The Pentagon’s successful testing of an intercontinental missile defense system the day after North Korea staged a successful missile test signals the U.S. is inclined to match dictator Kim Jong Un’s provocative gestures, according to experts who also caution such shows of force will do little to ease tensions.

The $244 million U.S. test over the Pacific Ocean yesterday comes after North Korea launched its ninth missile of the year Monday, a short-range weapon that landed in the Sea of Japan. Kim has vowed to threaten the U.S. with a nuclear-armed missile, and has made disturbing technological gains in recent months.

An interceptor rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California destroyed a mock warhead similar to the intercontinental-range missile North Korea is developing.

The mock warhead, which was obliterated as it traveled outside the Earth’s atmosphere, was launched from a test range on the Marshall Islands.

“That might be a little bit of signaling on our behalf … Look, you can’t win, whatever you do we can do better, all of that,” said Jim Walsh of the MIT Security Studies Program, who said the test can reassure allies and the public, but won’t stop Kim’s pursuit of leverage.

“Let’s not fall for this,” Walsh said. “There’s no technical fix here, there’s no magic wand, some shiny technology that’s going to make all our problems go away.”

Walsh posited that Kim — whose motives are notoriously elusive — is either as dedicated as he seems to developing his country’s military might, or is dangling the arsenal development as something he’d freeze in exchange for economic development funds.

“The other possibility here, and you see it in signaling for a little over a year from the North Koreans, is that they’re ready to bargain,” Walsh said.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted the test in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing, the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, and U.S. Northern Command.

The agency called the operation “the first live-fire test event against an (intercontinental ballistic missile)-class target” of what’s called the “Ground-based Midcourse Defense” element of the nation’s ballistic missile defense system.

“The intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target is an incredible accomplishment for the GMD system and a critical milestone for this program,” U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Jim Syring said in a press release.

Syring called the system “vitally important to the defense of our homeland” and said the test “demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.”

How the test will be received by Kim, who up to this point has eschewed all White House calls to de-escalate, very much remains to be seen, said Bradley Schreiber, president of Homeland Security Solutions and a former senior adviser for the Department of Homeland Security.

“Kim Jong Un clearly has an end game in his own mind,” Schreiber said. “What the end game is still remains to be understood by the West, for the most part.”