Food is scarce and the electricity grid is on its last legs. You might imagine there are few reasons to be proud as a North Korean, but the regime’s leaders may be hoping that their detonation of a nuclear device provides one.

North Korean streets currently sport propaganda posters depicting workers punching the air as a rocket rips into the sky behind them. The mantra is the same: the Stalinist regime is en route to becoming a “mighty and prosperous nation” by 2012, in time for the centenary celebrations of the birth of the founder of the nation, Kim Il-sung.