Two days after North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test—an explosion that Japan assessed was significantly more powerful than the North’s previous test a year ago—and about a week after the regime lobbed an intermediate range ballistic missile through Japanese airspace, the United States did what it usually does: call an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting. Despite universal condemnation of North Korea’s sixth nuclear blast across the chamber and a strong recognition in the Trump administration that a more comprehensive package of economic sanctions is necessary, the meeting adjourned without any resolution being tabled.

Indeed, on the North Korean nuclear issue, the international community (including the United States) has seemingly exhausted whatever creative solutions were available, and there is no doubt at this stage that the Chinese, Pyongyang’s historical protector at the U.N., is fast losing patience. Yet if the Kim dynasty has exhibited any consistency over the decades, it is the willingness and ability to withstand the economic pain and deprivation that results from the Security Council’s many sanctions resolutions.