Kim has some regional observers worried that he lacks the maturity to make geopolitical gambles and may in reality push the peninsula into violent conflict. Others theorise the recent tide of negative press against the regime, after a senior London-based diplomat switched loyalties to the South following the similar mass defection of 13 North Korean workers from a state-run eatery in China, has pressured Jong-un to respond with military muscle-flexing.Technically, once the UNSC in March passed its toughest set of sanctions yet in response to Pyongyang’s first nuclear test of the year two months earlier, the regime should have had no sustainable cash flows to fund its fledgling missile programme. It should also be short on the rocket fuel necessary to propel any nuclear-tipped armaments towards their intended target. These scenarios have not fructified because China, despite its immediate rebukes of North Korea’s nuclear tests and endorsement of UNSC sanctions, tacitly allows a gray economy to flourish along its eastern border that serves as a lifeline to the regime. Some part of this concession is humanitarian. China does not believe that starving its communist comrades will bring stability to the region.Geopolitics informs the remaining calculus. China knows from its own history and those of modern Syria and Iraq that attempts to upend a deep-rooted totalitarian setup carries with it serious consequences. A North Korea without the Kims could quickly plummet into chaos, civil war and competing factions each with their own interpretation of the new state. It will inevitably trigger a deluge of refugees descending on China’s borders to strain its economy and social fabric. Moreover, this mayhem will be the perfect cover for America and its allies to install a pro-western government in Pyongyang. This makes Beijing very uneasy in view of recent US maneuvering in the South China Sea that augur of an impending confrontation. Pundits at the US Pentagon have long predicted that North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests are merely leverage to make America play ball and cut a deal that scales back sanctions. Indeed, in January 2015, backchannel chatter from Pyongyang signalled Jong-un was ready to put the brakes on enriching uranium if Washington cancelled its annual military drills with Seoul. Four months earlier, as an olive branch, the regime had released three US citizens booked for illegal evangelism. America, however, kept to its policy of intimidating the enemy with overwhelming force. Its reaction to North Korea’s latest test treads a well-worn path: more strategic bomber sorties, more joint military drills with Seoul and Tokyo and, to China’s utter annoyance, plans to deploy an advanced missile defence shield in South Korea by 2017 that Beijing fears will end up spying on its military facilities. Having said that, unchecked nuclear proliferation is a recipe for disaster. Back in the Cold War, the algorithm for maintaining a global nuclear order was simple. Both the Soviet Union and America risked mutually assured destruction from first use. Over time, given the perils of an accidental apocalypse, they retreated to policies of impregnable defence through a web of anti-ballistic missile batteries. In a multi-tiered nuclear world, these calculations are complex, overlapping and will invariably lead to an arms race as multiple alignments emerge for self-preservation. Washington, ironically, risks reifying a nuclear conflict with Pyongyang if it continues to threaten the regime with its superior arsenal instead of anchoring its response to conventional firepower, for when faced with the prospect of total annihilation, Jong-un could suddenly develop an itchy trigger finger. The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance journalist