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A plume of black smoke, an hour's artillery exchange, frightened people hurriedly leaving their homes, images that echo a . But for pessimists they are harbingers of a horror yet to come.

"Outrageous", a US state department spokesman called the North Korean shelling of the South Korea island. But what exactly will it provoke, besides nerves?

The last four US presidents have faced North Korea's determination to become a nuclear state. Bill Clinton seemed prepared to send 50,000 troops to the border and to contemplate war. A deal of sorts was struck.

George W Bush identified North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil and briefly ordered bombers to the region when it was clear it was ready to make nuclear weapons. But Mr Bush was too focused on Iraq to deal with the arguably much greater threat to stability.

Mr Obama faces not just a nuclear state in defiance of international agreements but an increasingly aggressive one. There is a new pattern here there began this March with the sinking of .

Some experts believe that what looks like a reckless game of chicken is a well-thought out plan intended to cement Kim Jong-un's path to power. His father, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, seems frail and ill and wants his son to take over when he is gone. I am told reports from China suggest Kim Jong-un was involved in giving the order for the shelling. This could improve his standing with the old guard and the military. That there may be a political rationale behind the violence is cold comfort.

The prospect of an incident like this one lighting the fuse to a bigger conflict is horrific. The US administration's man with direct responsibility for the region, , once warned that conflict on the peninsular would lead to a There's no doubt Seoul is in serious danger, even without the threat of nuclear weapons.

Winding down two wars, Mr Obama hardly wants to get embroiled in another where the death toll of Afghanistan and Iraq combined might pale in comparison.

If America doesn't want a war, experts say neither does North Korea. Former defence department expert in the region, , who's now with the Centre for a New American Security told me:

This latest incident in some ways increases the possibility of escalation. But North Korea knows what it would mean and it doesn't want to go there. A broader conflict would mean the end of North Korea as a political entity, so it wants to avoid that while using belligerence and aggression to get concessions from South Korea and America.

It is a delicate balancing act in an arena with no safety nets and a high possibility of disastrous miscalculations. One astute observer, Fred Kaplan, :

In the game of highway chicken, North Korea is the shrewd lunatic who very visibly throws his steering wheel out the window, forcing the other, more responsible driver to veer off the road.

What has changed since then is that the new boy on the road may be even more reckless than his dad and perhaps not as shrewd. As so often these days all eyes are on China. As so often there is an equal danger of exaggerating China's power as underestimating it. There is no sign as yet that North Korea is paying any attention to its only ally. Let's hope it does. It is perhaps the only hope of avoiding a terrible collision in this dangerous game of dare.

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