Oh, there are going to be awesome consequences. The great and mighty Democratic Republic of (North) Korea has set off a small but nonetheless nuclear underground explosion. The world's statesmen and official spokespersons are wringing their hands in horror and outrage.

'Immense consequences', we hear. The balance of power in Asia has definitively shifted, we read. What, we may ask, is the big deal? A country whose pea-sized economy's size is less than most American cities, and a small fraction of the South Korean colossus, is threatening Asia, or even Northeast Asia?

Whose screwy and economically pathetic regime is evidently finite and dependent on the survival of a canny and strategic genius who inherited power from his father - and who, despite his emanations to the contrary, is mortal?

Well, let's look at the real threat. It's that Japan now has an excuse, and will face popular demands, for a resurgent military. That truly will send shudders throughout East and Southeast Asia, even two generations after World War II. But how big a threat is that?

In the long run it is inevitable that Japan's military presence will be proportionate to its gigantic economic size and the region should get used to that; it's only a matter of time. The more the world reacts to Pyongyang the more Tokyo has an excuse to speed things up at its end, when the opposite is what is desired. The region's interest is a slowest possible Japanese resurgence.

In the long run threats are, after all, governed by economics. You can't fight wars you can't afford, even if you can precipitate them. And there's the rub. We don't want North Korea to precipitate a war. We know North Korea would in the end lose any war it started, but we don't want the horrible consequences to Seoul of a lop-sided opening battle: Seoul is close to the demarcation line, Pyongyang far distant.

And the Chinese don't want five million refugees on its border with the Koreas - from a new Korean war. The bottom line is though that a war Mr Kim starts will be the end of Mr Kim, and he knows it.

Then what does Pyongyang want?

Measured reaction

Steve Bosworth, once America's ambassador in Seoul, says it wants to be noticed, taken into account. Given the idiosyncrasy of its leadership, and as long as that leadership continues its high-wire art of survival, all this is to be expected. And the world is giving Kim just what he hoped - center diplomatic stage.

Are there new elements in the equation, aside from the so-called North Korean nuclear threat? There are.

China, it turns out, doesn't want Pyongyang to test - it really didn't and Washington and Seoul know that. Therefore it could be counted on to work with both leaderships, and the UN, to coordinate a measured reaction.

The way to deal with the 'threat' therefore is not to ignore it but in our reaction not to give Pyongyang what it wants: satisfaction and reaction. Right now Kim Jong-Il is getting precisely what he wanted - headlines, notice, and ego satisfaction.

Given the intelligence the surrounding powers had on the imminence of a test, there might well have been a coordinated response: a muted and negative, but downplayed, reaction, Mr Kim would have been devastated. He didn't make it into the big boy's club after all.

So let the fun begin. Chinese sanctions that bite and that are clearly aimed at the regime's survival, but which are instituted quietly, giving no public relations excuse to Mr Kim to start military movements along the 38th parallel.

Utterly dependent

And if he does attempt any provocative moves, counter them. Firstly with enhanced sanctions by Beijing and Washington - not with food but with technology and energy and secondly by American Seventh Fleet movements.

He'd get the message: further tests and real nuclear arming means his own destruction not by a big nuclear hit but by a thousand bites, none of which is an excuse to start a war toward the south of the peninsula.

He can do simple arithmetic and understand that he is utterly dependent on China's good will, which he has now in large measure sacrificed.

The objective now should be to 'get help from the enemy.' Let Kim be hoist on his own petard, let his provocation be an excuse for the quiet moves that will destroy him in a few years, not overnight because that won't work.

Patience in this case will work, because the regime has no friends, no 'rear base,' and no long-term basis of survival. Let's see how well he can tough it out among his own comrades if the world seems to be paying no attention to him.

W SCOTT THOMPSON, presidential appointee in four American presidencies, is the author of 11 books on politics. He is adjunct professor at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Massachusetts.