The way things are looking, the UN Security Council will slap more sanctions on North Korea, China will continue to ignore the sanctions, North Korea will continue to develop and proliferate nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and Japan will soon go nuclear along with South Korea. It’s hard to put a smiley face on this.

What would be nice would be if China finally agrees to do something. Maybe the UN Security Council members need to agree among themselves to give North Korea a stark choice: give up the nukes or be forcibly conquered by the UN and split, one part for South Korea, and one part for China. China might actually do something if it had some territory to gain.