It mightn't seem obvious at first but there's a positive interpretation to North Korea's threatening Australia: it shows they're paying attention and they're feeling pressure.
Their diabolical threat in turn raises the pressure on China because it is one more thing Pyongyang's ally cannot ignore, which is also a good thing.
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North Korea: from ceasefire to nuclear threats
How a ceasefire signed more than six decades ago has failed to deliver stable peace and allowed nuclear tensions to escalate.
And it's a lot better that the North Koreans feel pressure now than in a few years' time when they actually do have the capability to deliver a nuclear warhead to another country or continent.
The direct verbal attack on Australia – singling out Darwin on Monday in the official newspaper the Rodung Sinmum – has the feeling of lashing out, spraying at everyone within spitting distance.
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Alongside South Korea and Japan, both of which Pyongyang threatens on a regular basis both in word and – through missile tests – in deed, Australia is the US's other close major ally in the region. Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop have both been vocal in their calls for North Korea to stop its nuclear program and in particular for Beijing to intervene.
It is not surprising therefore that Australia has come into Pyongyang's enraged field of vision.
The fact that the Workers' Party's newspaper identifies the deployment of 1250 US Marines in Darwin as an instance of the US's "fanatically, crazily trying to optimise its nuclear war readiness" merely shows that the rhetorical attacks are nonsensical guff.
It does not mean for a moment that Pyongyang would have any intention of targeting Darwin if and when it perfected its technology.
The targets would be those that imposed the greatest cost on the US, which has 28,000 troops in South Korea, about 50,000 in Japan and strategically vital assets on Guam and Hawaii. And that's before we even get to mainland US.
That is what strategic weapons are for - to threaten such a high price that the other side fears to touch you.
It is a staggering power to hold and it is why there is no question that a rogue regime such as North Korea must be prevented from possessing it.
But just because Pyongyang has delivered a spray at Australia this week doesn't mean it would enter into its strategic calculations when it was in an existential survival stand-off with the US in four or five years from now.
The big issue now is how to stop the regime without provoking war on the Korean peninsula. That's the real deal.