Defense Minister Kim Tae-yung on Sunday threatened North Korea with retaliation if it is found to have been behind the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan on March 26. "Retaliation -- whatever form it takes -- must be done," Kim said on KBS TV. The possibility of a vicious cycle of retaliation "must clearly be considered," he said.It is not too off the mark to state that the North Koreans are batshit crazy. I also suspect that in any sort of military exchange, North Korea has less to lose. A conflict won't do any good to the South's economy, while the North is about as poor as they can get. The North Korean Army could fire off a bunch of shells from their emplaced artillery and wreak havoc in Seoul, which is within artillery range.
Or the North could just rip open the border fence and do a Mariel Boatlift type of influx into the South. It could get very interesting.
(H/T)
The DPRK has absolutely nothing to lose, and that makes them very dangerous.
ReplyDeleteBTW, there is not a single border fence -- there's a big no man's land between the NK and SK border fences -- and the land inbetween the two fences is heavily mined by both sides other than certain narrow routes well demarcated but easily blocked by either side. A Mariel Boatlift scenario isn't likely short of a complete collapse of the NK regime, at which point it's likely to really *be* a boatlift scenario...
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Border Penguin