WHEN it became clear that the Taepodong-2 missile North Korea test-launched early on July 4 had broken up less than a minute into flight and plunged into the Sea of Japan, many Americans felt a sense of relief. After all, the missile--belonging to a class thought capable of reaching the U.S. mainland--had

Responding successfully to that threat will require, first, a recognition that Kim almost surely cannot be negotiated out of his nuclear program. President Bush has been right to pursue multilateral talks with Pyongyang rather than acquiesce in the bilateral negotiations Kim desires: Direct talks would be a concession to North Korean pressure and strengthen Kim's position. But the six-party talks--involving, in addition to North Korea and the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Russia, and China--have never brought Kim an inch closer to forswearing his nuclear aims, and in any case have been suspended since September. Resuming them now isn't likely to do much good. Kim knows that North Korea's economy, as well as his power, depends on the combination of selling arms to rogue states and extorting aid from alarmed neighbors. He will not defang himself, for this would imperil his survival.

The recently passed U.N. resolution banning member states from selling components of missiles and nuclear weapons to North Korea was better than no response at all. But not much better. Russia and China successfully blocked any threat of economic sanctions or other punitive measures. In this, they were supported by South Korea, which plays the role of U.S. ally on Mondays, Wednesdays, and alternate Fridays. The U.S. should do everything it can to extract a high diplomatic price from these countries if they continue their reckless appeasement.

But the reality is that we are probably stuck with Kim for a while to come. U.S. policy should accordingly be to contain Kim's regime and undermine its power. Perhaps the greatest danger is that North Korea will transfer its missile technology to other regimes that would use it to threaten us. Kim continues to arm Iran, and he has also courted Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. There is a very real possibility that, at Kim's initiative, the regimes most hostile to the U.S. will form an axis backed by North Korean missile technology.

Preventing that outcome will require more serious enforcement of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led effort to interdict transfers of banned weapon technology. In practice, the PSI has done almost nothing to stop North Korean arms shipments, possibly because PSI nations fear damaging the six-party talks. It's time to cast such reservations aside. We should also step up pressure on the recipients of North Korean arms--most notably Iran's mullahs, who must be stopped from building an atomic bomb. We should intensify our already successful efforts to cut off North Korea's overseas financial assets. We should work diplomatically toward the complete isolation of Kim's state. Finally, we should press forward on missile defense--by continuing development of land- and sea-based interceptors, and by jumpstarting research on space-based technology.

As long as Kim's Stalinist regime clings to power, it will endanger us. But if the United States and its allies have the will to confront that danger, it can be overcome--and the regime can be pushed toward the fate of its ideological forbear.