BRUSSELS -- Next year's crisis on the Korean Peninsula has come early. The year 2003 was to see an explosive conjuncture of events: a change of regime in South Korea, markedly less sympathetic to engagement with the North than that of current President Kim Dae Jung; the final failure of the United States to deliver the North two promised nuclear- power stations; and the expiry of North Korea's self-imposed moratorium on missile testing. All were pre-empted by North Korea's admitting that -- aided by Pakistan -- it has been engaged in a clandestine program to produce enriched uranium since the end of the 1990s, breaching agreements made with the U.S. in 1994.

The question is, why have North Korea's leaders triggered such a crisis now? The answer is twofold. First, they see the U.S. as comprehensively failing to deliver technically, politically and militarily on the promises of 1994, and, with Iraq in U.S. sights, an opportunity to negotiate a new comprehensive solution, thus breaking U.S. military hawks' attempts to neatly sequence action against the three "axis of evil" regimes.

Second, they need international aid. North Korea has taken a series of, almost certainly irreversible, steps toward transforming its command economy into one in which the market plays a central role. The old system of guaranteed food delivered through the People's Distribution Centers has, since July 1, been superseded by emphasis on producers and production; massive increases in wages are available as an incentive. The old emphasis on equality has been swept away. Now agriculture and industry must be competitive.