North Korea is on the verge of testing its latest missile, which reportedly has the ability to reach US territory. The Obama administration is watching. Will this be the first real foreign policy test for the new president? And what is the real threat from this reclusive state?

To be clear, the missile itself is not a threat. The Taepodong-2 (TD-2), North Korea's latest ballistic missile, has never been successfully tested; the first and only launch in 2006 crashed into the Sea of Japan. And though it has exploded a small nuclear device before, also in 2006, North Korea is nowhere near advanced enough to enable it to be able to fit a nuclear payload at the end of the TD-2.

Not that North Korea does not pose a threat to its southern neighbour and by extension the US, with which it has a defence pact. But this latest test, if it goes ahead, should be seen for what it really is: a diplomatic manoeuvre, a cry for attention from a starving child.

For years, North Korea has struggled to remain a viable independent state, plagued by economic ruin, natural disaster and famine. It has stayed any call for help or international aid, preferring instead to fight for its survival, operating under the cold-war rhetoric of national interest, Kissinger realism and deterrence theory.

They are exceptional negotiators, using historical and geographic realities to full advantage, as well as much-hyped threats around missiles and nuclear weapons. They have broken every weapons control agreement they ever entered into, with little reproach from the international community. Not even from the tough-talking George W Bush. For Obamaphiles out there this is a lesson of things to come: no matter their rhetoric, US presidents are bound by the realities that confront them as the leader of the only superpower in the world.

In return, North Korea has gained money and fuel aid, food and, more recently, the lifting of international sanctions and removal from the US state sponsor of terrorism list. How? The US desire to keep North Korea on side, particularly because of its nuclear ambitions.

But this has blinded the international community to the future costs, with North Korea directly and, perhaps more importantly, elsewhere. Bad behaviour has been rewarded and, ultimately, this is the only lesson that has been learnt.

But if the total economic and social collapse of North Korea is unpalatable to the rest of the world, reunification with South Korea is unaffordable. Neither is war an option; the North's most basic conventional weapons are capable of destroying Seoul overnight.

The solution would seem to be to continue as is with the diplomatic dance in the knowledge that North Korea will keep and develop its perceived deterrent, while the US
and others prop it up indefinitely. We have heard as much in recent days from experts in the US.

Yet the real worry here is not so much North Korea, which is a fait accompli.
Iran is engaged in prolonged negotiations concerning its nuclear intentions, not all that different from the position of North Korea in the 1990s (although Iran's trans­gressions have been far less). North Korea kept on pushing, crossing the line and nothing happened.

What lessons will Iran learn from the North Korean situation? Can the US appease one country and then scold the next for the same behaviour? Diffi­cult decisions lie ahead for the Obama administration. How he and Hilary Clinton move on North Korea in the coming weeks will set the tone for more important challenges to come.

Eoghan Murphy has worked in nuclear weapon regulation for the Department of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations. In June, he intends to represent Fine Gael in the local elections in the Pembroke-Rathmines area