U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper says North Korea will continue to play its “nuclear card.”

Speaking at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, Clapper said he believes the North’s nuclear card is its single leverage device that it can use to attract attention and seek recognition as a nuclear power.

Clapper added, however, that the U.S. believes that at this time, there is a low probability of a conventional attack by the North on South Korea.

Defense Intelligence Agency Director, Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, also told the hearing that the North is unlikely to stage a conventional attack against the South and that the possibility of the North engaging in nuclear attacks is even lower.

Burgess added that the North’s artillery attack on the South’s Yeonpyeong Island last November and sinking of the naval corvette “Cheonan” last March show Pyongyang's willingness to use military force to advance its external and internal goals. He then added that “miscalculation could lead to escalation."