Whether motivated by aggressive brinkmanship or an implicit plea to resume intensive bargaining, North Korea has attracted international attention once again by preparing to launch a test flight of its Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile.
The United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand have all joined the clamorous calls on Pyongyang not to conduct the test. But North Korea insists it is no longer bound by commitments made in a joint declaration with Japan four years ago, following a previous missile launch in 1998, which equally shocked its neighbours.
The group of states negotiating with North Korea on its nuclear energy and weapons programmes has been less in the limelight over recent months. US political attention has been concentrated on Iran, involving a similar set of issues. Little progress has been made to convince the North Koreans they should divert their efforts to peaceful use of nuclear energy or be given real incentives to do so. South Korea has taken the initiative to develop closer economic and human relations with the North. The other states involved - China, Russia and Japan - have not had the opportunity to provide an alternative route for the North Koreans.
This threat can therefore be interpreted as an effort to force the pace of negotiation and concentrate international attention. It is a dangerous way to go about it. Should the missile test go ahead, economic and other sanctions seem bound to be applied. President Bush and his administration are concentrating on diplomatic efforts to convince the North Koreans not to carry out the missile test. The net effect will be to reactivate the issue, reopening debate between the two main schools of thought on what motives the North Koreans have for provoking it.
The predominant view is that North Korea is willing to be a rational partner on regional stability and nuclear weapons control, and its outbreaks of brinkmanship are best seen as perverse appeals for more aid and positional advantage disguised as threats. An alternative view sees it as a dangerous totalitarian regime prone to irrational threats best contained by explicit threats of military retaliation.
The Bush administration has oscillated between these two views without consistency. This latest crisis points up the need for a more sustained engagement by Washington in tandem with the other states involved. To that extent the missile threat may have succeeded in its objective; but a lot now depends on the North Korean side to ratchet down what they have escalated. Such brinkmanship can all too easily run out of control.