Busy busy busy. To tell the truth, it hasn't slowed down very much since Thanksgiving. Or more accurately, the day before Thanksgiving, when North Korea lobbed artillery at a South Korean island (Yeonpyong Do), killing four people. Why did North Korea do it? The stated reason is that South Korea fired into its territorial waters, forcing the North Korean forces to respond, but South Korea has carried out live-fire exercises from that location for years without getting much more than a tongue-lashing in the North Korean news. North Korea has always disputed the South's claims to the maritime territory in that area; after the Korean war, neither the Chinese nor the North Koreans had the naval power to deny the UN alliance's claims to the islands, and North Korea does not recognize the UN-drawn Northern Limit Line separating the waters of the two countries. But it's not clear why North Korea would decide to act on the issue, in this way, at this time.
It's possible the move was designed to give the "Young General" successor Kim Jong Un some credibility with the military, who can't be happy that a 20-something kid with no military experience is suddenly a four-star general in line for the throne, as it were. Or it could have been intended just to land North Korea a top spot in the nightly news--it sounds like it would be counter-intuitive, but in the past, North Korea has carried out provocations in order to better their bargaining position when it came to things like aid and diplomatic concessions. A more unsettling possibility is that the progress of North Korea's nuclear program has given the Kim regime more confidence that there will not be military repercussions for his actions.
The incident has been much in the news here, even nearly a month later. It was the first time since the Korean War that the South Korean people saw images of destroyed buildings and shell-scarred landscapes on the nightly news, and the South Korean public was not happy with the South Korean military's perceived weak response. The BBC noted, "During the Yeonpyeong incident, North Korea reportedly fired 170 shells while Southern forces fired 80. Satellite images seemed to show many of them falling far from their targets. There were reports of equipment not working, of troops not fully prepared."
The local news here has definitely not been as impassive as the BBC--President Lee's administration has been criticized strongly, even after he replaced the Minister of Defense. The new Minister, perhaps sensing the current political mood, has said that the South Korean military will respond with air strikes should the North carry out such an attack in the future--a change from the proportional response of the past.
Which brings us to today. South Korea said yesterday that it intends to carry out another live-fire exercise on Yeonpyong Do for one day between 18-21 December. No one is sure how (or even if) North Korea will respond, but the Minister of Defense's comment about air strikes suggests that the South Korean response to any attack will be much stronger than it was on 23 November. There are several diplomatic initiatives underway to relieve tensions; the Governor of New Mexico currently in North Korea for talks (in an unofficial capacity, he says), and the Deputy Secretary of State is in China for talks with a senior Chinese official who recently returned from North Korea. Other countries in the region are urging restraint.
Please say a prayer for the leadership and military forces here. But please don't worry--we're quite safe in our basement and tank, respectively.
**Quick disclaimer: everything I've written is my personal opinion and is based on news reporting--it's unrelated to my job and to any policy of the U.S. government or military**
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