North Korea has flexed its nuclear muscle yet again with what it calls a “crucial test” at its long-range rocket launch site on Saturday. The periodic talks with the US at the high table in Singapore and Hanoi have been reduced to irrelevance. With tongue rather firmly in cheek, Donald Trump has greeted the development as a “Christmas gift”, a swipe that the US President has couched with a warning of “consequences” against Pyongyang.

While the North claims that the test will further strengthen its nuclear deterrent, the test was rooted in technologies to improve intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) which could potentially reach the US mainland in the event of a trans-Pacific strike, however improbable quite yet. The announcement comes as North Korea continues to press the Trump administration for significant concessions as it approaches an end-of-year deadline set by its leader, Kim Jong-un, to salvage faltering nuclear negotiations.

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The salvage operation, if it can be so-called, still seems a long way away; in the interim, Pyongyang has ventured twice this month to fire yet another missile. The test has served to reaffirm its nuclear intent. North Korea’s Academy of Defence Science did not specify what had been tested. Days ahead of the launch, the North said it had conducted a “very important test” at the site, on the country’s north-western coast, prompting speculation that it involved a new engine for either an ICBM or a space launch vehicle. Clearly, there is much that is still under the hat in the “hermit kingdom”.

Notably, scientists of the Academy of Defence Science were congratulated by the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, which attended the test, carried out at the Sohae satellite launching ground, where the North has conducted satellite launches and liquid-fuel missile engine tests in recent years. Two tests have been carried out within the time-span of a week.

Indeed, the successful outcome of the latest test, in addition to the one on 7 December, would be applied “to further bolster up the reliable strategic nuclear deterrent of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”~ North Korea’s formal name ~ has been the response of the defence academy. The fact that the North has mentioned its nuclear deterrent makes it fairly obvious that it has tested a new engine for an ICBM, not a satellitelaunch vehicle.

It has announced the specific length of the test, signalling a larger, liquid-fuel ICBM engine. Beyond the perception of the scientists’ fraternity, is the reality that the Washington-Pyongyang plot thickens in the season of impeachment proceddings and Yuletide revels. And that impinges on the jollity in Trumpist America.