North Korea Says It Has 'Completed' Its Nuclear Program

On Wednesday, after conducting its longest-range missile test yet, North Korea declared itself a globe-spanning nuclear-weapons power and insisted the United States deal with it on those terms. Kim Jong Un’s government claimed that it had launched a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)—a “Hwasong-15”—capable of “carrying [a] super-heavy [nuclear] warhead and hitting the whole mainland of the U.S.” It quoted the Dear Leader, who announced that his nation had “finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force.”

So … do we all go home now? Is that how this ends—with North Korea sprinting across the finish line, the United States panting behind it, and the two countries learning to deter one another just as