Now North Korea may be preparing to test-launch its new ballistic missile, the Taepodong-2. For the past month satellite imagery from a North Korean test site has suggested to U.S. intelligence agencies that such a launch is in preparation.

Analysts are divided on the likelihood of an actual launch, pointing to the difficulties of interpreting satellite evidence, the possibility that what is being observed is a training exercise, or even that the North Koreans are deliberately trying to mislead the United States. However, the evidence is the strongest it has been since North Korea last test-fired a missile in 1998 that crossed Japan to land in the Pacific.

If the North Koreans do launch it will deal a major setback to the six-party talks -- among North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia -- set up to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, and to inter-Korean talks. It is also likely to cement the U.S.-Japan security relationship even further.

A Taepodong-2 missile is believed to have the range to reach Alaska and perhaps the west coast of the continental United States, as compared with the 1,500-mile range of the Taepodong-1 fired in the 1998 test. North Korea would almost certainly claim that any firing was preparation for a commercial satellite launch, as they did in 1998.

But the message would be clear to North Korea's neighbors: that this missile could be fitted with a nuclear warhead more easily, and carry it much further than its predecessor, the Taepodong-1. That missile has a significantly smaller payload, so that any warhead would have to be miniaturized to fit it, a major technological obstacle.

If North Korea really intends to test-fire the missile, it will seriously set back its short-term prospects for receiving the energy assistance and economic aid it desperately needs. But North Korean diplomacy has always been about rattling cages and high stakes gambling. The leadership may be hoping to repeat what happened at the end of the Clinton administration. After the furor over the 1998 missile firing had settled somewhat, North Korea announced a unilateral moratorium on further missile tests in September 1999, a move that led to U.S. economic assistance and serious talks on a missile ban agreement. Time ran out on those talks with the end of the Clinton administration.

North Korea may also be drawing lessons -- almost certainly the wrong ones -- from Iran's example. They may be calculating that the recent change in the U.S. approach to Iran with a greater willingness to engage in diplomacy was a result of Iran's apparently inexorable march toward developing a nuclear weapon. They may believe that a dramatic reminder of their own capabilities will produce similar results.

But the Bush administration is not the Clinton administration. The greater U.S. emphasis on diplomacy only came about after a serious internal policy struggle, and rash North Korean actions will strengthen the hand of those, particularly in Vice President Cheney's office, who are opposed to any form of engagement with North Korea that does not hasten the downfall of the regime.

Of course, the North Korean assessment of the U.S. administration may not be so naive. If they are planning a launch, it may be in the hope of provoking a harsh U.S. response that could drive a wedge between the United States and Japan on the one side and China and South Korea on the other. President Roh's government in South Korea is strongly committed to a policy of engagement with the North through aid, economic assistance, and opening contacts and communications between the two peoples. The United States has focused on trying to get the North to abandon its nuclear program before agreeing to any serious discussion of significant economic assistance or diplomatic recognition.

The United States and China also have divergent interests on the Korean peninsula. While neither wants to see North Korea with nuclear weapons, China wants to avoid the collapse of the North Korean regime since that would leave on its border either chaos and a major refugee problem, or a reunified Korea with U.S. troop presence, neither of which is acceptable.

So North Korea may be counting on sharpening these differences by provoking divergent reactions to a possible missile launch. And the strategy might work even if the United States avoids the two most extreme actions it could take: a preemptive strike against the expected launch site, and an attempted shoot-down of a launched missile by an anti-missile system. Neither is likely to happen. When former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter proposed a preemptive strike in the Washington Post two weeks ago it met with strong rejection from administration spokesmen. And an attempted shoot-down would simply be too embarrassing if it failed.

All of these considerations lead some analysts to believe that North Korea may be deliberately misleading U.S. intelligence, going through the preparations for a launch but with no intention of carrying it out. That way they could reap the potential benefits of a divide and confuse strategy without the downside of an actual launch. If nothing else, such a strategy would increase doubts about the reliability of U.S. intelligence, already suffering from the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, among South Korea's leadership.