The world breathed a sigh of relief Saturday after North Korea decided not to test a nuclear weapon—a provocation that the Trump administration had warned could lead the U.S. to launch a military attack—opting instead to mark the 105th birthday of its founding leader, the late Kim Il Sung, with a massive military parade in Pyongyang. A missile test the following day failed seconds after liftoff, a humiliating setback that temporarily defused mounting geopolitical tensions over Kim Jong Un’s nuclear ambitions. On Monday, U.S. equities rose as fears of an all-out war subsided.

How President Donald Trump intends to resolve the growing North Korean crisis remains unclear, though whether that is by design or reflects a lack of a coherent foreign policy is a matter of some debate. Over the past several weeks, as Kim has moved aggressively to advance his nuclear weapons program, the Trump administration has telegraphed a wide range of possibilities as to how the U.S. might respond. Last month, during his first major diplomatic tour of Asia, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that “the policy of strategic patience has ended” and that “all options are on the table” for dealing with North Korea. On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence repeated that line while making a surprise appearance on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries, which have been locked in a military standoff since the suspension of the Korean War in 1953. “North Korea will do well not to test his resolve or strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region,” he added.

While the era of strategic patience may be over, the Trump administration is clearly taking some kind of strategic steps. Last week, the president announced that he had ordered an “armada” of military ships, including the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson and several nuclear submarines, to sail toward North Korea. NBC News reported that the National Security Council had presented Trump with a list of potential responses to North Korea, including moving missiles to South Korea or outright assassinating Kim. And while the White House quietly dismissed a subsequent report that Trump was prepared to launch a pre-emptive conventional strike if Kim reached for the nuclear trigger last weekend, as he had been expected to do, the president warned that the North Korean problem “will be taken care of” one way or another. On Monday, Pence also said that the U.S. would be open to securing the region “through peaceable means, through negotiations,” suggesting that Trump may be coming around to Beijing’s way of thinking.

The ambiguity of Trump’s warnings, combined with the credible threat that he might be crazy enough to see them through, has yielded some results. China appears to be working more closely with the U.S. then before to increase pressure on Kim—cooperation that Trump suggested on Twitter that he had bought by backing away from labeling China a “currency manipulator.” And Kim seemed to have called off his expected nuclear test—for now.

“Certainly it makes people nervous when they’re not quite sure what he means by it,” former ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill said during an appearance on ABS’s This Week on Sunday. At the same time, he suggested, Trump’s more hawkish approach raises the risks of a sudden escalation with deadly results. “And, you know, great powers can’t really bluff. So when you talk in those terms, you’ve got to be prepared to back it up. And I guess that’s what worries people the most.”