SEOUL, South Korea – Over the weekend, North Korea fired seven missiles into the sea between Korea and Japan.

Shortly afterwards, South Korean media published stories about just how much this display of missiles cost the impoverished North Korean regime.

The price tag for each missile fired on July 4 was said to be between $3 to 5 million - all seven, a total of about $25 million.

North Korea has launched 18 short to long-range missiles so far this year. This total comes to some $330 million, according to Joongang Ilbo, which quoted a military source. Analysts say that is enough to keep North Koreans fed for an entire year.

So did North Korea gain more than a big bang for its buck?

Some analysts believe the launches were conducted on the U.S. Independence Day to show the North’s displeasure at the Obama administration. Washington has been pushing for tough enforcement of the U.N. Security Council sanction imposed after North Korea conducted a nuclear test in May. But if the North wanted to get a rise out of the United States, it failed. Washington had little to say on the matter.

North Korea did manage to spook South Korea. Some of the missiles were thought to be scuds with an extended range that would cover all of South Korea.

And South Korean media quoted military officials as saying the latest launch showed North Korea had been able to significantly improve the accuracy of the scuds.

This does not bode well as relations between South and North Korea have deteriorated to its worst level in recent years. South Korean projects in the North which were supposed to foster friendship between the two Koreas have either been suspended or have hit major stumbling blocks.

The North openly denounces the South Korean president as a war-monger.

After the missile launches, Chung Mong-Jun, a prominent National Assemblyman called upon the government to address the South Korean people to explain the level of threat North Korea posed to the South.

But what if North Korea’s fireworks display really didn’t have much to do with the outside world?

Kim Tae-Woo, a long-time North Korea watcher with the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, laughs in agreement when asked if the outside world thinks it means more to North Korea than it actually does.

Kim sees the missile launches as simply a process in North Korea wanting to be what it always said it wanted to be: an independent and strong nuclear power.  “North Korea needs to test its missiles to see if their technological advances are real.”

“And it doesn’t hurt to let its potential buyers know as well,” he says.

While it is difficult to know exactly how many missiles North Korea exports, it is known that missile sales are a major source of foreign currency and their main customers are countries like Iran and Libya.

And then there is the internal political reasoning. “North Korea often uses such military actions to concentrate internal forces, to enhance domestic stability,” says Kim.

For North Korea, which seems to be in the process of transferring leadership from Kim Jong-Il to his 26-year-old son Kim Jong-Un, this is a crucial time. After a stroke last year, the North Korean leader’s health is in question.

The 26-year-old heir apparent is a relative newcomer to the North Korean power structure and a young man shrouded in mystery to the outside world. The only picture publicly known of Kim Jong-Un was taken when he was a student in Switzerland ten years ago.

And to realize a smooth transition of power from father to son, analysts point out that the leadership needs the backing of all factions of its society, especially the military.

So if testing out and showing off its missile prowess keeps the military happy, it is more than worth the hefty price tag the North Korean leadership paid, says analysts.

“For the North Korean leadership, nothing is more important than regime survival,” says Kim.