Cheonan

I am not at all certain as to what the North Koreans thought they were going to gain by sinking the Cheonan. Relations with South Korea are now not much better than they were in the 1950s. Secretary of State Clinton is using the sinking as a wedge to try and pry China apart from North Korea and she may be gaining some ground, though progress in that is always hard to discern.

Watch what happens with the Kaesong industrial park, which is on the border of the two countries. It is in North Korea, it employs North Korean workers who work for South Korean companies, who run the factories there. If that shuts down, then things are getting truly bad. If it stays open, then both countries may be signaling that they will work through the sinking of the Cheonan and the deaths of those sailors killed when the Cheonan was torpedoes by a North Korean submarine.