Just hours after the United Nations Security Council approved the toughest sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in two decades, Pyongyang responded by firing "short-range projectiles" into the sea.

Pyongyang has been angrily defiant each time the Security Council has passed a resolution mandating sanctions. Resolution 2270 (2016) is the fifth since the DPRK conducted its first nuclear test in 2006.

It will be angrier this time, because the new sanctions put a tighter pinch on Pyongyang's nuclear-missile ambitions. They are meant to do so. More importantly, the 15 members of the Security Council spelt that out in one voice.