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The two nuclear tests and several missile tests by North Korea so far this year have drawn a furious response from South Korea, the United States and the rest of the world.
President Park Geun-hye called the latest explosion an act of "maniacal recklessness." A faction in the South Korean ruling party said we should consider developing our own nuclear weapons. The United Nations is looking at further sanctions.
That's all quite appropriate because you can't just sit there and do nothing. But, what should we say and do when the next test happens?
One option is to be nicer to our enemy.
Every morning on my way to work in Seoul, I pass a young lady near the American embassy who holds a large sign in Korean expressing her opposition to the deployment in South Korea of THAAD, the U.S. missile defense system. The idea being conveyed here is that making China and North Korea angry is not a good idea. Let's talk to them, instead.
The other option is to hit them where it hurts.
Yesterday morning, I was surprised to see a young manstanding silently beside this lady and holding a sign that presented another option: a pre-emptive strike. The idea here is that we ask our American friends ― the sign was in English as well as Korean ― if they would be so kind as to bomb North Korea's weapons facilities before the testing program is complete and Kim Jong-un has the means to deliver his nuclear weapons at targets in South Korea, Japan and the United States. Experts say that should not take more than a year or two.
Whenever options fall into soft and hard camps, I find myself casting around for the place in the middle ― not nowhere land, but the place that combines the best sense and sheds the weaknesses of both extremes.
In this case, I think it lies in a serious policy of making peace with North Korea that is backed by strength.
This idea is no revelation. In fact, there is probably no American or Korean government since the Korean War that did not sincerely believe that this was its policy. But it never was and it isn't now. Real peace-seeking with North Korea is uncharted territory.
We are not pursuing peace. We are enduring. We are like the husband with the yelling wife. She is shouting about him not understanding her. He has no idea what's wrong or what to do. He knows he mustn't punch her, so he keeps saying, "Yes, darling. Please calm down." His mind is blank except for one thought: she's nuts. And he wonders why she gets worse.
Similarly, with North Korea, allied efforts at peace have been based on the assumption that the North Korean leaders are, in a diplomatic sense, nuts. We believe they need a constant state of war in order to protect against attack, not by us, but by their own people.
This means that in peace talks with them, we do not trust their intentions.
Well, this feeling is mutual. They don't trust us. They think that given half the chance, we would kick them out and establish a democratic regime that respected human rights and market forces in their place.
What on earth gives them that idea?
The part that has been missing is that, like the yelling wife, North Korea has been yelling for decades about what it wants ― an end to the Korean War. And, for equally as long, we have been rejecting that demand and, in the next breath, saying we are in favor of "confidence-building measures" and willing to talk anywhere, anytime. And then we wonder why they fail to understand that our massive war games exercises are just harmless training.
What we need is a Korean War peace treaty. Then, we may let flow what may flow from that ― in time, we may hope, diplomatic relations, regional pacts like the Helsinki Agreement, trade and investment.
And, most important, we should keep our end of this bargain, even if North Korea misbehaves ― which it will because it's a nasty dictatorship and we're going to have to hold our noses dealing with it until democracy arrives there.
As for the hard macho part of this approach, all we need to do is let the North know that if Kim Jong-un gets up on the wrong side of the bed one day and orders a nuclear strike, by breakfast time, his state will cease to exist.
That, frankly, is not difficult because the North Koreans know that already.
Michael Breen is the CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, a public relations company, and author of "The Koreans" and "Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader."
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