Here's the problem...
... this test was not a dud, unlike the previous test.
North Korea with a nuclear weapon may cause a regional nuclear arms race. Japan has all the capability to make a nuclear weapon and accurately deliver it on an ICBM. This is something that would greatly alarm China, Russia, both Koreas, and Taiwan. Japan does not consider a nuclear North Korea to be a threat that can be managed without a similar response on the part of Japan. Japan has been strongly anti-nuclear in policy, but they also have stockpiled all the plans and parts necessary to create nuclear weapons. Intelligence sources estimate it could take a mere six months for Japan to create a viable nuclear device and given the technological sophistication of Japan, it wouldn't be a primitive device such as North Korea has developed.
South Korea too will likely start their own nuclear program to act as a deterrant to North Korean and Japanese aggression. Don't laugh. The relationship between South Korea and Japan is frostily cordial and has been so since the war. Both Koreas consider Japan to be their traditional enemy and a mere 60 years of peace between the two doesn't amount to much given the centuries of mutual hatred.
Taiwan also considers itself a target as it is a US ally and should the US ever invade North Korea, Taiwan worries that it would be a target by proxy. Taiwan also does not trust North Korea and Taiwan may be looking for an excuse to develop a nuclear program to deter any idea of China invading the island. Taiwan also has the technology to rapidly develop a sophisticated and acurate nuclear weapon.
Keep in mind also that the only deterrent to unilateral North Korean military action is China. Nukes that work gives Kim and his government far more autonomy from China than anyone in the region wants. China has always been a moderating factor on North Korean regional ambitions of any sort and now that Kim possesses nuclear weapons, China will be far more reticent to invade/"assist militarily upon invitation" North Korea if it threatens to destabilize the region into war. The expected Chinese response would be to place more military forces in the region of the Korean border... which also happens to be very close Russia.
Russia will respond by militarizing the region, which also happens to border the Sea of Japan, placing threatening forces within arm's reach of Japan. In the middle of all this, quite literally, is South Korea, which will see her larger neighbors increasing arms and nuclear capability, and cause South Korea to respond in kind.
Avoiding all this will be the goal of the United States. Both South Korea and Japan regard the United States as the final guarantor of their sovereignty should war come to the region. Taiwan does the same. This means that should any of these three countries be attacked, they expect the United States to step-up to the plate and defend them. The big question is, will any of these three countries believe that's possible given our current military commitments elsewhere in the world? That's tough to answer. They also have to believe that the Obama administration will continue to be as committed to the region as previous administrations have been. They also have to believe that the United States has the economic power to not only keep her military at its current strength, but significantly expand it in case of war. They also have to believe that the war weary (and wary) American people are willing to keep a pro-Japan/Korea/Taiwan government in power.
Obama is going to be on the phone all of today and we'll likely see Mrs. Clinton dispatched to the area to assuage the rising fears of our allies. She has got to convince them not to go nuclear, not to create a regional arms race, and that the United States is in control of the situation with contingency plans which satisfy all players. This will not be easy by any means, perhaps impossible. It may mean that NATO will need to expand to Japan and South Korea.
NATO cannot support Taiwan by any means. The Chinese would not allow it. A separate deal will have to be worked there, but the Taiwanese will see that the ball is suddenly in their court for the first time since the fall of the mainland Republic. They will have to extract explicit support from the United States, which has waffled on Taiwan since Reagan, in the form of arms sales and commitments, or they will threaten to develop their own nuclear weapons to counter the alleged Korean threat. While North Korea is a legitimate threat to Taiwan, those same nukes will also possibly prevent China from forcibly retaking Taiwan. If the US wants to maintain good relations with China, then we have to convince Taiwan not to do this despite the fact that a nuclear Taiwan is obviously in Taiwan's favor.
This is the first major world crisis to fall into Obama's lap. It's not as if it was unexpected, so there should be policy in place already. What that policy will be and how it's executed will shape the future of western Asia.
People talk about Kim as being a crackpot. He's not a crackpot. He's a canny leader who knows how to stay in power in a despotic regime that has come to use extortion, drug running, black market weapons sales, espionage, and dummy corporations to stay afloat. Now, finally, North Korea may be able to dictate terms to the region and thus extort more goodies from the west and China. From a North Korean perspective, this was a smart move and one that will economically help North Korea (not necessarily its citizens however). Kim IS unpredictable but so is any other good dictator who wants to stay in power when he's surrounded by sharks looking for any weakness to exploit.
Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy era.
