How South Korea should respond to North Korea will be debated there long after the North’s latest threats wind down. But one thing is sure: South Korea’s strategy has helped create one of the most astounding national success stories in generations. A large part of that story was economic: Land reform spurred the transition from a rural to an urban society; exports brought money into a country with few national resources; and state-managed capitalism appealed to foreign investors while distributing gains across classes. More recently, politics fostered growth as South Korea embraced democracy, nurturing its middle and creative classes even though many of its fellow “Asian tigers” did not. Today, the nation is not just stable and well-fed — two things the North isn’t — but free, wildly prosperous and enriched by a culture that is spreading around the world…

Half a century ago, although North Korea was wealthier than South Korea, both were military dictatorships and among the world’s poorest countries. Today, the North still is, but the average South Korean enjoys a living standard on par with that of Israelis and Europeans. Economists describe this development without exaggeration as “the miracle on the Han River.” In 2011, the Samsung Group, South Korea’s largest corporation, reported $247 billion in revenue, or more than six times the gross domestic product of North Korea…

Korean music, movies and television have proved so irresistible that they’re pushing across Asia into Japan, which has been a gold mine. As North Korea kidnaps Japan’s citizens and fires missiles over its territory, South Korea is sending its pop singers and soap stars into the heart of its former colonial master while funneling bushels of Japanese yen back home. PSY, of “Gangnam Style” fame, has even made it big in the West. During a November visit to Europe, he attracted up to 20,000 Parisians at an impromptu concert. The next month, he performed for and met President Obama.