President Barack Obama suddenly has his hands full with Afghanistan, Pakistan, the perennial Israeli-Palestinian question, the maverick Iranian President and, now, the North Korean President, who gave the go-ahead to an underground nuclear test that had the explosive strength of the bomb that fell on Nagasaki. To say that things are looking bad is to use an euphemism.
Point is that things have been bad for quite a while but Mr Obama has been trying to put together a soft foreign policy in a bid to bring these trouble-spots - and that is another understatement - into some form of meaningful dialogue. He has offered his unclenched fist to Iran, a fist so far ignored and is trying to be all things to both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But North Korea has seriously ratcheted the crisis level upwards with a nuclear test, which was condemned by the veto-wielding powers in the Security Council, and further missile launches.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon described the latest provocation by this rogue state as a "clear violation" of the 2006 resolution that had condemned North Korea's first nuclear test. Since then, Pyongyang has continued to develop its weapons programme despite tightened economic sanctions against it. With China and Russia on board, now, the international pressure that can be brought on North Korea has increased but, even here, China is calling for a "calm response".
North Korea has a long history of going to the brink... and blinking once it gets there. This time it has more cause to do so. In one of the most impetuous declarations coming from Pyongyang, the threat to mobilise its one million-strong army and, if necessary, to invade South Korea, has been the most chilling. It has added weight to its threat by withdrawing from the truce signed after the war between north and south more than 50 years ago, thus serving notice that it has reverted to the status quo ante in its relations with South Korea. This forced both South Korean and US troops to go on high alert yesterday.
Into this potential cauldron, South Korea has added more incandescence by its declaration to join a US-led initiative launched by former US President George Bush in 2003 - to which 90 countries have signed on - which aims at stopping and searching vessels suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction or components of same. So far, South Korea has enjoyed "observer status".
Pyongyang had previously declared that if Seoul joined the coalition it would be considered an "act of war". There is little doubt that if North Korea did invade its southern neighbour, it would do so with a massive land, sea and air assault. Seoul, it is thought, would be overrun within a fortnight. There is even less doubt, unless promises mean nothing, that any attempt on the part of North Korea to do this will bring the United States into a war against it.
President Obama has vowed to defend not only South Korea but also Japan from any attack from the North. Mr Obama must know that only a nuclear response will repel hordes of North Korean soldiers should they cross the 38th Parallel.
The world can only hope that North Korea, which seems to thrive on self-induced poverty and a manic unpleasantness, will step back from the abyss towards which it has lurched and from which only it can step back, short of war.