Even if—and I’m thoroughly unconvinced—NK has succeeded in testing a two-stage device, they could only possibly have so much plutonium from their tiny reactor in the time it was operating. The tests they’ve done must have used up a very large fraction of it, and if they are making two-stage bombs, remember now they need plutonium for the secondary’s spark plug as well. (We use Pu for the primary and U-235 for the spark plug, but they have no isotope separation facilities at all.)

They’ve put on the show they intended to put on, and it’s worked a treat—the West has fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.