The cost of the rocket launch is estimated at more than US$300 million. That's more than 10 percent of North Korea's annual trade volume, which is less than $3 billion. The country suffers a shortage of more than a million tons of food a year. North Korea could have bought enough food overseas at last summer's prices to cover the entire shortfall for three years for the money it spent on the rocket launch. It invested huge sums of money while starving its own people to proclaim its might to the world as its new parliament convenes on Thursday to reappoint Kim Jong-il as chairman of the National Defense Commission.

With the launch, North Korea may possibly be saying it now has a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska. Already in 2006 it claimed it conducted a nuclear test. We are witnessing the unfolding of the nightmare scenario of a nuclear-equipped North Korea with a long-range missile.

South Korea, meanwhile, has relinquished its ability to possess nuclear weapons and is prohibited from developing missiles that can travel more than 300 km and carry more than a 500 kg warhead according to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Missile Technology Control Meeting. North and South Korea are seeing a growing strategic imbalance in terms of nuclear weapons and missile technology.

South Korea, the United States and Japan condemned the rocket launch and vowed that North Korea would face "corresponding measures." In an emergency statement during his visit to the Czech Republic, U.S. President Barack Obama said North Korea had isolated itself even further by committing this provocative act and added that this issue would be addressed by the UN Security Council.

The UNSC did begin discussing the launch on Sunday afternoon, but a spokeswoman for China, which has veto power as a permanent member, said, "We hope related parties stay calm and exercise restraint, appropriately deal with it and together maintain peace and stability in this region." China and Russia are said to support the handling of the rocket launch by the UNSC but oppose sanctions. If they are, how would they react if South Korea and Japan now seek to secure advanced nuclear weapons and missile technology in the name of self-defense? Will they want to remain calm and exercise restraint?

The U.S. held talks with North Korea when it first launched a long-range missile in 1998 and right after the nuclear test in 2006. Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, said Saturday that North Korea policy must combine carrots and sticks, adding Washington was in close consultation with South Korea and Japan so that the North can return to the six-party talks after the missile issue calms down.

North Korea then demanded the payment of $1 billion a year in return for giving up its missile program, on top of a deal signed in Geneva in 1994 during the Clinton administration guaranteeing two light-water reactors and 500,00 tons of heavy oil each year.

While coming up with short-term measures such as sanctions, our government must devise with a fundamental strategy to protect the nation’s security and to manage North Korea under threat from its nuclear and long-range missile capabilities. As seen in the unusual internal strife over the heir to Kim Jong-il following his health problems last year, the North faces an unstable period where anything can happen at any time. It would be terrifying if North Korea veers out of control while it is equipped with nuclear weapons and missiles.

The South Korea-U.S. alliance is based on a mutual defense treaty drawn up in 1953, when the prospect of a nuclear and missile-equipped North Korea was beyond the wildest imagination. Moreover, that alliance has deteriorated over the past 10 years. The two allies must come up with a basic set of measures to deal with a North Korea that now claims to have developed long-range missile technology on top of its nuclear capability.