But even engagement strategies can't stop the relentless move toward a deliverable North Korea nuclear arsenal.
President Bill Clinton essentially attempted this in 1994 when he approved $4 billion in "energy aid" to North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses with participants during the 8th Congress of the Korean Children's Union (KCU) in Pyongyang, North Korea.
A vendor waits for customers at the shop inside the international airport in Pyongyang, North Korea May 3, 2016.
But if the world accepts a nuclear North Korea (and it accepted a nuclear Pakistan, as North Koreans have reminded me), then the second half of Kim's theory might just give the kind of pressure that can be used.