North Korea poses a variety of threats to its neighbors. In recent years, focus has been on its rapidly advancing nuclear weapons program and parallel developments in missile capabilities that allow Pyongyang to threaten ever more distant targets. These dangers complement more "traditional" threats posed by its conventional and special operations forces, and the rest of its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Frequently forgotten are dangers presented by North Korean "failures": a flood of refugees triggered by instability or domestic crisis has been the most frequent concern. Another potential failure and regional security risk recently surfaced: the possibility that Mount Mantap, the site of North Korea's nuclear test facility, might collapse. If it happens, the consequences could be severe.

North Korea has had six successful nuclear tests since 2006 — all at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility, a tunnel complex buried deep within Mount Mantap, a 2,200-meter-high mountain in the northeast that is less than 200 km from the border with China. The last test, on Sept. 3, which Pyongyang claimed was a hydrogen bomb, produced an artificial magnitude 6.3 earthquake. The test appears to have been the largest since a Chinese test in May 1993 and larger than any test conducted by either the United States or the Soviet Union since 1976.