Barack Obama & North Korea

OBAMA FOR USA. On May 25, North Korea announced that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test, again defying international warnings. (Its first was in October 2006, when it became the latest nation to join the nuclear club and incurred widespread international condemnation.)

Initial seismic readings of the blast in the mountains of Kilju, not far from the Chinese border -- exactly where North Korea conducted its 2006 test -- was "a several kiloton event," according to one senior Obama administration official. If that judgment is correct, the test yielded a somewhat bigger explosion than the 2006 test, which was later judged a partial fizzle.

But it will take days or weeks of testing radioactive particles vented into the atmosphere to calculate the size of the device, and even then there will be continuing debate about whether the North has the engineering ability to make a weapon compact enough to fit in the warhead of a missile, much less to deliver it to a target.

Facing the first direct challenge to his administration by an emerging nuclear weapons state, President Obama declared on May 25 that the United States and its allies would "stand up" to North Korea.

Acutely aware that their response to the explosion would be seen as an early test of a new administration, Mr. Obama's aides said they were determined to organize a significantly stronger response than the Bush administration had managed after the North's first nuclear test, in October 2006. Speaking in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama vowed to "take action" in response to what he called "a blatant violation of international law" and the North's declaration that it was repudiating past commitments to dismantle its nuclear program.

During Mr. Obama's overseas trip in early June, aides said that the administration had come to the conclusion that the working hypothesis of the last 15 years -- that North Korea's nuclear program was a bargaining chip to gain other ends, like diplomatic engagement -- no longer applied. Pyongyang's goal was now seen as being recognition as a nuclear power.

In response, Mrs. Clinton signaled that the U.S. was exploring the possibly risky route of interdicting shipments to and from North Korea, preferably at ports or airports in China. And Mr. Obama said he was "not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."

In a step that threatened to further raise tensions, two American journalists arrested in March 2009 while filming near North Korea's border with China and charged with crossing into North Korean territory "with hostile intent" were convicted and sentenced on June 8 to 12 years of hard labor.

The sentences for the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were harsher than had been expected. President Obama, in a statement, said he was "deeply concerned" by reports of the journalists' sentencing and was "engaged through all possible channels to secure their release."