The world has long been used to attention-seeking provocations by North Korea's troublesome dictatorship to compensate for its relative international isolation, though it has never been comfortable with them. It now has fresh cause for unease.
Yesterday's missile tests in defiance of world opinion are a threat to regional stability. The missiles could offer a delivery system for nuclear weapons that the rogue nation claims to have. They include a long-range version which failed, but is said to be capable of reaching Alaska and the North American seaboard.
The tests pose diplomatic headaches for Washington and Beijing.
They are an urgent cue to Beijing, as Pyongyang's ally and host of stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons programme, to redouble its efforts to coax North Korea back to the negotiating table. They are also a cue to the Bush administration, which is coming under increasing pressure to consider direct talks with the Pyongyang regime, to avoid adding to the provocation.
In announcing the tests well in advance and then going ahead with them, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has shown his skill at playing friends against foes as he manoeuvres for concessions.
Washington has repeatedly ruled out direct talks in the past, instead making demands the North Koreans find unacceptable. Indeed, conservatives in the Bush administration have been scathing in their criticism of a visit to North Korea in 2000 by Madeleine Albright, then president Bill Clinton's secretary of state.
With a gun at its head, it seems a stretch now to expect the United States to even consider negotiating. It is a notion that will be fiercely resisted on both sides of the American political divide. But it is also one that is gaining support from unlikely quarters. Senior Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are among the most recent to have called for direct talks.
