The explosion was relatively small, but the aftershocks are still echoing from North Korea’s test of a nuclear device on Monday.

“It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it,” the North Koreans declared in a press release after the apparent underground nuclear test.

Analysts are still trying to better understand the test’s veracity, but the U.S. Geological Survey identified a disturbance emanating from the Korean peninsula, which measured 4.2 on the Richer Scale.

This translates to an explosion of about one kiloton in strength, analysts said, smaller than most nuclear tests, which have ranged from 10 to 60 kilotons. The weapon may have been purposefully small, or may have malfunctioned, but in either case the message from North Korea remains the same — we have operational nuclear technology.

And, no matter what the size of the explosion, the symbolic meaning of North Korea having the bomb has captivated U.S. foreign policy thinkers.

“This is a serious setback for U.S. and global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, especially the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT),” said Political Science Prof. Scott D. Sagan. “This is the first time that a state has been caught cheating on its NPT commitments, withdrew from the treaty and then developed an atomic bomb.”

Sagan, who has long been adamant about the dangers of nuclear proliferation, is director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and co-author of The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed.

North Korea’s flaunting of its nuclear capabilities seemed to catch the Bush administration off guard, perhaps in no small part because of the time officials had spent focused elsewhere. The administration has been bogged down in recent weeks dealing with Iraq, Afghanistan and the political fallout from both.

Regional experts, however, expressed less surprise about the test.

“My first reaction was that this is not unexpected,” said Gi-Wook Shin, head of Stanford’s Korean Studies program and Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). Shin said that he had been expecting a test slightly later, but definitely within the next year.

Daniel Sneider, Associate Director of APARC, also felt the timing made sense. “I thought for a long time that they wouldn’t do this because it’s a line that once you cross it you can’t go back,” he said. “But more recently I’d come to conclude that they figured there was more to be gained from [testing].”

North Korea’s gamble may pay off. The world’s policymakers, the U.S. in particular, are paying rapt attention to the regime’s every move. And, for Kim Jong-Il, that may be exactly what is desired.

Selig S. Harrison, author of Korean Endgame, wrote in the Washington Post Tuesday that “Paradoxical as it may seem, Pyongyang staged the test as a last-ditch effort to jump-start a bilateral dialogue on the normalization of relations that the United States has so far spurned.”

A stunt for attention would be nothing new. In fact, even as the U.S. was debating whether Iraq had or was pursuing weapons of mass destruction in 2003, Kim Jong-Il was publicly declaring North Korea’s progress toward “nuclear deterrence.”

North Korea’s requests for direct negotiation were repeatedly dismissed by the Bush administration, which said it did not want to reward bad behavior with engagement.

This week’s events likely show that policy’s weakness. Instead of an improving North Korea striving to gain international acceptance and credibility, negotiators must deal with a new nuclear state wielding weapons as a demand to be heard.

Others maintain he U.S. purposefully did not engage North Korea during the past several years in order to end ambiguity and lay all the cards on the table. The test leaves little doubt about what North Korea has been working on, and what their intentions are.

“The hawks appear to have gotten their way,” The New York Times editorial board opined Tuesday. “So why don’t we feel safer?”

Clarity may have come at the cost of giving North Korea more time to develop their weapons.

Assuming that North Korea is unlikely to surrender its arms and the spotlight it has been given, the main question for the rest of the world is what to do next. As Condoleezza Rice recently made clear in statements this week, war is not on the table.

Besides the fact that the U.S. is already overwhelmed militarily with troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, any military action against North Korea would be extremely risky.

Seoul is within range of conventional artillery (let alone any nuclear attack) from the North. The South Korean capitol would sustain devastating damage in the event of an attack.

North Korea is also believed to have missiles staged within striking range of Japan. In terms of any land action, the reclusive nation possesses one of the world’s largest armies. The overwhelming force couched in a defensive position could inflict heavy casualties on attacking troops.

With force an unlikely response, the international community is left with much of the same as before in terms of choices — negotiations or sanctions. The difference is a sense of urgency.

Statements by John Bolton, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, seem to point toward sanctions, and other nations like previously resistant China seem to agree that serious punishment may be in line. Sanctions could include a reduction or cutoff in areas like food aid, much of which is currently provided by South Korea.

Such harsh actions will definitely be noticed, but they may be a precursor to talks rather than an immediate route to disarmament.

“I think there’s still a possibility that these types of measures will cause North Korea to consider what they’ve done and come back to some sort of bargaining process. I think the more isolated North Korea feels the better at this point,” Sneider said, offering Cuba as a cautionary tale of how sanctions can fail to achieve intended consequences.

On the other hand, while immediate bilateral negotiations would satisfy North Korea, they might send the wrong message to others with nuclear ambitions, most notably Iran. Should the U.S. reverse its current policy and negotiate simply because North Korea has finally acquired nuclear weapons, Iran may be encouraged to proceed with its own development at a quickened pace, a situation both the U.S. and Israel desperately want to avoid.

Whatever the path, a unified effort by the key actors — the U.S., China, Russia, South Korea and Japan — remains essential, scholars say.

According to Shin, one of the main reasons diplomacy has failed thus far was the separate policies of engagement by China and South Korea, and the more hard line approach of the U.S. and Japan.

“Unless they cooperate with each other,” he wrote, “neither policy can work.”