Better policy needed on N. Korea: Keating

Former prime minister Paul Keating strongly disagrees with US President Donald Trump's approach to North Korea and Malcolm Turnbull's pledge to stand with the US in any potential conflict between the two.

Mr Keating believes North Korea will not give up its nuclear program because it would endanger the survival of leader Kim Jong-Un and his generals. Instead he believes a more competent foreign policy is needed, he told Fairfax Media.

"I said in April, we should regard North Korea as a full and capable nuclear weapons state - a state that would, in future, need to be contained, in the way the Soviet Union was contained during the Cold War. Developments since April have only confirmed my view," he said.

He also does not think the missile defence system advocated by former PMs Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott would not work.

"A more worldly and competent foreign and defence policy is by far the preferred first line of defence - rather than the default position of relying on expensive but problematic hardware."