North Korea plays its nuclear card

"Right now the US is in a holding pattern, but it's not a policy to follow," he says. What the US should do, he adds, is something between the two extremes most camps fall into. "Most people are on the side of either grovel or bomb 'em, but I would say neither of either."

Based on various intelligence sources, Sokolski says that North Korea will continue to develop additional nuclear weapons - and very likely more powerful ones - with or without current agreements. He says the US should stop all "nuclear bribing," which hasn't worked anyway. Beyond that, he says the US needs to press much more heavily on its allies in the region who continue to deal with Kim.

"It's not enough to cut off our bribes, but [Japan and South Korea need to] make sure [North Korea] pays a price for violating all the international agreements [it] signed on to."

Sokolski says the US should also play the human rights card more than it is now. "That worked in the cold war."

Though coming from a different point of view, Arms Control's Mr. Kerr agrees that the US doesn't have a strategy for effectively dealing with North Korea. The administration has "no compelling answer" when asked why North Korea should dismantle its programs if the quid pro quos it negotiated are suspended. "Tough diplomacy is not the same as appeasement," he says. "We can still solve a problem that's getting worse... if we give North Korea a stake in giving up" on proliferation.

The greatest immediate threat at present lies in the technical capability of North Korea to turn its current cache of spent plutonium fuel rods into an estimated five or six nuclear weapons in a matter of months.

A statement issued from Pyongyang yesterday carefully avoided making any reference to the status of the rods, which are currently under the observation of international inspectors. But should Kim whisk them away, or kick out the inspectors, this would be seen as highly provocative. The North is already thought to have enough material for two nuclear devices, US intelligence sources feel.

"What is most urgent is the fuel rods," argues Dr. Paik. "If Kim starts to reprocess them, he can have the weapons quickly."

North Korea's enriched uranium program would take several years to develop, scientists say.

Brinkmanship with the White House comes after a summer in which it appeared the isolated Stalinist regime was beginning to open. The North experimented with market mechanisms, including an aborted effort at creating a special economic zone on the border of China. Kim began a historic dialogue toward normalization with arch-enemy Japan (which soured after the Japanese public felt the North did not give enough details on kidnap victims by the North.)

With South Korea, the North engaged steadily - sending sports teams, connecting a long shut down rail line, and allowing more reunions between family members estranged since the Korean War of the early 1950s.

Senior White House officials believe that one of Kim's main objectives is to force US leaders to come to Pyongyang - whether they desire to or not.

Kim's curious and unusual game, US officials argue, is to legitimate himself within his own regime by showing his people that important world leaders must come to Kim's door in order to solve dangerous problems in the midst of tense brinkmanship.

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