Or is it because they really do fear a pre-emptive U.S. attack, as North Korean propaganda continues to assert? Or is it because they believed the U.S. might try to destroy their long-range Taepodong-2 missile before launch or in flight, thus requiring decoy tests and taking advantage of presumed U.S. preoccupation with the Independence Day holiday and the shuttle Discovery launch?

There is much speculation but no definitive answers to such questions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice probably put it best in saying that she would not presume to judge North Korea's motivations.

Whatever the motives, the results were a failure from many perspectives, North Korean and international.

Most obviously, the Taepodong-2, designed as an intercontinental missile, failed less than a minute into the launch. This confirms what the wisest North Korean observers, such as Ralph Cossa, president of Honolulu-based Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, suspected all along: that North Korea hardly has mastered multistage rocket technology. North Korea can present a significant threat to its neighbors but is not yet a direct military threat to the U.S.

A second failure was for North Korea's bargaining strategy.

If the missile launches were intended to pressure the U.S. into direct negotiations or changing policies, they have been counterproductive. The Pyongyang government also embarrassed friendlier countries such as China and South Korea, which had also urged it to forgo the missile tests.

We should not expect either government to radically change their policies toward the North (although South Korea announced some limited sanctions). Their reluctance to take a tougher line is rooted in their own national interests; they would like to see an end to the nuclear weapons program but favor the survival of the northern regime, at least for the time being. They are also partly in competition, both seeking economic and political advantage from the weak Pyongyang government occupying the space lying between them.

The missile test represents a third failure: that of the international community, including the U.S., Japan, China and South Korea, to deter North Korea from making tests that the international community regarded as provocative.

Where might Washington go from here?

First, it must not overreact. The Bush administration has wisely refused to be drawn into another harsh round of bilateral confrontation, emphasizing that the North Korean program is a regional and global issue. Instead, it initiated a new round of consultations with partner countries in the six-party talks.

Second, a quiet internal reassessment of U.S. strategy toward North Korea is in order, refocusing on the most strategic interests, which are to eliminate the nuclear weapons program and potential delivery systems, and pursuing partnerships with other key countries, notably China.

Even without a long-range missile capable of delivering a weapon to the U.S., the North Korean nuclear weapons and missile programs remain dangerous to U.S. interests. They undermine the nonprolifera-tion regime, accentuate arms rivalries in Northeast Asia, and increase the world's supply of fissile material.

When the North Korean regime eventually fails, as it surely will, it will also present a "loose nukes" problem. Given these dangers, the North Korean issue deserves a welldefined policy and a more consistent level of attention in Washington.

It may well be time for the U.S. to step back a little from the six-party talks, as repeated demands that North Korea return to the negotiating table only encourage North Korean demands for concessions to even talk.

In addition, the dire humanitarian and human rights problems in the North are an affront to the world. They deserve separate but important consideration in our policy.

Finally, we must continue to engage them at every opportunity. As isolated as the North is, it is also increasingly subject to foreign influences and by all accounts is changing. It has always been to the U.S.'s advantage to encourage openness and change.

ast week's North Korea missile tests dramatically illustrated the technical ability of U.S. intelligence to foresee and track missile tests. But it also underlined the enormous analytical gaps in understanding the basic political dynamics, motivations and world views underlying the North Korean actions.

Why does the Kim Jong Il regime, which rules one of the world's most destitute societies, seek nuclear weapons and delivery systems when this seems so at odds with North Korea's economic, diplomatic and security needs? Do North Koreans want nuclear weapons at any cost, as some analysts believe, or are their weapons programs designed as bargaining chips to gain leverage and be sold for the right price, as others suggest?

Why would Kim Jong Il make a special effort to personally visit successful Chinese economic zones early this year, but then order or at least acquiesce to missile tests that may result in economic sanctions? What do such contradictions say about the positions and relationships of various power holders in Pyongyang?

Why did North Koreans launch so many missiles and on the Fourth of July U.S. holiday? To send a powerful statement to the U.S. and try to muscle the U.S. into bilateral negotiations, as many observers believe?

Charles Morrison is president of the East-West Center in Honolulu. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.