This is part of NK News’ series of opinion and analysis of the first five years of Kim Jong Un’s rule.

When it comes to North Korea, nothing has quite dominated headlines like the nuclear issue. For all of the country's eccentricities and troubling human rights record, it's Pyongyang's nuke tests, and the triumphant rhetoric that follows them, which most alarms the world about North Korea. Could this small nation on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula really have the power to unleash an apocalyptic war on its enemies?