What you are asking is to proactively affirming national security interests. Every nation has the right to place their national security first, including NK (if it can be called a sovereign nation) . But there is a point where the larger nations end up bullying just because they can do that.

> North Korea's government is simply... unstable, in both senses of the word. > They cannot be allowed to have a permanent nuclear deterrent.

Yeah yeah, that has been said about quite a few countries in the past. Based on what - flawed mathematical models? The sole purpose of those was to create new war grounds. If the country has such great prediction powers, let's first use it in economics.

I don't mean to support North Korea here. It might be an irresponsible, undemocratic state. But non-proliferation cannot be done by saying "I'll keep my gun but you are not allowed to keep yours because I think you are an irresponsible unstable person". Whereas history since WWII clearly shows who has been the trigger-happy entity.