To spank the monkey here (i.e. whip Kim Jong Un’s “Happy Birthday Grandfather Kim Il Sung” Taepodong-3’s mother scratchin’ as*) we need a plausible territorial incursion. That will only occur from the South Korean’s perspective. That means they need to shoot it down if it in any way goes over the various South Korean islands just off the coast of North Korea, and they could reach it I believe. The only other solution is to fire at errant, offcourse and threatening reentry fragments of it, once they/it came down near Okinawa,Japan (if they did go in that direction) but it is more bluff than anything else. However, all the more impetus to develop a system to shoot these sons of bitches down at such high altitudes and rapid trajectories, something which is not possible right now. Let’s see what the NOTAMs are coming out soon, any warnings by DPRK to international maritime or aviation organizations. You can bet Cobra Ball, Rivet Joint and KH-11B (or “Son of KH-11”, i.e. KH-12), etc. are watching closely. I personally would love nothing more than the target to be destroyed ON THE LAUNCH PAD by our teams, but that of course, would be a) an act of war and b) very risky, might not get the team back, and c) it is not October with poll ratings that suck, so Obama would not risk it.
BTW, NK has assembled the 3 stage missile on the launch pad and finished fueling connection to the gantry.