Of bombs and delinquent behaviour

'You have learnt to live with other nuclear powers, So why not us? We really want to coexist with the United States peacefully, but you must learn to coexist with a North Korea that has nuclear weapons.'

-Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator

About 2 years ago, i did a simulation exercise in school regarding the threat of nuclear proliferation and looked at North Korea in detail. In my words, N Korea have nothing to lose and the US have nothing to gain- from a full-scale nuclear war.

All the N Koreans want is a re-opening of bilateral negotiations with the US (and the most effective way was to stage a nuclear test). A compromise has to be reached on the financial sanctions that would reopen N Korean access to the international banking system, offer large-scale energy cooperation and remove N Korea from the US State Department's list of terrorist states, thus opening the way for multilateral aid from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank, all of which N Korea is actively seeking to join.

Anyway, you cannot fight an idea with arsenal. And violence begets violence. So the US have to re-think their exhuasted diplomatic skills to draw the sting out of N Korea's nuclear pretensions.