You can detonate nuclear warheads midair. They don't activate when they hit the ground.
Yes, I could with a toy retrofitted from the 80s, but don't you think that technology is a bit beyond them?
They are behind, but not nearly as behind as you would think, they are not at China's level, but remember...well to me at least, it seems like just yesterday that China was WAY behind everyone else technologically. There is no way they could not detonate one in the air, we did over japan all those years ago, and they certainly can now.
China also has something like ten times the land and resources, a government capable of feeding it's people, and connections with the rest of the world. North Korea literally has an army composed of elderly folk and children, armed with (at best) WWII or Cold War era weapons (including bayonets), are lead by a talent-less, yes-man oligarchy, and let's not forget the most important part; not six months ago they blew up their landing pad trying to launch a missile. This is all sabre rattling.
NK's military is probably the biggest in the world half their economy is just the military itself the people smoke meth and trade it with each other like candy to work through the entire day there is no free speech, you are punished severly, even your entire family could be punish alot of people who don't die in prison from disease get human experimentation done on them a lot of people in a very short time are going to be eating grass it's not going to be pretty, it happens every ten years it seems like
Which is exactly what I'm saying. Not exactly a threat.