Korea 2013... War Game or political game changer?

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Three issues would still I think be sticking points for the US.
1 WMD the US would want to inspect occupied nuclear sites. China I think would best quell that with allowing such via the IAEA as well as possibly allowing joint inspections
2 humanitarian aid. The North Korea camps are would to be a massive drain on food drug and medical resources. The US as the Chinese themselves can testify is very dedicated to supplying aid. And having two powers doing so would be advantageus to all involved.
3 POWs MIAs the Korean war still has a number of missing US servicemen. The US is likely to try and find them or their fate.

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t_co said:

I think point 3 is basically a freebie on both sides. Point 2 is something the US would extend to get point 1. I'd rather NK not have to go through another round of aid, though. NK's economy needs to pick up and function on its own... it's time for the training wheels to go

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t_co said:

A lot of this also hinges on the circumstances surrounding the start of such a conflict. If the grandson of Kim Il Sung starts it, then I think China would probably pursue any option necessary to limit the possibility of US forces on its borders, up to and including regime change in NK. If the daughter of Park Chung Hee starts it, then China would probably honor the self-defense treaty and render aid (air support and naval support, but likely no ground troops unless things were truly desperate for NK).

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As N. Korea Blocks Workers, U.S. Plans More Pacific Defense
By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea blocked South Koreans from crossing the heavily armed border to a jointly operated industrial park on Wednesday, raising the possibility that the North might be adding to its recent cascade of threats and provocative actions by cutting the last remaining major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

Angry over joint American-South Korean military drills and a recent round of United Nations sanctions, the North has in recent weeks threatened to strike at the United States, the South’s ally, in Guam, Hawaii and the mainland United States. While analysts doubt the potency of the North’s arsenal, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel responded Wednesday that the North’s recent inflammatory language and actions presented “a real and clear danger” to the interests of South Korea, Japan and the United States, and the Pentagon announced that it would significantly increase its missile-defense systems deployed to the Pacific.

A land-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, would be sent to Guam in the coming weeks "as a precautionary move to strengthen our regional defense posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat," the Pentagon said. The system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles, an integrated fire control system and advanced tracking radar.

Earlier this week, the Defense Department announced that two of the Navy’s Aegis-class missile-defense warships also would be positioned in Pacific waters to watch North Korea. Those vessels have radar and interceptor missiles, as well. Adding a land-based system to Guam would free the ships to provide coverage to other areas.

The jointly operated industrial complex, in the North Korean town of Kaesong, had continued to operate for days since the North threatened to shut it down. But on Wednesday, more than 480 South Koreans who showed up at a border crossing were denied permission to cross, said the Unification Ministry of South Korea, which is in charge of relations with the North. North Korea promised to allow 861 South Koreans currently staying in Kaesong to return home if they wished, the ministry said. But with no replacements arriving, only 33 immediately decided to return home.

The eight-year-old industrial park, on the western edge of the border of the two Koreas, produced $470 million worth of goods last year, helping provide a badly needed source of hard currency for the cash-strapped North. It generates more than $92 million a year in wages for 53,400 North Koreans employed by 123 textile and other labor-intensive South Korean factories there.

It was not the first time that North Korea had disrupted the park’s operation. It blocked cross-border traffic three times in 2009, once for three days, out of anger over joint military drills by South Korean and American troops. That blockade was lifted when the military exercises ended. The current American-South Korean military drills are to continue until the end of April.

China’s deputy foreign minister, Zhang Yesui, met with the ambassadors of the two Koreas and the United States on Tuesday to express serious concern over the situation on the Korean Peninsula, Hong Lei, a spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said Wednesday.

“The improvement of relationships between the two Koreas, as well as their reconciliation and cooperation, are conducive to the peace and stability on the peninsula,” he said. “We hope the two Koreas can resolve the relevant issues through dialogue and consultation.”

Meanwhile, the United States and South Korea are entering the final stretch of long negotiations over another highly sensitive nuclear issue: South Korea’s own request for American permission to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

The request comes at a delicate time. South Korea insists that it needs to produce fuel for its fast-expanding nuclear energy industry and reduce its almost-full nuclear waste storage. But the same technologies can also used to make material for nuclear weapons.

In 1972, when Washington transferred nuclear material, equipment and technical expertise to help build South Korea’s nuclear energy industry, it had Seoul commit itself not to enrich or reprocess. That deal expires in March 2014, and both sides are racing to work out a revised and updated version; it has to be submitted to Congress before the summer for approval.

South Korea has lingering American misgivings to dispel. The current president’s father, the late military strongman Park Chung-hee, feared being abandoned by the United States when then-President Jimmy Carter talked about withdrawing American troops from South Korea in the 1970s, and tried to build nuclear weapons. Washington got wind of the effort and blocked it. The South’s scientists dabbled in reprocessing in 1982 and enrichment in 2000 and failed to declare their activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

For Washington and Congress, allowing South Korea to develop either the enrichment or reprocessing technologies would mark a rare exception, one that nonproliferation advocates said would set a bad precedent, undermine Washington’s global efforts to curb the spread of such activities and further undermine American efforts to persuade North Korea and Iran to give up its nuclear programs.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his South Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, discussed the long-running South Korean desire in Washington on Tuesday and said they will take it up again when Mr. Kerry visits Seoul next week. Both sides hope for a compromise before President Obama and President Park Geun-hye of South Korea are scheduled to meet in Washington in May. Ms. Park made winning Americans concessions on the issue one of her top campaign pledges for her December election.

“I am very hopeful, and I think the foreign minister shares this hope, that this can be resolved before the visit of President Park,” Mr. Kerry said in a joint news conference with Mr. Yun on Tuesday. The South Korean minister called for a “mutually beneficial, timely, and forward-looking” solution.

In South Korea, where people remember their recent history of war and foreign occupation and feel squeezed by bigger countries they consider bullies, popular support has often surged for arming the country with nuclear weapons — especially when people became doubtful of the American commitment to defend their country or when the North’s threats intensify, as they have in recent weeks.

“When the thug in the neighborhood has gotten himself a brand-new machine-gun, we can’t defend our home with a stone,” Chung Mon-joon, a ruling party leader and vocal champion for “a nuclear sovereignty” for South Korea, recently said, referring to the North Korean nuclear threat. “At a time of crisis, we are not 100 percent sure whether the Americans will cover us with its nuclear umbrella.”

But such a call, even if it reflected popular sentiments, has never become a national debate, tamped down by unequivocal rebuttals from government policy-makers. And the United States flew nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 bombers in recent training sorties over the Korean Peninsula, demonstrating its commitment to a nuclear umbrella for the South Korean ally.

Mark Landler and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington, and Patrick Zuo from Beijing.

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3 April 2013 Last updated at 17:49 ET
North Korea threats: US to move missiles to Guam
The US has announced it is moving an advanced missile system to the Pacific island of Guam as North Korea steps up its warlike rhetoric.
The latest statement from Pyongyang "formally informs" the Pentagon it has "ratified" a possible nuclear strike.
North Korea has threatened to target the US and South Korea in recent weeks.
Its latest statement came amid warnings from US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel that North Korea is a "real and clear danger" to the US and its allies.
The US Department of Defense said on Wednesday it would deploy the ballistic Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (Thaad) in the coming weeks.
The Thaad system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles, and AN/TPY-2 tracking radar, together with an integrated fire control system.
The Pentagon said the missile system would be moved to Guam, a US territory with a significant US military presence, as a "precautionary move to strengthen our regional defence posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat".
"The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and stands ready to defend US territory, our allies, and our national interests," the Pentagon added.
The US had already planned to send a Thaad system to Guam, but not under these circumstances, analysts say.
Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Group, told the BBC that the Pentagon's decision to speed up the transfer underlines how seriously Washington is taking Pyongyang's threats, but it should be viewed as a purely defensive move, not an escalation.
He said the Thaad system would only protect Guam and the surrounding area, and would not cover South Korea or Japan.
Also on Wednesday, a statement carried by the official North Korean news agency said: "We formally inform the White House and Pentagon that the ever-escalating US hostile policy towards the DPRK [North Korea] and its reckless nuclear threat will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means of the DPRK and that the merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified."
In recent weeks, North Korea has mentioned military bases in the US territory of Guam and the US state of Hawaii as possible targets.
"As they have ratcheted up her bellicose, dangerous rhetoric, and some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger," said Mr Hagel, in his first major speech on Wednesday since taking up his post.
He added that Pyongyang had also threatened the interests of South Korea and Japan.
The North has apparently been angered by UN sanctions imposed after a recent nuclear test. Pyongyang has escalated its rhetoric amid the current round of US-South Korea military drills.
The US has recently made a series of high-profile flights of stealth fighters and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over South Korea.
Officials have also confirmed that the USS John McCain, a destroyer capable of intercepting missiles, has been positioned off the Korean peninsula.
A second destroyer, the USS Decatur, has been sent to the region.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry called recent North Korean actions "dangerous" and "reckless".
China, the North's only powerful ally, said it had despatched officials on Tuesday to hold talks with ambassadors from North Korea, South Korea and the US.
The Pentagon's announcement comes hours after North Korea closed a border crossing that allowed South Koreans to work at a jointly run industrial park - the first time such action has been taken since 2009.
The border into the Kaesong industrial zone is the last functioning crossing between the two Koreas, and the complex is the last significant symbol of co-operation.
Kaesong is a key revenue source for North Korea. It has not indicated how long the entry ban will last.

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SampanViking said:

I think t_co you express a misconception that sits at the heart of the problem here. Finger Pointing and the blame game is a peace time activity only. Once the shooting starts, all such considerations, regarding the route and road to the war become irrelevant and the only thing that matters is the outcome.

The only outcome for either side is to settle the matter in a way that is permanent and beyond question. In the case of Korea this is the unification of the Peninsular and removal of any influence of the other side from it. Nothing else will satisfy and any other outcome retains either the source of instability that started the war or involves the winning side handing a strong strategic position to its competitors. Well obviously it will be a cold day in hell before that happens.

This matter is far more than simply the survival of an eccentric regime in a small impoverished country, it is about whose century the 21st will be and more specifically it is about who will be the premier powers in East Asia and who will be the secondary or even peripheral. Its very high stakes stuff.

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Where are we today? Impossible to say. Probably this question is still unresolved in the minds of policy shapers and makers and this itself is dangerous. What is true, is that you only need to follow the disparate threads of all the key regional players and their inter-relations and it is pretty clear that the situation is substantially changed from that of only a few years ago. Some powers are seen as rising while others are perceived as declining. Do the rising powers, feel confident enough to be able to redraw the Geopolitical map of the region and possibly the world? Do the established powers feel threatened by the rise of the rest and determine that they are better off taking preventative action now rather than simply wait for the inevitable, when their ability to resist; let alone shape, is significantly eroded?

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Personally I find myself this time, for the first time for a very long time, unable to automatically write off noise from Pyongyang as simply more of the same business as usual. Business is getting very strange, very unpredictable and this can make decision makers very nervous.

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Amid Pyongyang bluster, missile launch feared
By Jethro Mullen. Barbara Starr and Joe Sterling , CNN
updated 2:44 PM EDT, Thu April 4, 2013
CNN.com
As tensions mount on the Korean Peninsula, Wolf Blitzer explains what's behind the threats and what's at stake in a special edition of "The Situation Room," Thursday at 6 p.m. ET on CNN.
Are you from South or North Korea? Concerned about the latest crisis? Send us your thoughts.

(CNN) -- Missile and launch components have been moved to the east coast of North Korea in the "last few days," a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the information told CNN Thursday.

The apparent deployment comes amid further threatening statements by North Korea and heightened tensions in the region -- a situation that "does not need to get hotter," a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said.

The move of the missile and launch equipment could mean that Pyongyang, which unleashed another round of scathing rhetoric accusing the United States of pushing the region to the "brink of war," may be planning a missile launch soon.

The components, the official said, are consistent with those of a Musudan missile, which has a 2,500-mile range, meaning it could threaten South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia.

The United States has been looking for a hidden North Korean east coast launch site or mobile launchers, a concern because a launch from the east coast would go over Japan, the official said.

U.S. reducing rhetoric that feeds North Korean rhetoric

It is believed a missile launch would be a "test" launch rather than a targeted strike. That is because it appears the North Koreans have only moved the components so far. The United States is waiting to see whether North Korea issues a notice to its airmen and mariners to stay out of the region.

Communication intercepts in recent days also seem to show that Pyongyang might be planning to launch a mobile ballistic missile in the coming days or weeks, another U.S. official said.

Earlier, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told a parliamentary committee in Seoul that the North has moved a medium-range missile to its east coast for an imminent test firing or military drill.

The missile doesn't appear to be aimed at the U.S. mainland, Kim said, according to the semi-official South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Key dates in U.S. military moves near North Korea


S. Koreans barred from N. Korean complex

N. Korea threatens 'merciless' strikes

North Korea's nuclear threats

Crisis hurts place 2 Koreas work together
Wednesday, the United States announced it was sending ballistic missile defenses to Guam, a Western Pacific territory that is home to U.S. naval and air bases. North Korea has cited those bases when listing possible targets for missile attacks.

The latest developments come amid the disclosure of what one U.S. official calls an Obama administration "playbook" of pre-scripted actions and responses to the last several weeks of North Korean rhetoric and provocations.

North Korea: Our global fear and fascination

Pentagon seeks to 'turn the volume down'

Pentagon officials, while decrying North Korean saber-rattling, said recent announcements of U.S. military deployments in response to belligerent statements by North Korea may have contributed to the escalating tensions between the countries.

As the bombast reaches a fever pitch, the United States is refining its message toward North Korea. The Pentagon now says it is working to decrease the temperature as it maintains a frank and vigilant stance toward Pyongyang's threats.

"We are trying to turn the volume down," a Defense Department official said.

"We accused the North Koreans of amping things up, now we are worried we did the same thing," one Defense Department official said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied that there had been a change in tone, and defended the U.S. responses.

North Korean social media apparently hacked

"The moves that we have been making are designed to ensure and to reassure the American people and our allies that we can defend the United States, that we will and that we can defend our allies," she said.

It was the ratcheting of tensions from North Korea that led to the U.S. shoring up its defense posture, she said.

"But we have also been saying all the way through that this does not need to get hotter, that we can change course here" if North Korea cooperates with the international community.

At the same time, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said, the United States urged North Korea's leaders "to heed President Obama's call to choose the path of peace and come into compliance with its international obligations."

"Threats and provocative actions will not bring North Korea the security, international respect, and economic development it seeks," she said.

North Korea slams U.S.

The latest tough talk from Pyongyang lashed out at the U.S. military presence in the region.

A spokesman for a North Korean group accused the United States of "hurling" its "nuclear war hardware into the region and pushing the situation on the brink of war," Pyongyang's official news agency reported.

North Korean rhetoric against U.S. heats up

"The U.S. imperialists have pursued ceaseless war moves since their occupation of South Korea, creating a touch-and-go situation several times. But never have they worked so desperately to launch a nuclear war against the DPRK with all type latest nuclear hardware involved as now," a spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea said in a written statement. The DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The statement said the United States is "seriously mistaken if it thinks it can frighten the DPRK with such latest weapons." It said "the country will no longer remain a passive onlooker to the U.S. imperialists' frantic moves to ignite a nuclear war."

"Cutting-edge weapons are not a monopoly of the U.S. and gone are the days never to return when it could invade other countries with nukes as it pleased," the statement said. "The U.S. and the South Korean warmongers had better stop their rash actions, deeply aware of the gravity of the prevailing situation."

The movement of missiles

The possible movement of the North Korean missile is "of concern, certainly to the U.S. military and to Japan," said Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

He said he believes the missile in question is a Musudan, a weapon the North hasn't tested before that is based on a Soviet system.

U.S. sending defensive missiles to Guam

The North has medium-range ballistic missiles that can carry high explosives for hundreds of miles. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday that the recent North Korean threats to Guam, Hawaii and the U.S. mainland have to be taken seriously.

The medium-range missile will probably take about two weeks to prepare, Fitzpatrick said, which means a potential launch could coincide with the April 15 anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and grandfather of its current leader, Kim Jong Un.

North Korea warns 'moment of explosion' nears

The U.S. playbook

As a result of the war of words, the Obama administration established a "playbook" of pre-scripted actions and responses to the last several weeks of North Korean rhetoric and provocations, an administration official said Thursday.

The actions included an increased show of U.S. military force during the annual U.S.-South Korea military exercise, the Foal Eagle.

Some of the U.S. military's recent moves -- including the deployment of ballistic missile defenses closer to North Korea -- were not part of the planning.

Key dates in U.S. military moves near North Korea

The latest situation on the Korean Peninsula stems from the North's latest long-range rocket launch in December and underground nuclear test in February.


Should the world worry about N. Korea?

Live fire drills out of North Korea

South Korea returns rhetorical fire

Richardson: N. Korea attack 'is suicide'
Tougher U.N. sanctions in response to those moves, combined with joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises in the region, are given by Kim Jong Un's government as reasons to ratchet up its threats in recent weeks.

On Thursday, North Korea barred South Korean workers and managers for a second day from entering the Kaesong industrial complex, an economic cooperation zone that sits on the North's side of the border but houses operations of scores of South Korean companies.

It also repeated a threat from the weekend to completely shut down the complex, where more than 50,000 North Koreans currently work.

The current crisis at Kaesong began a day after North Korea said it planned to restart "without delay" a reactor at its main nuclear complex that it had shut down five years ago as part of a deal with the United States, China and four other nations.

Most observers say the North is still years away from having the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead on a missile.

It has conducted three nuclear bomb tests, in 2006, 2009 and most recently in February. It has said that its nuclear weapons are a deterrent and are no longer up for negotiation.

But U.S. officials have said they see no unusual military movements across the Demilitarized Zone that splits the Korean Peninsula.

Many analysts say the increasingly belligerent talk is aimed at cementing the domestic authority of Kim Jong Un.


CNN's Jethro Mullen reported and wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Joe Sterling reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Kyung Lah, Judy Kwon and K.J. Kwon in Seoul; Tim Schwarz in Hong Kong; Barbara Starr and Elise Labott and Tom Cohen in Washington

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North Korean social media apparently hacked
By CNN Staff
updated 11:51 AM EDT, Thu April 4, 2013(CNN) -- Some official North Korean Internet and social media sites appeared Thursday to have been hacked, possibly by the hacker collective Anonymous.
The hacking -- including an image skewering North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on an official Flickr account -- comes amid rising tensions between North Korea and several other countries including the United States.
The North Korean government website Uriminzokkiri.com was down Thursday morning, and the official @uriminzok Twitter account -- also apparently tampered with -- has messages claiming that Uriminzokkiri, the Flickr site and other North Korean sites have been hacked.
Among the pictures on the Flickr account Thursday: A "wanted" poster with an image showing Kim with a pig's ears and nose.
Crowley: N. Korea's crazy, not suicidal" North Korea to launch mobile missile? N. Korea threatens 'merciless' strikes
The poster accuses Kim of "threatening world peace with ICBMs and nuclear weapons."
Another image reads: "We are Anonymous."
On the Twitter account, the usual image atop the page was replaced with one that reads "tango down" -- military slang that has been appropriated by hackers to say they have interrupted service to a website.
The image also shows dancers wearing Guy Fawkes masks. The mask is a favorite symbol of the hacker collective.
If it is the work of Anonymous, it would be appear to be just the latest attack by the group against North Korean sites. Last week, Anonymous, upon leaking account information from Uriminzokkiri.com, announced it would continue to hack North Korean sites if the government didn't "stop making nukes and nuke-threats," according to CNET.
The group also demanded the resignation of Kim, democracy in North Korea, and uncensored Internet access for all North Koreans, CNET reported.
Known for its DDOS, or distributed denial of service, attacks that take websites offline, Anonymous has taken up a number of causes. It had a hand in organizing and agitating in the Occupy movement throughout 2011. It also is known for defending WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and Assange's assertion that all information should be freely available on the Internet.
The hacker collective is an amorphous group that takes pride in not having a single leader or spokesperson, which makes claims by the group difficult to verify.

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As N. Korean threats intensify, first signs of jitters in the South

By Chico Harlan, Thursday, April 4, 9:39 AM
Washington Post
SEOUL — This bustling South Korean capital has been defined for decades as a place of traffic jams and luxury shopping malls, long days of work and longer nights of sipping rice liquor. Residents rarely behaved as though their routines could be upended in minutes by the Kim regime to the north and its 10,000 artillery pieces.

But after years of largely ignoring threats from North Korea, some residents say they are becoming a bit jittery, with the ascension of an unpredictable young leader in Pyongyang and levels of fury not seen since the early 1990s.

Coffee shops are still packed, and pop music pulses from storefronts, but South Koreans’ concerns are palpable in quieter moments. Their phones buzz with news updates on the North’s latest moves — its declaration of war; its announced restart of key nuclear facilities; its barricade of a joint industrial complex near the border. Children ask their parents what would happen if fighting broke out and where they would go for safety.

On Thursday, the fear spread to South Korea’s stock market, which sustained its biggest daily fall of the year. The South’s defense minister, Kim Kwan-jin, said the North had moved an intermediate-range missile to its eastern coast, perhaps for testing or drills.

“There could be war, or there could be peace,” said Joo Yang-yi, 26, a graduate student who studies North Korea.

Rather than play down the possibility of an attack, South Korean officials in recent days have emphasized their ability to strike back promptly. They have also welcomed recent U.S. shows of force in the region, including a brief deployment to the peninsula of nuclear-capable stealth bombers.

In the event of an attack, South Korea will “respond immediately without political consideration,” said a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share government thinking. “At the initial stage, South Korea is self-sufficient in terms of our ability to strike back. But [thereafter], we will need cooperation from the U.S. and neighbors.”

South Koreans differ in their views of their increasingly belligerent northern neighbor. Some speak with confidence, saying the North’s near-daily threats are part of a coherent plan to force negotiations, not spark war. But others fear that the North’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, might push things too far, perhaps because he thinks he needs a major conflict to coalesce domestic support.

That divergence is reflected in public opinion polls. Over the past two months, the percentage of South Koreans who say the North is their top concern has more than tripled. Still, that represents just 26 percent of respondents; more South Koreans care about job creation than about Pyongyang.

Even the segment that is concerned about the North is far from panicking. During a crisis 20 years ago sparked by North Korea’s intent to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, some in South Korea rushed to stock up on canned goods and water. This time, grocery-store shelves remain full.

“We have no alternative to remaining calm, because what we can do to personally prepare for emergency? Virtually nothing,” said Park Hyeong-jung, a North Korea researcher at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification. “We live in a congested area of more than 10 million population. What a catastrophic chaos we will have if individuals begin to worry about tomorrow.”

Over the past several decades, Park said, South Koreans have been “gradually immunized” about the North’s threats. And for all the North’s recent anger, nothing it has done recently compares with the galling attacks of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, which included hacking to death two U.S. soldiers in the demilitarized zone; numerous assassination attempts on South Korean presidents; and the midair sabotage of a South Korean passenger plane.

After two fatal attacks by the North in 2010, South Koreans were at least as angry with their own government as they were with Pyongyang. When the North killed two soldiers and two civilians by shelling a front-line island, the South responded by lobbing 80 shells toward the North. Then-President Lee Myung-bak was criticized for not taking more serious action, leading to his pledge — reiterated by the current president, Park Geun-hye — to counter with greater force if provoked again.

One lingering concern, voiced by a minority of South Koreans, is whether the United States can act as a sufficient deterrent to the North at a time of defense budget cuts in Washington and major crises in the Middle East. The United States has tried to assuage those worries, and deter the North, by flying stealth bombers over the peninsula and speeding up the deployment of a missile defense system to Guam.

On Thursday, North Korea accused the United States of trying to bring down its “dignified social system.”

South Korean analysts say they are most concerned about how either side can step back from the possibility of a confrontation over the next few months. The Obama administration has so far shown little interest in talking with the North, and the North is seen as having little interest in toning down its rhetoric — unless it can win some kind of concession.

“If the U.S. doesn’t want to engage, that pushes North Korea even further” to provoke, said Kim Dong-sik, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul. “I don’t know how that scenario ends.”


Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.

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Pointblank said:

Who gains anything from that?

Answer: No one. A war in Korea makes no strategic sense - but that doesn't mean that one cannot or will not start by miscalculation or misjudgement by any parties, assuming we have rational parties on all sides.

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