Alex WellersteinVerified account

3. Missile and test work as planned, but area is improperly evacuated. Bad. (Cf., Bravo test.)

4a. Missile gets shot down by people playing with ballistic missile defense. Bad for DPRK.

4b. Ballistic missile defense attempts to shoot it down, but fails to hit it. Good for DPRK, bad for BMD (e.g. US).

5. Missile fails, warhead destroyed, plutonium dispersed. Bad for DPRK, maybe for others (depends where it fails).

6. Missile succeeds, but warhead fails/fizzles. Bad for DPRK.

These accumulated risks are enough that I would think that DPRK would *not* choose to try this.

There are only a few "good" outcomes here for DPRK, and they'd be hard to judge the probability of occurring versus the others.

Presumably their military and scientific people are aware of this. If DPRK wants to rattle US, or demonstrate capability, many other ways.