Discussion for article #239651
North Korea is a paper tiger.
The story fails to note how this started: the North Koreans snuck onto the South’s side of the DMZ and planted land mines on a patrol path costing one South Korean soldier both his legs and another one of his legs. The resumption of the “propaganda” broadcasts by the loudspeakers was how the South retaliated.
The North Koreans’ sensitivity to the problem is probably exacerbated by the fact that they’ve wired the entire country with a massive public address system that they use to distribute the daily doses of propaganda, so they’ve kind of trained the whole nation to pay close attention to anything that comes over a PA system.
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When families rule for decades or even centuries, you are guaranteed to get some seriously whack leaders.
Hey, keep Prince Charles out of this. 
Quick timeline on the Korea thing:
(1) North Korea’s complaining (as usual) about the annual South Korea-USA military training exercises and has stated that it will take military action as retribution for them.
(2) Last week, two South Korean soldiers were patrolling a known safe path in the DMZ when they stepped on a land mine that shouldn’t have been there. One lost both legs, the other lost one leg. This has been taken as a deliberate act by the North, related to (1).
(3) South Korea started broadcasting propaganda across the DMZ after more than a decade of not, as retribution.
(4) North Korea has declared a state of quasi-war on South Korea as a result.
It’s very improbable that the current state of events will lead to war given recent indicators of an ever more precariously-situated North Korea, but it is significantly more likely than it would have seemed a week ago.
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If billionaire Kim Jong-un has time on his hands he should try to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination…
China always is assessing the cost / benefit of linkage with North Korea. - NK is kind of the idiot-cousin with some usefulness but lots of nuisance liabilities … At some point China may find a no-loss-of-face way to be ‘otherwise engaged’ when NK gets themselves into a serious brawl - although, as long as NK is a real pain in the ass to the US, NK serves a purpose for China.
I don’t know nearly as much as I should about the N/S Korea situation and history, but how many people could loud speakers broadcasting from the south side of the DMZ really reach?
This is both frightening and preposterous.
“Failure, Pyongyang says, will result in further military action.”
Far beyond what we did before, which we deny doing.
Directly, not that many; there aren’t any North Korean inhabited towns in the area (just a potemkin village). Their military certainly hears it and can disseminate information gained from it, but even that likely pales in effect in comparison to pirated South Korean dramas and music which have made their way up north. More than anything at this point, it’s a symbolic move of displeasure.
It’s in South Korea’s interest for North Koreans to rebel, it is not in South Korea’s short or medium-term interest for the North to completely collapse rather than reform or revolt, so their military options for retaliation are limited.
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Time for North Korea to release the dogs of war.
“South Korean President is such a bastard and defective he doesn’t deserve to be out target”
North Korea has a huge portion of its insanely huge (for a nation with it’s population that hovers on the brink of mass starvation) army posted near the DMZ, within audible range of these speakers and presumably rotates most of its units through the forward positions over the course of a year. Given that the army and bribes to high party officials of foreign consumer goods purchased with counterfeit American currency are the only props holding the whole dry-rotted structure up, I have no doubt they do find the whole concept concerning.
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I saw a report on the tensions from China’s news agency. It was very forthright in noting how the mess began and what’s going on. Indeed, it seems like China’s official press is generally reporting stories about Korea in a way that leave the government free to walk away without losing face and without anyone in China being annoyed or surprised.
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He is going to look really funny with burnt off hair and fried to a crispy fullness that floats in grease.