Lots of back and forth concerning North Korea, what its intentions are, what should the response be etc etc - but to me the skinny is this: North Korea will sign onto and unilaterally walk away from any agreement that does or does not satisfy their very narrow interests, to wit, keep our oppressive dictatorship viable by giving us money and treating us as a power to be reckoned with or deal with the consequences. It's that simple - which as far as I see it leaves us with two options: give them what they want until which point there's a positive change in leadership or China deems the problem not worth the effort and withdraws enabling support; or confront them, force the issue.
The first option is in the short term the safest, but its only merit is it buys you time and does not address North Korea's long term threat to stability and nuclear security - it may be the way to go for now but the upside is very limited - and of course if you give them what they want what does that say to Iran? - very hard to decouple the Iranian and North Korean problems.
The second option of course risks an irrational response and dramatic escalation by NK but offers best pay off by either calling their bluff and forcing them into tempering their behavior or leveraging China into taking greater responsibility for a solution. The problem is any change to the status quo threatens the viability of the regime and it's impossible to know what happens then - a military coup that brings to power an even more dangerous set of circumstances? Consideration of such tempts one towards the sanctuary of the status quo - but to me that's the illusion of an answer that sets the stage for dire pitfalls further down the road - and again, is that the message you want to send to Iran?
I go back to the missile test - shooting it down would have been risky but given the alternatives it may have been the best way to change the dynamics and without a dynamic change I don't see how you solve this problem peacefully.
update: another scenario, from Danger Room blog: it is possible to create an aprox 4 kiloton explosion by setting off enough ammonium nitrate and fuel oil - that would certainly change things - but a nuclear explosion leaves behind atmospheric residue as evidence so it would be rather stupid on NK's part to try and get away with such an easily discoverable fake, would pretty much hollow out their biggest threat asset. Still, we're not dealing with normal people here...
