The Korean War saw about 1.5 million civlian deaths, according to [1]. It's impossible to say how many died in the 1994-1998 famine alone, but [2] puts it at "240,000 to 3.5 million" and [3] cites figures of "up to 3 million."
So, no. There are worse things than war. For allowing this situation to fester for multiple generations, history will judge us the way we talk about the "good Germans" who didn't lay a hand on anyone but who also did nothing to stop Hitler.
You're correct, though, in that the North Korean nuclear program is now an ideal excuse for continuing to do what we did before, which was nothing.
We might instead be asking why we let South Korea's TFR drop to 1.0 while NK is maintaining 2.0. We don't know by what criteria history will judge us. (I think my fellow Californians will be judged just fine -- Korea's not our problem.)
This is getting to be a real problem as 21st-century history continues to unfold.