Blubbering before a national audience, North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un apologized to his people for not being able to raise their living standards.

He then effusively thanked the loyalists in his party for having the “patriotic spirit” to stand with him and his regime as the military rolled out its new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Thus, the moment many Korea watchers have long feared has arrived: North Korea possesses a nuclear capability that can threaten the United States. There is no going back.

The existence of North Korea’s ICBM and Mr. Kim’s emotional outburst should unsettle audiences everywhere. That kind of destructive power tethered to an unstable ruler is a bad recipe.

Instead, some Western scholars are oddly heartened by North Korea’s nuclear development. After all, denuclearization was a barrier to better U.S.-North Korean relations. These scholars believe that by abandoning denuclearization, more constructive, stable diplomacy can be created between the United States and North Korea.

In 2017, President Trump reached the same conclusion, when he ostensibly abandoned the American demand for North Korean denuclearization in order to start a meaningful dialog with Mr. Kim. This is a dangerous assumption, though.

Now that Pyongyang definitely possesses ICBMs capable of hitting the United States, no American can rest easy. For the Kim regime is not your typical government.

It is, in the unforgettable formulation of Luke Harding, a “mafia state.” Such a state might be bribed into submission for a time. But a mafia state’s lust for blind power and bottomless greed make it impossible to create a stable diplomatic dynamic.