Mick Hartley

It's a commonplace that North Korea stokes up the war rhetoric to keep its wretched citizens in a state of permanent fear – and of course to justify the military-first Songun doctrine that's supposed to embody the regime's guiding principles, such as they are beyond terror and worship of the Kim dynasty. For as long as I can remember the official DPRK media have been portraying the nation as being in a state of constant war against the Americans, who stand in the way of re-unification. So it's a little strange to see the headlines today in the UK media, with the North Korean foreign minister claiming that the US has now declared war on North Korea. What's the big deal? It's what they always do. Indeed strictly speaking the two Koreas have been at war since the 1950s, since no peace treaty was ever signed.

The BBC helpfully point this out, despite making such a fuss of this latest outburst:

North Korea frequently calls foreign action against it "a declaration of war". Here are just a few of the occasions it has used the expression:

• July 2016: When US imposed sanctions on Kim Jong-un and several other officials over human rights abuses – North Korea said that was "a hideous crime".
• February 2016: When South Korea withdrew from the shared economic zone at Kaesong – North Korea said this was "an end to the last lifeline" of inter-Korean relations.
• October 2014: It said if balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets were allowed to drift across the border from the South it would be "a de facto declaration of war.
• October 2006: It said UN Security Council sanctions passed in response to North Korea's first nuclear test meant a war declaration.

But yes, looking a the Rodong Sinmun, for example, the rhetoric does seem to have gone up a notch from its already fever-pitch level.

Servicepersons of DPRK Turn out in Final Battle against U.S.

Servicepersons of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces met Friday to vow to turn out in the final battle against the U.S. under the leadership of respected Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un….

Ri Myong Su in a speech said that the statement of the chairman of the DPRK State Affairs Commission is a stern declaration on disgraceful ruin to the mad Yankees who openly dared to reveal the scheme to destroy the Korean nation, letting out unprecedentedly ignorant words, and an alarm gun report calling the Korean army and people, who have longed for the moment of decisive battle for national reunification, to the final attack.

The present era clearly shows once again that there can be neither justice, independence and peace on this land nor the reunification of Korea, the cherished desire of the Korean nation, with the deranged man like Trump and the groups of aggressors allowed to exist on our planet and that very just is the road of Songun, the road of simultaneously developing the two fronts we chose and have steadily followed, the speaker noted, and went on:

The KPA, regarding it as its sacred mission to defend the leader, the country and the revolution, will never remain a passive onlooker to the frantic provocation of the U.S. imperialists seeking to destroy the DPRK.

We have the single-minded unity of the leader, the party, the army and the people, which is more powerful than all nuclear weapons in the world put together, and the strongest strike means developed and deployed on our own efforts and the unimaginable Juche-based war methods.

The strike of our style that we have prepared for the final battle against the gangster-like U.S. imperialists for many years will be the most severe and dreadful retaliatory war, and this strike offensive will continue till we wipe them out to the last one so that there would be no one to sign a surrender document and make a scream and until we annihilate the U.S. imperialists on this planet forever.

Now that Trump, the boss of the U.S. imperialists, dared to make the most ferocious declaration of war ever known in history while letting out unprecedented belligerent remarks aimed to "totally destroy" the DPRK, the KPA will make him pay dearly for them with the toughest counterstrike ever in history.

The speaker called upon all the men and officers of the KPA to become impregnable fortress and bulletproof walls in devotedly defending the Party Central Committee headed by the great Comrade Kim Jong Un, with the unshakable will and faith that we are sure to win as long as there is the respected Supreme Commander even though all the formidable enemies pounce upon us and the earth breaks out a hundred times.

I'm not sure what they do after this. There can't be anywhere further, rhetorically, to go.