Watch VERY Closely And Ignore Them

TW: North Korea is a true international pariah, their leaders choosing to isolate the nation from globalization rather than engage even at great harm to the populace. The one bargaining chip they have is to poke the international community including playing with nukes. They act in a fairly predictable way to attain aid and some degree of influence merely by nuisance.

As with most nuisance the best means by which to address them is to ignore them unless and until they should become something worse. Like many situations there are essentially no viable military solutions short of a massive and hugely destructive all-out attack which due to the North Korean conventional and nuclear forces would need to be extraordinary. That attack would not be in anyway be surgical.

Those on the right who call for "something strong" in response almost never define what that is only that it be "strong". As the piece points out if the North Koreans act rationally they are containable, if not something drastic would have to happen but if that were to pass millions might die. I would hope we monitor very closely whilst letting the nuisance stew in its own strange juices.

From Economist:
"THREATS of war are nothing new for North Korea, so Pyongyang's latest warning to Seoul, after the South took the largely symbolic step of joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, is easily dismissed by some. Russia, though, is not amused, and John McCreary of NightWatch describes a possibility that oughtto affect America's reaction.

During the past 40 years North Korean leaders have been blustery but
fundamentally risk averse. They have done nothing that would risk the total
destruction of their state—which means Pyongyang for all practical and symbolic
purposes—until now. ....

The actions in the past two days represent risk accepting behavior,
defiance bordering on recklessness. This behavior began shortly after Kim
Chong-il's stroke in August 2008. If Kim is ordering these actions, he has had a
personality change, which can occur if dementia follows a stroke, according to
medical authorities.

Yesterday and today numerous pundits proffered ideas of how Barack Obama might deal with the hermit kingdom. Most assumed some sort of rationality on the part of Pyongyang, believing that Mr Kim wants aid in exchange for his nukes. But what if the pot-bellied dictator is truly a mad man who has lost his mind? Mr Obama's best strategy is to simply sit back and wait for the country's internal political situation to sort itself out. Dealing with Pyongyang at this point would be a maddening waste of time. "
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/05/has_north_korea_gone_crazy.cfm