When there is a force to be reckoned with there must be a reckoning. North Korea's latest launch of a missile that flew over northern Japan is a signal that Kim Jong Un is now just one of those global forces.

He's not Hurricane Harvey. He cannot realistically threaten the United States. But he's given ample evidence that he could, perhaps, if he were so minded, drop a nuclear warhead on Japan or drown South Korea in an atomic holocaust.

The key here is the "so minded" bit.

Sure he's a weirdly shaped man with a weird hairdo surrounded by sycophants. And the similarities to his nemesis, Donald Trump, don't stop there.

Seeing into his mind, specifically the soundness of it, is something that not even his closest associates have been able to do.


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A 'really scary moment' for Japan

But it takes more than an ambitious autocratic nutter to build a nuclear weapon (or the impression of a nuclear weapon in the minds of the enemy).

So what does the North Korean leader want, assuming he's not insane?

He knows his country can we wiped off the face of the earth, with him at the epicentre of a nuclear firestorm. He knows he could get a few blows in against the South, perhaps Japan, before he was vapourised by the US.

He will be certain in the knowledge that the outcome of a conflict with his neighbours would be to turn him into a grease stain in history.

Image: A nuclear weapon is Kim Jong Un's best way to get respect

So war isn't what he wants. He's not a suicidal jihadi, he's the third Kim to occupy North Korea's throne and he wants, it seems, respect.

Getting a nuke is a pretty good way to get it. It gives an impoverished dictatorship, perpetually on the brink of mass starvation, a global status that its otherwise comical leader does not deserve.

The mutually assured destruction (MAD) of North and South Korea means that some kind of alternative has to be found - no matter how unpalatable.

This is the moment to call the North's bluff. To offer the unconditional opportunity of negotiations before Kim gets hold of a really dangerous weapon.

He's spun away from the influence of Beijing. But he is looking for a place in the world. Perhaps a role beyond the comic-book baddy he's so far played so well.

UN security council to meet after missile

His vanity is the gap in his armour and it is through that gap that an offer to talk should be whispered.

What about?

It does not matter. What matters is that the region is brought back from the Chinese have called this "tipping point".

Isolating North Korea has failed as a tactic. It has driven the Kim dynasty to the point of threatening a war it cannot win but that it might fight.

Kim is the kid excluded from school who has his face pressed against the chain link fence of international affairs. He'll be less dangerous if he's allowed into the playground.