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If we are to assume that North Korea becomes a nuclear-power state, of course the danger of having an all-out nuclear war, that possibility is very slim.

There's the assumption being made by the national security advisers to the Obama administration that the North Korean leadership is not suicidal, that they know they will be obliterated if they attacked the United States. But I would point that everything in South Korea and Japan is well within range of what they might want to do.

There is a different future that is available to North Korea, if they choose differently.

On the day when two army corps may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilized nations will recoil with horror and disband their troops.

The point is, once they have a missile that can hit the United States, we are now back in the kind of game we used to worry about with the Soviet Union, only the Soviet Union was more mature about this whole thing than I think the North Koreans will be.

I would not suggest the U.S. should sit down with the North Koreans bilaterally immediately after they've fired missiles - because the appearance is that you reward bad behavior. But if North Korea behaves for some period of time, I would pretty much favor direct talks.

Now North Korea certainly is located in a different place geographically, but I think it faces the same type of strategic decision. Does it want a different future for its people?

There is some sign that North Korea is changing recently. There is ongoing successful negotiation to have a military talk to Pyongyang, which has been stopped for seven years.