This is all fairly pessimistic. But like it or not, it is time to learn to live with a nuclear North Korea. There is still a role for the international community to quietly promote changes which are likely to make North Korea less dangerous — such as through supporting Kim Jong Un’s regime drift towards the ‘developmental dictatorship’ model. But this will be slow, difficult to explain to the public and clearly imperfect. More attempts will be made to solve the nuclear issue through pressure and negotiation. But these attempts have little chance of success.