North Korea issued a nuclear threat against the United States and South Korea today, the latest in a long series of such threats emanating from the small rogue nation in East Asia (Wall Street Journal). The UN was already in the process of tightening sanctions, but nothing that will drastically alter the status quo. These threats are geared to galvanize public support within North Korea for the leadership, as well as potentially garner minor material concessions from the West. The most likely scenario is no change, but given the country’s new youthful leadership (Kim Jong Eun), costly missteps are possible. That Kim Jong Eun lacks missile capabilities to deliver nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to his targets does not mean that he could not deliver WMD via simpler methods such as  cargo container or by smuggling the material on fast boats from neighboring countries. Port and major cities in the US, South Korea, and Japan have a miniscule but persistent and catastrophic risk from North Korean WMD delivery.