The South Korean government's warning on Sunday that the North might launch a missile later this week has many wondering if an imminent military confrontation is likely.

The warning comes three days after South Korea's defence minister said that Pyongyang had moved a mid-range missile to its east coast. The missile, widely believed to the Musudan, can travel more than 3,000 kilometres, putting American bases on the U.S. island of Guam within its reach.

But despite the escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, Canadian experts say the latest round of provocations from the isolated regime will likely not result in an all-out war.

"I think it’s far more likely that (North Korea’s) action will be of a non-military nature," Gordon Houlden, the director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, told CTV’s Question Period Sunday, pointing to the fact that April is the month where thousands of North Koreans celebrate the regime’s founding father, Kim Il Sung.

Houlden said if North Korea launches a ballistic missile test into the Pacific Ocean that will likely lead to a "strong" verbal response from the South, the United States and perhaps China.

Houlden said, however, that if the threat ends being more than just rhetoric and leads to a border skirmish similar to the 2010 incident in the disputed Yellow Sea, where 46 South Korean sailors died after a navy warship was torpedoed by a North Korean submarine, South Korea will not hold back.

"South Korea has been pretty clear. It will not sit on their hands as they did a (few) years ago when their ship was sunk. They will take retaliatory actions," Houlden said, speaking from Edmonton.

Seoul is on "military readiness," a South Korean government spokesperson said in a weekend briefing.

"If limited war is to break out, North Korea should bear in mind that it will receive damages many times over."

The rising tide of anger on the Korean peninsula led the Pentagon on Saturday to delay an intercontinental ballistic missile test it had been planning for next week at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The test, which has been rescheduled sometime next month, is not connected to the ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises but many fear it could exacerbate the Korean crisis.

The fact that little is known about Kim Jong-un’s leadership style has many experts wondering if a political miscalculation could trigger an all-out war.

"In my opinion, (the cancelling of the missile test) is very much a signal to the North that it does not want or welcome a further escalation," Houlden said.

The angry rhetoric of Jong-un also led Gen. James Thurman, a top U.S. general in South Korea, to cancel his trip to Washington for a previously scheduled congressional budget hearing.

"Given the current situation, General Thurman will remain in Seoul next week as prudent measure," a U.S. spokesperson said in a statement Sunday.

The South Korean military has been on high alert since Feb. 12 when the communist regime launched its third nuclear test.

With files from The Associated Press