This may make things a little less tense, but only a little.

North Korea has said that interception of its ships on the high seas would be considered an act of war.* 

Whether it's in response to that threat, I'm not sure, but the Obama administration "will order the Navy to hail and request permission to inspect North Korean ships at sea suspected of carrying arms or nuclear technology, but will not board them by force."

Yeah, that'll show 'em. 

* And for those of you keeping score at home, if we were to publish a list of all the things that Pyongyang has declared would be acts of war, we'd have a volume so thick that it would blow out your Kindle. I'm not even sure if North Korea knows what all North Korea considers an act of war, which may be why no war has ever been enacted because of these supposed acts of war. I mean, we destroy their boats, and they still don't declare war. Heck, the threat of Pyongyang waging war seems so low at this point that the area between Seoul and the DMZ has become prime real estate lately. Okay, I'll stop now, because I'm seriously tempting the Karma gods.