[mosypeSom]

Timing is everything. What is to stop North Korea from provoking an all out war with the south? Who would stop them if they did?

[gWhya5ct]

1: The fact that they would be completely annihilated.
2: South Korea and the USA.

[SHaEFU0i]

I wouldn't want to be living in Seoul right now. The north could reduce it to rubble in short order.

[Sleflanna]

That's teh key. How much damage could tehy do before a world-scale retalliation.

The US is not the only friend of SK. I have a feeling there would be a lot more support for defending an attacked ally than invading a suspected enemy.

[vipbunter]

@ Alonzo: It is not as simple as that. North Korea is strongly allied to China with whom the US is both economicaly dependant upon, and militarily fearful of. It is these very types of confrontations (regional dispures couple with entagled military alliances) that lead to world wars.

Niether the US nor the UN will engage the North Koreans militarily. More likely you will see economic sanctions applied, and even at that, only after some sort of covert or overt diplomatic arrangement with China is arrived at. The stakes are just too high for anything more than that.

[Pszinygv]

It's about time we brought North Korea and its despotic ruler to heel - bomb them now I say, a bit of "shock & awe" would do the trick, they've been sabre-rattling for far too long.

[dgdhgjjgj]

North Korea Severs All Ties With South Korea


SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea declared Tuesday that it would sever all communication and relations with Seoul as punishment for blaming the North for the sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.

North Korea also announced it would expel all South Korean government officials working at a joint industrial park in the northern border town of Kaesong, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch monitored in Seoul late Tuesday.
Tensions were rising on the divided Korean peninsula in the wake of an investigation report blaming North Korea for a torpedo attack that sank the Cheonan warship on March 26, killing 46 South Korean sailors.

South Korea's military restarted psychological warfare operations – including blaring radio broadcasts into the North and placing loudspeakers at the border to blast out propaganda – to punish the North for the provocation. The South is also slashing trade and denying permission to North Korean cargo ships to pass through South Korean waters.

North Korea struck back by declaring it would cut all ties with the South until President Lee Myung-bak leaves office in early 2013. South Korean ships and airliners will be banned from passing through its territory and the North will start "all-out counterattacks" against the South's psychological warfare, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification said in a statement carried by KCNA.

The North's committee called the moves "the first phase" of punitive measures against South Korea, suggesting more action could follow.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said it had no immediate comment on the North Korean statement. However, spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo noted the statement referred only to eight South Korean officials staying at the Kaesong complex, not some 800 South Korean company managers and workers.
Yonhap news agency said that suggested the North had no intention of completely shutting down the Kaesong park, as South Korea also decided to keep the complex intact.

Earlier, one Seoul-based monitoring agency reported that North Korea's leader ordered its 1.2 million-member military to get ready for combat. South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report.
Story continues below






The North flatly denies involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan, one of the South's worst military disasters since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, and has warned that retaliation would mean war. It has threatened to destroy any propaganda facilities installed at the heavily militarized border.
A team of international investigators, however, concluded last week that a torpedo from a North Korean submarine tore apart the Cheonan.
North Korea is already subject to various U.N.-backed sanctions following earlier nuclear and missile tests, and the steps announced by Seoul were seen as among the strongest it could take short of military action.

The U.S. has thrown its full support behind South Korea's moves and they are planning two major military exercises off the Korean peninsula in a display of force intended to deter future aggression by North Korea, the White House said. The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea.
South Korea also wants to bring North Korea before the U.N. Security Council over the sinking. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he expects the council to take action against North Korea, but China – North Korea's main ally and a veto-wielding council member – has so far done little but urge calm on all sides.
In Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she had "very productive and very detailed" discussions with Chinese officials but could not say if any progress had been made in convincing the Chinese to back U.N. action.

"No one is more concerned about peace and stability in this region as the Chinese," she told reporters. "We know this is a shared responsibility, and in the days ahead we will work with the international community and our Chinese colleagues to fashion an effective, appropriate response."
Chinese State Counselor Dai Bingguo, speaking at a news conference with Clinton, called for "relevant parties" to "calmly and properly handle the issue and avoid escalation of tension."

As part of its propaganda offensive, South Korea's military resumed radio broadcasts airing Western music, news and comparisons between the South and North Korean political and economic situation late Monday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military also planned to launch propaganda leaflets by balloon and other methods on Tuesday night to inform North Koreans about the ship sinking.
In coming weeks, South Korea also will install dozens of loudspeakers and towering electronic billboards along the heavily armed land border to send messages urging communist soldiers to defect to the South.

On Tuesday, North Korean state media cited the powerful National Defense Commission as saying the North's soldiers and reservists were bracing to launch a "sacred war" against South Korea.
The North's military also claimed Tuesday that dozens of South Korean navy ships violated the countries' disputed western sea border earlier this month and threatened to take "practical" military measures in response.
North Korea often issues fiery rhetoric and regularly vows to wage war against South Korea and the U.S. It put its army on high alert following a November sea battle with South Korea near where the Cheonan went down in March. The Koreas also fought bloody maritime skirmishes in the disputed area in 1999 and 2002.
Seoul-based North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last week ordered his military to get ready for combat.
The group, citing unidentified sources in North Korea, said the order was read by Gen. O Kuk Ryol, a Kim confidant, and broadcast on speakers installed in each house and at major public sites throughout the country last Thursday, hours after the multinational report blaming North Korea for the sinking was issued in Seoul.
The South Korean military said it had no indication of unusual activity by North Korea's military.
___
Associated Press writers Sangwon Yoon in Seoul and Matthew Lee in Beijing, and AP photographer Jin-man Lee in Seoul contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS in graf 2 that North Korean statement referred to South Korean officials, not all South Koreans, at joint industrial park)
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[exchpaypaleg]

Kid stuff.

[Abebpabeniemo]

There's only one answer, nuke 'em.

[Fiipolera]

Take your meds.

[Chito]

Smart choice: The fallout would hit both South Korea and Japan. F** them, too, eh?

[exsmoker]

Smart choice: The fallout would hit both South Korea and Japan. F** them, too, eh?

Not with the US's precision missiles loaded with enough nuclear material to do the job. Anyway isn't it better to get them before they get us? They have no fear in sinking a South Korean ship so why shouldn't we think that this paranoid state controlled by a clique of madmen wouldn't attack its neighbours? It's only a question of time ......

[xtc2d6u8]

You mean you were serious? Forget the meds; won't do any good.

Don't mind killing North Korean civilians though, do you? I didn't know we had the technology to contain fallout.

[Anykeylo]

The lack of understanding is AMAZING.

[TEFSADDERFISA]

Don't worry guys, I'm sure next, he says we can send this.

[elects]

Bink, you were being reactionary, just admit it and move on.

There is no such thing as a precision shotgun, at least, not with buckshot. You can hit a target within a dozen feet from thousands of miles away, but that Nuke will kill tens to hundreds of thousands immediately, throw up nuclear debris that will blow SOMEWHERE, and leave a nch of really happy people ready to come to an agreement with everyone

You are flame baiting and you know it.

[mxzjxluwst]

I'm serious Ninja, North Korea has got to be dealt with rather than pussy-footing around pretending there's no problem. They've threatened South Korea, Japan, and God knows who else and one day these loonies will unleash their nuclear weaponry upon unsuspecting countries killing millions, so we wait til then? The answer is yes if you're some wishy-washy liberal who, to quote Norman Bates, "wouldn't hurt a fly". I say let's confront reality and deal with the problem before it deals with us. I know it's difficult for some liberals to accept this fact but sometimes you just have to make some harsh decisions that will result in the deaths of the few to protect the lives of the many and remove an implacable ruthless foe.

[AcecePesFeacy]

"Deaths of a few" ???

If you are going to "confront reality" then that includes the acknowledgement that the use of nuclear weapons involves calculating the risk due to the fallout cloud of radiation. Those calculations, from what is posted above, seem to be inadequate or faulty or both. A nuke strike on NK would result in a cloud of killing radiation that would move east, over both South Korea and Japan. Tens of thousands of citizens in those two countries, if not more, would likely be poisoned or die. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands in the NK who would be vaporized. And once the NK guys see our weapons flying through the air aimed at them, then what reason would they have not to lob any and all of their weapons towards China, SK, Japan, Russia? Any person, liberal or conservative or whatever, should be able to understand that.

Maybe: Playing too many video games?

[Andrew1978]

This is the first time in a while that I've been somewhat concerned about Korea.

I've been of the opinion that the Iran stuff was sabre-rattling on both sides. The Iranian government is rational, and their country is somewhat open. North Korea, on the other hand, seems to be the opposite of rational and is completely closed off.

Hopefully it'll cool down.

[alexbookhyip]

at binky, I am not even sure this is worth commenting on (so of course I will) The potential harm from radioactive fall-out is only the begining of the problem. What happens if China decides they are not able to sit idly by and watch North Korea be blown to oblivion. They have lots of interesing options including flooding the market with our debt, driving up our deficit finance costs and sending us into an ecomomic tailspin (although given the state of the euro, the chinese may decide they lack alternative monetary control options) Worst case, they execute a counter strike against the south and drag us into a third world war.

Entangled military alliances coupled with significant military capability constituted the indirect cause of WW1. It is not unreasonable to think the same scenerio will lead to WW3.