The row over U.S. intentions to deploy elements of its missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic has the potential of bringing U.S.-Russian relations--not to mention bilateral arms control--to a new low. Russia has disapproved of the scheme ever since the United States first went public with the system about two years ago. But despite sounding angry, Russia remained calm, arguing that it already possessed the technology to deal with the interceptors the United States planned to place in Eastern Europe.

Recently, however, Moscow decided to up the ante. Clearly inspired by the assertive and rather confrontational presentation given by President Vladimir Putin at a conference in Munich on February 10, Russian generals started painting a picture of a much harsher response to the possible deployment.

North Korea's declared nuclear bomb test program will increase the incentives for other nations to go nuclear, will endanger security in the region and could ultimately result in nuclear terrorism. While this test is the culmination of North Korea's long-held aspiration to become a nuclear power, it also demonstrates the total failure of the Bush administration's policy toward that country. For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction.

President Bush, early in his first term, dubbed North Korea a member of the "axis of evil" and made disparaging remarks about Kim Jong Il. He said he would not tolerate a North Korean nuclear weapons program, but he set no bounds on North Korean actions.

The most important such limit would have been on reprocessing spent fuel from North Korea's reactor to make plutonium. The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed, it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line was crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.

Then in 2002, the Bush administration discovered the existence of a covert program in uranium, evidently an attempt to evade the Agreed Framework. This program, while potentially serious, would have led to a bomb at a very slow rate, compared with the more mature plutonium program. Nevertheless, the administration unwisely stopped compliance with the Agreed Framework. In response the North Koreans sent the inspectors home and announced their intention to reprocess. The administration deplored the action but set no "red line." North Korea made the plutonium.

The administration also said early this summer that a North Korean test of long-range missiles was unacceptable. North Korea conducted a multiple-launch test of missiles on July 4. Most recently, the administration said a North Korean test of a nuclear bomb would be unacceptable. A week later North Korea conducted its first test.

It appears that the administration is deeply divided on how to deal with North Korea, with some favoring negotiation and others economic and political pressure to force a regime change. As a result, while the administration was willing to send a representative to the six-party talks organized by the Chinese in 2003, it had no apparent strategy for dealing with North Korea there or for providing leadership to the other parties. In the meantime, it increased economic pressure on Pyongyang. Certainly an argument can be made for such pressure, but it would be naive to think it could succeed without the support of the Chinese and South Korean governments, neither of which backs such action. North Korea, sensing the administration's paralysis, has moved ahead with an aggressive and dangerous nuclear program.

So what can be done now that might have a constructive influence on North Korea's behavior? The attractive alternatives are behind us. There should and will be a U.N. resolution condemning the test. The United Nations may respond to calls from the United States and Japan for strong sanctions to isolate North Korea and cut off trade with it. But North Korea is already the most isolated nation in the world, and its government uses this isolation to its advantage. Stronger sanctions on materials that might be of use to the nuclear program are reasonable, but the horse is already out of the barn. Economic sanctions to squeeze North Korea would increase the suffering of its people but would have little effect on the elite. In any event, they would be effective only if China and South Korea fully participated, and they have shown no inclination to do so.

There will be calls to accelerate our national missile defense program. But the greatest danger to the United States from this program is not that North Korea would be willing to commit suicide by firing a missile at the United States, even if it did develop one of sufficient range. Rather, it is the possibility that the North Koreans will sell one of the bombs or some of their plutonium to a terrorist group. The president has warned North Korea not to transfer any materials from its nuclear program. But the warnings we have sent to North Korea these past six years have gone unheeded and its acts unpunished. It is not clear that this latest one will have any greater effect. If a warning is to have a chance of influencing North Korea's behavior it has to be much more specific. It would have to promise retaliation against North Korea if a terrorist detonated a nuclear bomb in one of our cities. It must be backed by a meaningful forensics program that can identify the source of a nuclear bomb.

This test will certainly send an undesirable message to Iran, and that damage has already been done. But it is important to try to keep this action from precipitating a nuclear arms race in the Asia-Pacific region. Both Japan and South Korea have the capability to move quickly to full nuclear-weapon status but have not done so because they have had confidence in our nuclear umbrella. They may now reevaluate their decision. We should consult closely with Japan and South Korea to reassure them that they are still under our umbrella and that we have the will and the capability to regard an attack on them as an attack on the United States. This may be necessary to discourage them from moving forward with nuclear deterrence of their own.

Our government's inattention has allowed North Korea to establish a new and dangerous threat to the Asia-Pacific region. It is probably too late to reverse that damage, but serious attention to this problem can still limit the extent of the damage.

The writer was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997.

Copyright 2006, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and The Washington

Post. All rights Reserved.

WASHINGTON - Despite its threat of severe consequences, the Bush administration has little leverage to use on North Korea to keep it from testing a long-range missile and few ways to punish the nuclear-armed nation if it proceeds.

The United States has no diplomatic or economic ties with North Korea, the rudimentary U.S. missile-defense system is untested in real-world conditions and Pyongyang is regarded as having a right to test missiles, making any American attack to forestall a launch an act of war with potentially explosive consequences.

"The United States could try to shoot down the rocket, but good luck,'' said Wonhyuk Lim of the Brookings Institution, a policy-research organization in Washington.

The dearth of options illustrates the limits of the administration's pre-emption strategy and its need to rely on the cooperation of others -- especially given the strains on the U.S. military from Iraq and Afghanistan -- to contain threats.

Washington hopes that the world's only Stalinist regime will heed demands by the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China to uphold a self-imposed 1999 moratorium on missile tests and rejoin talks on curbing its nuclear program in return for security guarantees and economic and political benefits.

At the same time, the administration is reviewing its options should the Kim Jong Il regime test-fire what U.S. officials describe as a multi-stage Taepodong-2 missile, thought to be capable of reaching Alaska.

"The launch of a missile would be a provocation,'' Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman said Thursday during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. "If such a launch took place, we would seek to impose some cost on North Korea.''

Rodman declined to say what Washington would do. Experts said that even the imposition of sanctions by the United States would be largely symbolic.

They think that North Korea would not have readied the missile for flight unless it had decided it could live with the consequences.

"It probably means they are not worried about the American reaction,'' said Daniel C. Sneider of Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. "There is nothing that the United States can do to them.''

The United States has no diplomatic relations or financial assistance it can threaten to cut, and it suspended contributions to international food aid for North Korea last year.

The administration has moved against Pyongyang by trying to halt its missile sales to other countries, its alleged international narcotics trafficking, and its alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency, cigarettes and over-the-counter drugs.

Under American pressure, banking regulators in February froze North Korean accounts at the Banco Delta Asia, a Macao bank that the U.S. Treasury Department accused of laundering North Korea's ill-gotten gains.

Other banks, anxious to avoid American scrutiny, reportedly have curtailed business with North Korea.

David L. Asher, a former Treasury Department official who oversaw the crackdown on North Korea's alleged illicit dealings, said the United States could respond to a test with an intensified campaign against Pyongyang's alleged international criminal activities that would hurt the ruling elite.

"Do not underestimate the impact of the financial pressure we could put on them,'' said Asher, a scholar with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a policy-research organization.

Washington is counting on Japan, which also is threatened by Pyongyang's nuclear arms and missile programs, to react to a launch by closing ports to North Korean ships and shutting off remittances by ethnic Koreans to relatives in North Korea. But those measures are expected to have limited impact.

A North Korean missile test in 1998 prompted Japan to boost missile-defense cooperation with the United States, and experts said a new launch probably would prompt Washington and Tokyo to forge even closer military ties.

The only nations that could tighten the screws significantly are China and South Korea, North Korea's main foreign trading partners and aid donors.

But while Seoul and Beijing would be outraged, because a missile test would effectively kill hopes of restarting talks on containing North Korea's nuclear arms program, they are unlikely to take any step that could rock Pyongyang.

Both are anxious to avoid destabilizing their neighbor of 26 million people. China doesn't want to be overwhelmed by North Korean refugees, and South Korea would be unable to bear the economic and social costs of sudden reunification.

They also fear that Kim's government could lash out with its million-member army against the South, igniting a conflict that would drag in the United States and devastate the Asian-Pacific economy.

"China and South Korea fear instability more than they fear a nuclear North Korea,'' said Marcus Noland, an expert at the Economic Policy Institute.

Moreover, Beijing probably would be unwilling to jeopardize the budding commercial ties it has been pursuing with North Korea.

"China opposes sanctions on North Korea because it believes they would lead to instability, would not dislodge the regime but would damage the nascent process of market reforms and harm the most vulnerable,'' said a February report by the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention organization.

South Korea has been pursuing a policy of economic engagement and political exchanges with North Korea.

The United States has been consulting with members of the U.N. Security Council on a response to a North Korean test. But North Korea has the right under international law to test-fire missiles, making it tough for the United States to win more than words of chastisement of North Korea from the council.

North Korea is poised to flight test a ballistic missile that may have intercontinental range -- an action the Bush administration declares would be provocative. Others have called for sanctions if the flight test occurs, the use of U.S. ballistic-missile defenses to intercept the missile in flight or a pre-emptive attack against the missile-launch site. But is this missile test a red line that, if crossed, seriously threatens U.S. security and, hence, warrants strong action? The simple answer is "No."

In thinking about this test, one must not lose sight of two paramount goals: rolling back North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the eventual peaceful reunification of North and South Korea. Ballistic missiles constitute a serious threat to the U.S. homeland only when armed with nuclear warheads and they are only one delivery means for such weapons. In this sense, ballistic missiles are of secondary concern. By most estimates, North Korea has sufficient nuclear material for a few nuclear explosive devices, but whether they can design a nuclear weapon that satisfies the size, weight and delivery constraints associated with intercontinental-range ballistic missiles is far from obvious.

If North Korea tests a three-stage version of the Taepodong-2 missile, it will likely attempt to put a satellite into orbit, just as it did in 1998 when it failed to place a satellite into orbit with the smaller Taepodong-1 missile. North Korea has a sovereign right to launch satellites, or to test ballistic missiles for that matter. International protocol requires launch notification and restrictions on air and marine traffic for reasons of range safety -- steps North Korea failed to take in 1998 -- but no international agreement bars this test. True, North Korea agreed to a unilateral moratorium on ballistic missile flight tests in 1999, pending further talks with the United States regarding North Korea's missile program, but the Bush administration refused to join these talks. North Korea leader Kim Jong Il reaffirmed this flight test moratorium in the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration signed with Japan, but this document is not a legally binding commitment.

If successful, this flight test would demonstrate that North Korea can produce rockets large enough to carry payloads intercontinental distances. However, this does not translate into an immediate threat because North Korea has not demonstrated that it can build a nuclear warhead that is small enough to fit on top of a Taepodong-2 missile and that can survive re-entry into the atmosphere after flying intercontinental distances.

Given vastly superior U.S. conventional and nuclear forces, deterrence should dissuade North Korea from ever using such missiles, except for saber rattling, or worse selling nuclear weapons or nuclear material abroad (this is a serious red line). Kim Jong Il may be a ruthless totalitarian leader, with little regard for the welfare of his people, but he is not suicidal.

More important, these missiles would be highly vulnerable to pre-emptive attack in the midst of a crisis, which is when pre-emption makes sense, because these missiles are large and easy to detect, they are not mobile, and they take many hours, if not days, to erect in a vertical position and fuel -- precisely the activity that generated this concern.

On the other hand, U.S. sanctions against North Korea in the wake of a test flight could backfire. They would likely cause rifts with other friendly parties to the Six Party talks aimed at eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons, especially China. U.S. national missile defenses may not be within range, depending on the flight trajectory, to intercept this flight test. If this unproven U.S. missile defense were to fail and North Korea's flight test succeed, the Bush administration would be embarrassed, and Kim Jong Il triumphant. And, pre-emptive attack against the test facility would be a unilateral act of war at a time when U.S. unilateralism has hurt more than helped U.S. vital interests. South Korea would adamantly oppose such adventurism because Seoul is vulnerable to retribution, being within artillery range of the Demilitarized Zone.

So, what should the United States do on the eve of this flight test? Nothing, beyond expressing its dismay that North Korea appears to favor conflict over cooperation.

A Taepodong-2 flight test allows the United States to learn more about this missile than North Korea, given the concentration of technical intelligence assets in the area, which would help resolve the question of whether this missile, in fact, constitutes a serious threat to the U.S. homeland. In addition, such a test would isolate North Korea further and reinvigorate the Six Party Talks by encouraging South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States to overcome their differences and create a united front to persuade North Korea to renounce its nuclear weapon program, which is the real threat.

Stepping back, U.S. leaders should see that North Korea is a mouse and the United States the elephant. Contrary to popular mythology, elephants are not, and should not be, afraid of mice.