By The threats from North Korea against the balloon activists continues:
North Korea warned yesterday that it will launch full-fledged attacks against people sending propaganda leaflets over the border, and it won’t give any advance warnings.
The threat to anti-North Korea campaigns by South Korean activists came amid rising hopes that the two Koreas will join China, Russia, the United States and Japan to revive the stalled six-party talks on the North’s nuclear weapons program.
“Under this situation, our army officially informs the south side that it will expand the scope of direct fire, already declared, into full-scale destruction fire at any area, any time,” said the North Korean military in a report from the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
In March, the North said through Korean Central Television that it was losing patience with groups sending propaganda leaflets via balloons across the border and would open fire on certain South Korean sites used to launch the balloons. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but these balloon activists must be having an increasing subversive effect within North Korea with their activities. They may want to keep their balloon launch times secret from now on as just a security measure against any North Korean action against them. The North Koreans have already sent their leftist thugs against them and I would not be surprised if they didn’t try to do something provocative in the near future in response to these balloon launches.
9:39 am on April 23rd, 2011 1
My interpretation of the same story directly from the KCNA makes me very concerned they really will attack, à la Yŏnpyŏng-do.
11:38 am on April 23rd, 2011 2
"They may want to keep their balloon launch times secret from now on"
I thought they launched balloons every time the wind blew the right way?
12:49 pm on April 23rd, 2011 3
They won't attack. They will use their lackeys in the leftist groups to attack the balloon launchers. Always a coward's way out for KJI.
12:50 pm on April 23rd, 2011 4
They may want to stop launching them from the same freakin' position!
12:51 pm on April 23rd, 2011 5
Steve Austin, you may be right, but now they've gotten a taste of how far they can go with actual military attacks, which are more effective for scaring people off.
9:05 pm on April 23rd, 2011 6
I don't think the Norks are bluffing in their April 22 story 'Notice to South Side on Intensified Smear Campaign' at KCNA, and I expect Lee Myung Bak to react to any attack. This could be dangerous. A lot depends on the Chinese leaders, who don't seem to be in a good mood.
10:02 pm on April 23rd, 2011 7
I agree with Glans.
I don't think they are bluffing. They are pissed and, unlike the last two targets of attack, this may be something that is actually causing some trouble for them.
On the other hand, the next North Korean attack, especially against civilians, will require a response… demanded by the South Korean people.
And we thought middle east unrest, looming national defaults, and the Fukushima meltdown were enough to get our global disruption freak on.
10:26 pm on April 23rd, 2011 8
ChickenHead, as I wrote in the above link, the Norks may try to get away with just a few shells, calculating (or miscalculating) that it is below the threshold for South Korea to launch a full-blown attack.
But after Yŏnpyŏng-do, things could go awry if they misunderestimate President Lee and his newfound resolve.
Good night!
12:22 am on April 24th, 2011 9
#6,
The Chinese government sure seems to be under a lot of pressure. They've been cracking down on pretty much anything that might be perceived as a form of escapism, from religion (life sucks, but that okay if you end up in heaven) and those time-traveling TV dramas (hero travels from modern times to the past and finds love) that I hear were so popular in China. The poop is going to hit the fan in China.
11:03 am on April 24th, 2011 10
#8,
They may try, but that would be a very risky game for them.
Notice that until now South Korea's response to North Korean aggression has been subdued? There is a clear strategic reason for this, which is not just that South Korea is not interested in an all-out war with the North. South Korea simply does not want to reveal the extent of its military strength and risk having some of its unexploded ordnance (and its weapon technology) fall into the hands of the North Korean military. That is why artillery was used as a response to the attack on the island by North Korean missiles (and they were missiles, not artillery shells) despite the South Korean policy to respond with equal force to any such attacks.
11:12 am on April 24th, 2011 11
Teadrinker wrote:
Exactly. And that makes it a risky game for everyone.
It's an era of new "unimaginables."
The Ch'ŏnan sinking was itself unimaginable. But after that, it would have been unimaginable that we wouldn't respond with greater force to another attack.
But then the unimaginable happened with the shelling of civilian targets on Yŏnpyŏng-do. Two unimaginables: our side hardly responded at all.
Now we're thinking it's "unimaginable" that they would lob a half dozen shells at civilians launching balloons meant to take down their regime. It's a disturbing pattern.
12:03 am on April 25th, 2011 12
#11,
The subdued response was a calculated risk. Again, would you take the risk of seeing South Korean military technology (which is far superior to North Korean technology) to fall into the hands of North Koreans who would rush to reverse engineer it? I'd save the good stuff for the big one too.
6:24 am on April 25th, 2011 13
Teadrinker, I don't buy that. There are plenty of conventional weapons the technology of which the North Koreans and/or the Chinese already know, which we could have thrown at them.
We don't build expensive weapons systems ostensibly to ward off a belligerent army, and then not use them when the belligerent army actually attacks because we don't want them to see what we have.
Lee and everyone else is worried about escalating the attacks to the tipping point, which is exactly what emboldens North Korea to keep pushing the envelope.