"Personally, I would much rather be vaporized by a North Korean warhead, then go to bed knowing that one of ours has left countless thousands of women and children writhing in agony with radiation and thermal burns."

I wouldn't want either.

I'd prevent "thousands of DPRK soldiers , women and children from writhing in agony with radiation and thermal burns." by making sure that they get painlessly ionized by the West's far more powerful and accurate nukes..