South Korea's military warned on Monday it would immediately retaliate against North Korea's "core command forces" for any attack, after a series of threats from the communist state.
Seoul's armed forces held an unscheduled readiness drill Monday due to a "series of peculiar activities", a defence ministry spokesman said.
They were "peculiar" activities, no doubt. South Korea's exercise included missile units, artillery, and air force units. They could all work together.
Note, too, that this isn't just a vow to respond in kind and hit whatever units are responsible for attacking South Korea. No, this time the South Koreans pledge to hit core command forces of the North Koreans. Another source quoted the South Koreans as saying they would retaliate against "sources of provocations and supporting forces as well as core command forces." The first two categories are clear. I'm trying to figure out what the last means. Does that mean command and control assets? Does it mean the most loyal units of the government away from the incident? I'm just not familiar with the term. Is this a translation issue? I can't find any use of the term except in versions of this article.
This is a risky period. South Korea is tired of North Korea taking shots at South Korea. But does North Korea understand that the rules of the game are changing?
We could be a few escalations away from a serious war in Asia.
