NEWS that North Korea has tested a hydrogen bomb is further unwelcome evidence that this rogue state is out of control. The UN has called an emergency session of the Security Council and China has made its displeasure clear, but North Korea remains rebellious. While a debate rages about exactly how significant the underground explosion was, and whether or not it was an actual hydrogen bomb, the explosion did measure 5.1 on the Richter scale and China has been forced to evacuate its citizens from an area on the border for fear of fallout. The problem for the rest of the world is that, while the old doctrine of mutually shared destruction (MAD) kept an uneasy peace for 30 years between the USA and the Soviet Union, the North Koreans do not fear nuclear annihilation. Today, on Radio 4, John Everard, Britain’s former ambassador to North Korea, said that the North Korean’s “deep sense of victimhood” could lead them to launch a first strike. He added that “North Korea has a defensive tunnel system that makes Tora Bora look like a child’s play pen in comparison. If they believe they can hide away in the tunnels and survive a nuclear counterstrike, the possibility that they could launch a nuclear first strike remains.” Thirty years ago, the nuclear clock was at one minute to midnight when President Ronald Reagan started an all-out arms race with his Strategic Defense Initiative, a protective sky net missile defence system designed to prevent incoming ballistic missiles. Nicknamed ‘Star Wars’ – and never built - it was nonetheless widely credited with crippling the Soviet economy with extra military spending. Although it eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the fall of the communist eastern bloc in 1989, they were tense times, and the closest we have ever come to nuclear war. North Korea walked out of nuclear talks in 2006. The world superpowers urgently need to act in concert to ensure they return.