WITH each day, North Korean bluster reaches new heights. After the UN tightened sanctions following North Korea’s nuclear test, its third, in February, the regime threatened the United States with nuclear destruction and declared a new “state of war” with South Korea. Now it has advised foreigners in South Korea to leave before the coming “thermonuclear war” (foreign-embassy staff in the North’s capital, Pyongyang, were also told to consider leaving). And signs are growing that medium-range Musudan missiles might be loosed from a launch site on the eastern seaboard, aimed presumably to fall somewhere into the Pacific Ocean.

The threats and warnings are all from a hallowed playbook, only louder this time. The North’s missiles are unreliable and a long way from being nuclear-tipped. But Japan says it will shoot down any that pass over it. In South Korea, forces have raised their alert level. No troop movements suggest the North Korean army means business. Indeed, one defector says that the half-fed army has been put on manure duty—ordered to clean out latrines and slurry pits and spread muck on the spring fields. Most of the main stories in the regime’s mouthpiece, the Rodong Sinmun, urge North Koreans to build up the economy, not head to the front.

Besides, Kim Jong Un, the young dictator, enjoys the goods things, like basketball and pizza. An unprovoked attack on South Korea or America would bring about the regime’s annihilation. The United States has moved anti-missile defences and nuclear-capable bombers nearer to press home the point. John Kerry, America’s new secretary of state, is to visit Seoul on April 12th.

Continually cranking up the volume risks rapidly diminishing the credibility of North Korean threats. That is perhaps why the regime also announced the closure of the Kaesong industrial complex, which represents just about the only example of North-South co-operation. The complex earns Mr Kim and his cronies $80m a year in badly needed hard currency. That is one reason to think the closure will be temporary. Nevertheless, forgoing the cash suggests the regime is running out of bluster.

April 10th, the day from which foreign-embassy staff were told their security could not be guaranteed, passed without incident. April 15th may prove a telling mark, since it is the much-ballyhooed 101st anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, Mr Kim’s grandfather and North Korea’s first dictator. Perhaps military fireworks will erupt around that date. But perhaps Mr Kim will declare victory by having seen off the imperialist threat. He may then, says Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul, turn straight round and seek aid from the outside world; above all, North Korea resents its dependence on China.

The South Korean public, meanwhile, has reinforced its reputation for nonchalance. Back in 1994, threats from North Korea caused panic and hoarding. Today Seoul’s residents stroll around as carefree as ever, or say they are too busy just making a living to worry about the threats from the North. And perhaps they are right. Things would have to be pretty bad for Mr Kim to risk everything.