  We use the idea of ground states and excited states in nonlinear dispersive
equations (e.g. Klein-Gordon and Schr\"odinger equations) to characterize
solutions in the N-body problem with strong force under some energy
constraints. Indeed, relative equilibria of the N-body problem play a similar
role as solitons in PDE. We introduce the ground state and excited energy for
the N-body problem. {We are able to give a conditional dichotomy of the global
existence and singularity below the excited energy in Theorem
\ref{thm:dichotomy}, the proof of which seems original and simple. This
dichotomy is given by the sign of a threshold function $K_\omega$}. The
characterization for the two-body problem in this new perspective is
non-conditional and it resembles the results in PDE nicely. For $N\geq3$, we
will give some refinements of the characterization, in particular, we examine
the situation where there are infinitely transitions for the sign of
$K_\omega$.
