HONOLULU -- Throughout the unfolding "noncrisis" on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang has stayed a step ahead of the rest of the world and appears to be dictating the pace of events. Avoiding a real crisis requires figuring out what North Korea wants and then devising a solution that meets those needs, as well as those of other concerned parties. There are growing indications that Pyongyang is playing for the big prize -- the rupture of the U.S.-South Korean relationship -- and that clumsy U.S. diplomacy may be helping them.

Getting inside the North Korean mind is always a hazardous exercise. About the only thing that everyone agrees on is that Pyongyang's first priority is regime survival. After that, the terrain quickly gets slippery.

North Korea appears convinced that only the possession of nuclear weapons will secure its objectives. Security is one goal, but it is hard to see how nuclear weapons help a government that already holds its chief opponent hostage. South Korea, not the U.S., is the real threat to regime survival in the North, and conventional forces already threaten enough damage to the South to deter aggression. Pyongyang must know that the use of such weapons would be an act of desperation that would result in the end of the regime.