Defense Secretary James Mattis said Friday in Honolulu that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime “is a threat to the entire world” and an international problem that requires an international solution.

“Our response to this threat remains diplomacy-­led, backed up with military options available to ensure that our diplomats are understood to be speaking from a position of strength,” Mattis said at U.S. Pacific Command headquarters at Camp H.M. Smith in Halawa.

The defense secretary, returning from a trip to Indonesia and Vietnam, met Friday morning with Adm. Harry Harris, head of Pacific Command, and with the Hawaii-based three- and four-star commanders of U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pacific Air Forces and Marine Corps Forces Pacific.

Mattis then met with his South Korean counterpart, Minister of National Defense Song Young-moo. Before heading into the closed-door meeting, he reaffirmed the strength of their alliance in the face of threats from North Korea.

“Here today, you and I meet as members of an alliance — an ironclad and irreplaceable alliance,” Mattis told reporters during brief statements made by both defense leaders.

The high-level meetings follow President Donald Trump’s public frustration with North Korea and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s statement Jan. 16 that “with respect to whether Americans should be concerned about a war with North Korea, I think we all need to be very sober and clear-eyed about the current situation.”

If North Korea does not choose engagement, discussion and negotiation, “then they themselves will trigger an option,” Tillerson said.

Media reports point to some in the Trump administration contemplating a preventive, limited attack to give North Korea the equivalent of a bloody nose and show seriousness of intent — with the thought that Kim wouldn’t unleash a response that would lead to his regime’s destruction.

The White House said Jan. 4 that Trump had spoken with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and that the two leaders “agreed to deconflict the Olympics and our military exercises so that United States and Republic of Korea forces can focus on ensuring the security of the games.”

The Winter Olympics will be held Feb. 9-25 in Pyeong­chang, South Korea, and will include participation by North Korea.

“Through this conference, Secretary Mattis and I will be discussing the firm ROK (Republic of Korea)-U.S. alliance, as well as reaffirming the firm coordination between the ROK and U.S. against North Korea in order to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula,” Song said through an interpreter. “At the same time, we will also be discussing some measures of cooperation between our two countries to ensure the safe and peaceful opening of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.”

Song added that he and Mattis would be “exchanging our opinions” on Moon’s statement that renewed inter-Korean talks are “a dialogue ultimately to draw out North Korea to a dialogue with the United States.”

The U.S. is concerned that the North’s talk of “reunification” with the South is an attempt to drive a wedge between America and South Korea as part of a long-held goal of ruling the South.

North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Wednesday that a U.S. arms buildup in the region “is a clear revelation of its sinister intention to aggravate the situation of the Korean Peninsula.”

“The U.S. should not run amok, clearly understanding the desire of the Korean nation for peace and reunification,” the newspaper said.

Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in a talk Thursday held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies that Army Gen. Vince Brooks, in charge of U.S. Forces Korea, and Harris, the Pacific commander, “have done a very good job about training and preparing and doing force deployment options and exercising … in order to make the other side understand that we’re ready, which we are.”

Neller said a war with North Korea would be a “land campaign” that would be a “very, very kinetic, physical, violent fight over some really, really tough ground, and everybody’s going to have to be mentally prepared.”

Neller said he hopes “it doesn’t happen,” adding, “I don’t want it to happen. It would not be good for anybody.”