This is not comforting:
Reclusive North Korea is to cut the last channel of communications with the South because war could break out at "any moment", it said on Wednesday, days after warning the United States and South Korea of nuclear attack. ...
The North has already stopped responding to calls on the hotline to the U.S. military that supervises the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the Red Cross line that has been used by the governments of both sides.
"Under the situation where a war may break out at any moment, there is no need to keep north-south military communications which were laid between the militaries of both sides," the North's KCNA news agency quoted a military spokesman as saying.
Mind you, I'm not worried that North Korea could win a war with South Korea. But the cost of beating that criminal enterprise and gulag with a UN seat will be high.
I just don't know if North Korea really understands that they'd lose a war if they start one.
Worse, even if the North Koreans understand that they won't win a war, I worry that the North Koreans believe they can get away with some more Dead South Koreans Theater without drawing a big violent response from South Korea. After all, that's how it has worked before.
And it is not likely that South Korea will let North Korea get away with further provocations. South Korea has already vowed to strike back hard.
And South Korea now knows that we have their backs for levels of violence far lower than an invasion:
A new South Korea-US pact providing for a joint military response even to low-level provocation by North Korea offers an added deterrent at a time of elevated tension, the South said Monday.
The two allies signed the military agreement on Friday in a move likely to fuel fresh outrage in Pyongyang, which has spent the past few weeks denouncing joint South Korea-US military exercises.
While existing agreements provide for US engagement in the event of a full-scale conflict, the new protocol addresses the response to low-level action such as a limited cross-border incursion.
It guarantees US support for any South Korean retaliation and allows Seoul to request any additional US military force it deems necessary.
Back in the mid-1990s, I really worried that we were on the verge of war with North Korea. Only much more recently did I read that we really were close to war with North Korea.
And I've worried before that North Korean threats might mean more. But when North Korean threats aren't being met with fearful offers of goodies for the North Korean regime and we are working on the details of responding to more North Korean violence, I worry that this is more than North Korea just turning the Psycho Dial to "11."
North Korea could start something that South Korea will challenge. If North Korea does provoke what becomes a war, we should take the opportunity to end the North Korean regime while they still lack weaponized nuclear capabilities. If not, get used to Pucker Factor Red for decades to come--as the best case scenario.
UPDATE: Hah! Here's a little levity--All your monuments are belong to us:
South Korea has come up with a clever way to cause the collapse of the North Korea government; use missiles to destroy statues of the two previous rulers of North Korea (Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il). There are 35,000 statues and monuments for these two in North Korea and these representations of the two deceased rulers are considered sacred. South Korea intelligence analysts have drawn up a secret list of the statues that would have the most impact on North Korean morale if destroyed.
I'm honestly not sure if this is a clever way to retaliate if North Korea wants another episode of Dead South Koreans Theater for their own enjoyment, or if it is over-clever and South Korea should just blow up military targets.
UPDATE: Our response lacked the humor value--and nuance, of course:
The United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers on practice runs over South Korea on Thursday, in a rare show of force following a series of North Korean threats that the Pentagon said have set Pyongyang on a dangerous path. ...
The bomber flights, and the unusual public announcement of them by the U.S. military, appeared designed to send a message of Washington's resolve to North Korea amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.
No PhotoShop required.
