You're right that we won't be first to get hit in the teeth by the North Koreans. But I'd note that the South Koreans and the Japanese are both far more strongly opposed to attacking NK to take out its nuclear program than are US policymakers. This is not just due to the pacifist sentiments of the publics, but to the fact that South Korea is terrified of the cost and social disruption of unification, and the Japanese have such suspicion and bad feeling towards Koreans that they'd rather not see a united Korea that could presumably then focus energies outward.

Given that we'd depend on bases in Japan and ROK for a serious campaign against the North, the fact that they aren't willing to let us keep them from getting hit in the teeth is a bit of problem.

For South Korea, there is also the difficult fact that Seoul is so close to the border that in case of a conflict, it would get pounded with North Korean artillery.

Interestingly, all the military analysis I've seen is that the Seoul problem has gotten much easier in the last 15 years. Our advances in counter-battery radar, precision strike munitions, etc., have greatly outpaced the degree to which NK has increased its artillery capacity. Likewise, Seoul has only grown relatively stronger over those years. The outcome of a fight looks a lot less scary today than it did in 1994.

The Chinese too would rather take the risks of something going bad in the region than they would the certainty of a massive refugee crisis in the case of an attacked and collapsing North Korea.

So, TB, I'm curious what exactly you would have recommended we do instead.