In advance of six-sided talks with North Korea in Beijing next week, the hawks in Washington are swooping on the Bush administration, urging it to take a much tougher line.
Analysis is even being produced about how a war against North Korea might be won.
For the moment, the American strategy is to demand that North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons programme in return for some of kind of security guarantee that the US would not attack.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said recently: "There should be ways to capture assurances to the North Koreans that there is no hostile intent."
Something similar has been effect with Cuba since the missile crisis of 1962, but it would fall short of the full-blown non-aggression pact which North Korea is demanding.
So some observers believe that the Beijing talks, involving North Korea, the US, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, will not make much progress.
"The talks won't get very far since North Korea is still expecting something the US won't give," Dr Keith Howard, an expert on Korea at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, told News Online.
"Nor can the US get the local powers to put more pressure on the North as each of them has an interest in maintaining peace and the issue is less critical for them than for the US."
War talk
So if the talks fail, and the North presses on with developing a nuclear bomb, what then?
After all, Washington has said that it will not accept nuclear weapons in North Korea.
'What then', according to an article in the Wall Street Journal of 4 August by two leading Washington hardliners, could be war.
Former CIA director James Woolsey and retired US Air Force General Thomas McInerney wrote: "We must be prepared to win a war, not execute a strike."
"The base infrastructure in the region and the accessibility of North Korea from the sea should make it possible to generate around 4,000 sorties a day compared to the 800 a day that were so effective in Iraq," they contend.
They said a peaceful resolution depended on China engineering "a change in regime" in North Korea. But China, they reckon, is unlikely to act, so the US might have to and should get ready.
The key to victory would be air power, according to Mr Woolsey and General McInerney.
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The US and South Korea could defeat North Korea decisively in 30 - 60 days
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James Woolsey and Thomas McInerney
"There is a significant number of hardened air bases available in South Korea and the South Koreans have an excellent air force of approximately 550 modern aircraft."
Planning should begin, they say, for the despatch of Patriot air defence missiles, several air wings of fighters and bombers and aircraft carrier battle groups.
Precision strikes would destroy not only North Korea's nuclear facilities but its artillery. These guns threaten the South's capital Seoul but their rapid destruction, the two writers argue, would remove the main deterrence the North has.
They conclude: "We judge that the US and South Korea could defeat North Korea decisively in 30 - 60 days with such a strategy."
Vigorous exchange
The Bush administration is not, in public at least, looking that far ahead.
And there is debate within the administration about the way forward; certainly the tone to be adopted.
This became apparent recently when it was announced that Under Secretary for Arms Control John Bolton would not be attending the Beijing talks.
He had made a speech in South Korea attacking North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, accusing him of living like royalty but keeping millions of others "mired in abject poverty scrounging the ground for food."
Life in North Korea, he said, was "a hellish nightmare."
The North responded in kind, calling Mr Bolton "human scum" and a "bloodthirsty fiendish bloodsucker."
It was splendid stuff maybe, but the result is that Mr Bolton will not be in Beijing.
The North would have walked out and the US at this stage wants compromise, not confrontation.
John Bolton did serve one useful purpose for the administration, though. He played the bad guy, putting the North on notice.
His speech was clearly in line with policy when he stated: "The world will not tolerate Kim Jong-il threatening international peace with weapons of mass destruction."
Inconclusive game
Despite war talk from retired CIA and Air Force officers, the Washington establishment generally is not ready to contemplate war with a country which has a million strong army. North Korea is not Iraq.
A revealing exercise was held in May by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
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They ended up deciding to put off the big decisions. They really got frustrated because there are no good (military) options
"
Tom Gjelten NPR
The scenario was an announcement by North Korea that it would develop the bomb and the question was what the US should do about it.
Experts and former officials playing the president and his team narrowed down options (sanctions, threats, and blockades) but when it came to taking direct military action, the game came to an end without decisions.
Tom Gjelten, a reporter for National Public Radio in Washington who observed the exercise, said: "They ended up deciding to put off the big decisions. They really got frustrated because there are no good (military) options."
The hope among more mainstream Washington thinkers is that North Korea, having made a concession by agreeing to attend a multilateral forum instead of talks with the US alone, is ready to do a deal.
This would involve it agreeing to suspend and then dismantle its nuclear programme and facilities (by allowing 8,000 spent fuel rods to be taken out of the country) in exchange for guarantees and economic help.
Former US diplomat James Goodby wrote recently: "Reciprocity is what is needed. Otherwise, the episodic North Korea crises will continue, until someday, one of them erupts into all out-war."
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