ARTICLE: "N. Korea Claims Nuclear Test: Geologists in the South Detect Man-Made Blast," by Anthony Faiola, Glenn Kessler and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, 9 October 2006, .

ARTICLE: "Leaders of Japan, China Agree on North Korea Threat," by Sebastian Moffett and Mei Fong, Wall Street Journal, 9 October 2006, p. A3.

BLOG POST: "Meanwhile, at the Chinese-North Korean border…," Austin Bay Blog, 8 October 2006.

ARTICLE: "North’s Test Seen as Failure for Korea Policy China Followed," by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 9 October 2006.

ARTICLE: "U.S. Reviews Response Options for North Korean Nuclear Test: A list of sanctions is ready, but much rests on help from China," by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 6 October 2006, p. A8.

The Bush administration's decision to rerun the whole WMD drama with Iran was a big mistake, not just for what it costs us in the Middle East and in particular within Iraq right now, but because it also emboldened North Korea, a country that has actual nukes and not just the beginning capabilities to build them.

Plus, pushing China on Iran, which proves to be really hard given the bilateral economic bonds growing between the two over energy, forces a sort of "all in or all out" choice on Beijing, which--quite frankly--isn't ready for yet.

Beijing isn't ready, in large part, because we haven't prepared them well to emerge as a trusted great power ally. This administration keeps hedging its bets, sort of treating China like a military enemy, sort of treating it like a diplomatic ally, sometimes demonizing it and sometimes indulging it. Our "separate lanes" policy of trying to compartmentalize our relationship with China has been a disaster in my opinion, keeping us trapped in an immature strategic relationship with Beijing that makes it harder for us to deal with rogues like Iran and North Korea.

That's been the worst strategic failure of the Bush team: as they wade deeper into this Long War, they keep adding enemies without divesting themselves of old ones that should be left behind--in the Cold War. The upshot is that we're undergunned, not outgunned. We don't face bigger threats (on the contrary, they get smaller in aggregate each year), we just suffer from having too small a team on our side.

We tolerate Russia and India and China instead of embracing them as key allies, and we indulge the Japanese and Europeans, when neither has shown much inclination to grow up strategically any time soon (although I have my hopes for Abe as the next iteration in Tokyo). Bush and Co. define the new era all right. They just don't seem to recognize that a lot of players have changed sides in the meantime.

But North Korea also helps us plenty in this process, thanks to Kim's towering ego. Tired, apparently, of Ahmadinejad getting all the negative attention, Kim makes his bid for strategic security (guess what? he wants off the Axis list too, just like Iran!).

And we've given him plenty of signs that it will succeed. The U.S.-South Korean tie looks weak. Japan, under Koziumi, got itself strategically isolated in the region (something Abe now works hard to repair). And the U.S. has focused on China's military containment in the region (our Leviathan looking for a strategic rationale for its continued big budget appetite) while China, in its usual SysAdmin form, has focused on winning hearts and wallets with economic development investment and aid throughout Asia.

But clearly, the Chinese are pissed with this. Beijing doesn't trust the Americans not to screw this up, triggering NK's collapse (they know how well we do postwars), so they wanted nothing more from Kim than the status quo, which he's too stupid to give them.

So, as Austin Bay relays, China is buttressing its military presence on the North Korean border, as its sense of fear and disgust at the Kim regime grows.

But that's just logical hedging of its bets. Kahn says Pyongyang's decision to openly disregard Beijing's wishes on this subject will certainly guarantee further movement into the U.S. camp on the subject, but then he also correctly notes that China will most likely disavow any military solutions and be afraid to push for harsh sanctions (like cutting off the oil flow from China) lest it lead to a collapse that--again--it'll get stuck dealing with.

So here we bump into the limits of our current relationship with China, with Kim in control of forcing the issue, which really sucks. This relationship should be built on our timetable, not Kim's, but such is life with this administration, so we live with the consequences.

But fear not, China's education continues, and eventually Washington will come to realize that until it makes China feel comfortable enough strategically, it won't really do much of anything to bail us out on Kim.

To me, the preferred pathway is still China engineering something inside North Korea on Kim, but that's a level of confidence I just don't see them having right now--until we make it so.