PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — When North Korea claimed triumphantly that it had tested its first hydrogen bomb, it was roundly and predictably condemned by the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and India, countries estimated to possess a combined total of more than 15,000 nuclear warheads.

Non-nuclear powers condemned the test too, including Japan, the country that was on the receiving end of the only atomic bomb attack in history — the US bombing that ended World War II in the Pacific in 1945.

But while most of the world, east and west, agrees that no one wants North Korea to be an effectively functioning nuclear power, a question that can’t be escaped lurks behind the condemnation: How much right do nations have to tell other nations what to do? Moreover, how much of a right do nuclear powers, which have no intention of giving up their own arsenals, have to demand others to give up theirs?

North Korea, of course, says none.

In a show of defiance and nationalist pride that is so characteristic of the North, masses of North Koreans filled Pyongyang’s Kim II Sung Square on Friday — which happened to also be leader Kim Jong Un’s birthday — to celebrate their military’s new crown jewel.

“This hydrogen bomb test represents the higher stage of development of our nuclear arms,” Pak Pong Ju, North Korea’s premier, told the crowd, which officials said was 100,000-strong. “It will go down in history as a perfect success and now the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) — North Korea’s official name — is proud to be ranked among nuclear states possessing hydrogen bombs. The Korean people can demonstrate the stamina of a dignified nation with the strongest nuclear deterrent.”

With its latest test last Wednesday, which may or may not have been of an H-bomb — outside expert opinion remains divided — it is treading further down a dangerous, but well-worn, path.

As has been the case with every nation that went nuclear, possession of such weapons is seen by the North’s regime as a strategic necessity. That’s why decades of pleading with and punishing the North simply haven’t worked.

Developing a credible nuclear force, is in the long run, cheaper for Pyongyang and far more likely to be successful than building and maintaining the massive and highly sophisticated conventional forces that would be needed to deter the United States. Though mega weapons like the H-bomb have become largely irrelevant to superpower military planners — who now have the technology to conduct precision attacks that are far more effective and less likely to generate universal condemnation — it’s the kind of threat that still works for Pyongyang.

Its self-defence claim is also hardly extraordinary. It has been used by all of the nuclear powers.

After dropping its first nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States went on to develop its arsenal of nuclear doomsday devices because of what it saw as the threat of Soviet aggression. The Soviets made the same claim, but about the US. Some European allies, not wanting to be too dependent on the US, followed Washington’s lead. The Chinese, whom are worried about both Washington and Moscow, have one of their own. India acquired the bomb because of Pakistan, and Pakistan because of India. And Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons because of its neighbours.

None have given up their nuclear arsenals. The recent nuclear deal between the US and Iran may have made a dent in Pyongyang’s thinking, but two countries that did start down that path and failed — Iraq and Libya — appear to still weigh much more heavily.

“The Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the Moammar Gadhafi regime in Libya could not escape the fate of destruction after being deprived of their foundations for nuclear development and giving up nuclear programmes of their own accord,” the Korean Central News Agency said in an editorial Friday.

For the nuclear haves North Korea is deemed too irresponsible, too unpredictable and too untrustworthy for it to be a valid question.

“All the nuclear powers such as US, China, France, the UK and Russia are responsible, major countries in this field,” said Shi Yinhong, one of China’s best-known international relations scholars and a sometime government adviser.

“Of course, decades of antagonism between the US and North Korea helped the North Korean leader to make up his mind to go nuclear, but it is not the main reason,” Shi added. “The main reason for the North to go nuclear is the need of the North Korean regime to hold on to its autocratic power.”

China, however, also conducted its first tests under an autocrat, Mao Zedong.

Like North Korea, India is also deeply proud of its nuclear programme and sensitive to any criticism of it, particularly when it comes from other nuclear powers, and the United States, along with most of the world, has accepted India as a de facto nuclear weapons state.

But unlike North Korea, that was in large part because a nuclear India served the interests of at least some of the status quo.

“To put it crudely, it’s about China,” said Rahul Bedi, a prominent New Delhi-based writer on defence issues. As China’s power has grown in recent years, the West has sought allies to balance out Beijing’s ever-growing influence. India, with its growing economy, regional influence and democratic government, was pretty much the only choice. “The world, and the Western world in particular, needs a front-line state, in a sense, to challenge the Chinese.”