The West has offered North Korea virtually everything it can think of - recognition, food, fuel, economic investment and development, security guarantees - but North Korea's regime is propped up so poorly, and so dependent on the perpetuation of a military standoff, that it is afraid to even engage on China-style reforms that might stabilize the country. As we know, it made some half-hearted efforts to create special economic zones, which it then closed quickly.

"Wanting" or "not wanting" war is irrelevant. We need to accept that North Korea is an unstable and dangerous regime that will only become more dangerous if allowed to remain. If China is unwilling to control its puppet state, the West should be ready to remove that state. China would not directly participate in a war that would destroy its economic growth and precipitate a potential revolution at home, and if for some crazy reason it did, then the same logic that says now is the time to fight rather than 50 years from now is doubly true with respect to China as it is with respect to North Korea.