Keyword: The Second Nuclear Security Summit (Seoul, March 26-27, 2012) aimed at moving beyond security towards peace. It was held against the backdrop of increased tensions with North Korea, the only state to have abandoned the NPT, and in the face of a pending multi-stage rocket launch and potential future third nuclear weapon test by Pyongyang. All forms of strategic engagement with North Korea aimed first at persuading the regime not to acquire nuclear weapons, and later at getting Pyongyang to renounce them have thus far failed. This paper contends that such strategic interaction, whether focusing primarily on conflict management through increasing the costs to target states of following policies which pose a threat to peace and security, or looking to reconcile conflicting interests, generate common good, and ultimately to resolve conflicts with a final written agreement, are equally doomed to fail in the future. The common element in all these policy failures is the treatment of North Korea as a single unitary rational actor, responsive only to the international security operating environment. In order to go beyond security towards conflict transformation it is necessary for strategic actors engaging with the DPRK to address the complex internal motivations for Pyongyang’s nuclear program, while adopting non-traditional and non-state-centric approaches.