North Korea continues to confound the world. The country's economy is on the rocks; it is estimated to have shrunk by more than 50 percent between 1992 and 1996. The government is unable to feed its own people; hundreds of thousands are thought to have died as a result of malnutrition-related diseases since 1995. Although its rival to the south has broken with years of hostility to offer a "sunshine policy" that promises increased ties and a form of detente, Pyongyang has responded with unceasing venom.

Despite its apparent weakness -- and even as it demands international assistance to help overcome its difficulties -- North Korea continues its belligerence. In August, Pyongyang launched a multistage missile, a move that threatens to alter the strategic balance in Northeast Asia. Satellite surveillance has revealed suspicious sites that suggest the North is pursuing a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. And in response to the Seoul government's unprecedented peace overtures, the North has repeatedly sent spies into the South and apparently into Japan as well, as revealed by last month's encounter with two suspected intelligence-gathering boats.

As a result, there is a growing sense that the Korean Peninsula is again on the brink of crisis. Hopes that the U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework, designed to cap Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program, would provide the basis for a more comprehensive peace have crumbled. A growing number of decision-makers in the U.S. and Japan, at least, have concluded that the 1994 accord is flawed. Even supporters, such as Brookings Institution Japan specialist Mike Mochizuki, concede that the Agreed Framework "is no longer sufficient."