What exactly would the NORKS do? Their Air Force and Navy would be destroyed in a couple of days. The only people that need to worry are in Seoul. If little fat boy launched a nuke at us or one of our allies, is there any doubt that an Ohio class sub would turn them into glass within minutes?
Part of me thinks that we ought to be playing to Kim’s potential political opposition in North Korea. We should make it clear that if he persists in being a madman we will first target him as we did Bin Laden. If they want North Korea to come out of that unscathed then they need to either stand down when we come for him, or remove him from leadership themselves.
If they do those things, and abandon their nuke program, we will hold the new leadership as in good standing with the US, unless they commit human rights violations. I’m confident that there are a ton of generals in North Korea who don’t want to be a target of the US, and who would rather lose Kim as their leader than to lose their lives and put their families at risk from war.