Once again this year, North Korea turned to its familiar strategy of provocation and violence, testing to its limit the collective patience of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. This time, the North may have crossed the line at which its threats can be ignored. Increasingly bellicose, the North continues to take its nuclear activities off the negotiating table, while the U.S. intelligence community assesses North Korea is “no longer willing to negotiate over eliminating its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, actively seeking international recognition as a nuclear power.”

The U.S. is confronted by a North Korea intent on extracting concessions from the U.S. and its partners in the region by periodically engaging in direct nuclear threats. As a result, the U.S and others continue to look to China to moderate the behavior of its ally and implore Pyongyang to assist in constructing a more enduring framework for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

But benign assumptions about China’s motivations cannot be reconciled with the reality of its relationship with North Korea.

China’s objectives in the Asia-Pacific are served by having a “bad boy” in the neighborhood. Constant, high-level tensions emanating from Pyongyang keep the U.S. and allied military and strategic focus on the anachronistic regime in the North, allowing China to place the balance of its strategic efforts elsewhere. While not necessarily desiring war, China may calculate that a damaging war on the peninsula – up to and including nuclear strikes on Seoul, Tokyo, Guam, Hawaii, or even the United States itself – could potentially change the relative balance of power in Beijing’s favor.

We must be clear-sighted about Beijing’s potential motivations, and not avoid “thinking the unthinkable” with respect to what an imminent North Korean nuclear breakout means for the Asia-Pacific region. At the core of our current strategy appears to be tacit acceptance of at least a rudimentary North Korean nuclear capability. We tolerate the North Koreans hoping the Chinese will finally bring the Hermit Kingdom to heel, restraining Pyongyang until the regime eventually collapses on its own accord.

On the other hand, the unpredictable actions of North significantly raise the potential for miscalculation by the U.S., Japan, or South Korea. No leader in a democracy can remain completely impassive under vocal and increasingly credible threat of nuclear strikes. Barring a sudden radical shift in Pyongyang, the U.S. seems to have no choice short of war but to accept a future in which nuclear blackmail is an enduring feature of the foreign policy landscape in the region.

Furthermore, a strategy relying on partnership with the Chinese to restrain it is likely to be unsuccessful. China may act selectively to cool periodic spikes in tensions, but there is little reason to believe China will force its North Korean ally to accept a permanent solution that curbs its nuclear and ballistic missile proliferation.

Deferring to China on North Korea only enhances the view of an America in decline that cannot enforce the global rules of the game it has defended for decades. The National Intelligence Council recently described both a United States in relative decline, and an erosion of global norms and governance structures, including nuclear nonproliferation. The appearance of U.S. weakness and the growing role of authoritarian China and Russia in nonproliferation issues have weakened the global nonproliferation regime.

The United States must make it clear that a North Korean nuclear breakout is unacceptable. And it must communicate the stark strategic choice available to China. China must actively, visibly, and productively to contain, counter, and reverse Pyongyang’s nuclear program. If China fails to do so, the United States will pursue an active counterproliferation posture, focused on the encouragement and support of countervailing nuclear breakout powers within Asia.

An active counterproliferation strategy would pursue the full range of capabilities to intercept, neutralize, disable, and/or destroy nuclear weapons. The United States would make clear that it is willing to use military force to deny the use of nuclear weapons by rogue regimes such as North Korea.

An active counterproliferation strategy would confront Beijing with its own set of unpalatable choices, with the eventual goal of inflicting a higher level of strategic pain than Beijing is willing to tolerate through its acceptance of the North Korean nuclear program.

A number of steps should be taken by the United States to implement this strategy.

Consistent with the imperative to build partnership capacity, the United States should arm allies such as South Korea, Japan, and even Taiwan with long range strike systems with the expressed purpose of countering North Korea. While enhancing military capabilities to deal with the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons, such steps would send a signal to Beijing that North Korean misbehavior provides a context for the U.S. and its allies to enhance their collective military strength in the Asia-Pacific, which China obviously wants to avoid.

Supporting peaceful nuclear power in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan would force China to consider and more accurately weigh the ultimate consequences of this path, including the prospect of three or more nuclear-armed, technical capable countervailing nuclear powers emerging on its periphery. U.S. support for peaceful nuclear programs in the Asia-Pacific would illustrate to Beijing that the North Korean nuclear threat could lead to broader regional proliferation. If North Korean behavior were to go truly beyond the pale, the U.S. could as a last resort support studies and “test” nuclear programs in those three states with the goal of demonstrating the ability of these states to build, develop, and field their own array of nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

Finally, the U.S. and its allies should make significant investments in common Pacific ballistic missile defense architecture, including the full array of sensor, battle management, interceptor, and space control capabilities. Once again, this missile defense architecture would target North Korean capabilities, but Beijing would fully grasp its strategic implications for its own nuclear forces.

Ultimately, the U.S. should work towards a world in which the nuclear nonproliferation regime is strong, enduring, and capable of moving the world to a place in which nuclear weapons are increasingly rare. An active counterproliferation strategy entails risk. But the risk we have accepted today is the potential for blackmail by a hostile, violent, and insecure regime. We have allowed ourselves and our allies to become hostage to the mood emanating from Pyongyang at the expense of a longer term focus on shaping a peaceful and globally-integrated Western Pacific region.

Thomas Schelling once noted that the best way to win a game of chicken is to both tear out the steering wheel and to throw it out the window so your opponent knows you cannot change course. The U.S. should communicate that it is at least thinking about whether the steering wheel should remain attached to the car.