South Korean President Park Geun-hye has dropped everything on her schedule to meet and encourage the ROK military in the wake of the recent exchange of fire on the DMZ with the North Koreans:
President Park Geun-hye, Defense Minister Han Min-koo (left) and National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin visit the headquarters of the Third Army in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Friday. Cheong Wa Dae
Following the exchange of fire, Kim presided over an emergency meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission, instructing frontline units to switch to a “wartime state” and fully arm themselves starting from 5 p.m. on Thursday, state media said.
The North last made the “quasi-state of war” declaration in November 2010 when it shelled a South Korean border island in the West Sea.
“Military commanders were urgently appointed and dispatched for operations to strike the enemy’s means of psychological warfare and quell possible counteraction if it did not stop the propaganda broadcasts,” the official Korean Central Television reported.
President Park Geun-hye urged the South Korean military to stay ready to react immediately to any further provocation and blasted Pyongyang for churning out security threats during her visit to a field army command in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.
The trip, which came after she shelved her scheduled tour to southern parts of the country, was designed to examine its readiness posture and encourage soldiers, Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Min Kyung-wook said. She was briefed by commanders there on their plans to respond to potential attacks and the current movements by the North Korean military.
Presiding over a video conference with operational commanders later in the day, Defense Minister Han Min-koo also called for airtight readiness and effective situation management, saying that after the deadline the North may stage a provocation “in any way.” [Korea Herald]
The ROK has no plans to give into North Korean demands which the Kim regime assuredly knew they would not. The demand is just being made to justify a future provocation. It appears the leading theory is that they will fire missiles into the Sea of Japan or a cyberattack of some kind in the near term. It will probably be both since it appears the North Koreans are already gearing up to fire missiles:
Separately, North Korea seems to be gearing up to fire missiles, an official said, a move that could be seen as a show of force against South Korea amid escalating tensions.
“The North is showing signs of shooting off a Scud missile near Wonsan and a Rodong missile in North Pyongan Province,” the official said, citing detection results of its joint radar system with the United States. [Yonhap]
Besides launching another DMZ provocation, a naval engagement in the Yellow Sea is always a possibility, but I don’t think they would try this now because the ROK military’s guard is way up right now. However, they could try and fire an anti-ship missile from their mainland somewhere into the Yellow Sea near at ROK vessel. I don’t think they would actually try and sink a ROK ship like they did the Cheonan because it would be too easy to pin the blame on them. Remember they have never admitted to sinking the Cheonan. They have fired these anti-ship missiles into the Sea of Japan before so firing them into the congested waters of the Yellow Sea would be a pretty good provocation. Another, but unlikely provocation is to detain someone at the Kaesong Industrial Complex. They have done this before and have set conditions to do it again, but I think at this point another provocation using Kaesong would probably lead to its closure which has been a cash cow for the Kim regime:
Meanwhile, South Korea said it has measures to ensure the safety of its nationals who are temporarily staying in the North.
It said it has put a partial ban on the entry of its nationals into an inter-Korean joint factory park in the North’s western border city of Kaesong.
The factory park, the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, is home to 120 small South Korean factories producing garments, shoes, watches and other labor-intensive goods. More than 54,000 North Koreans work in the complex. [Yonhap]
I think this is all leading to the bigger provocation coming up which is when they try and do their expected October space launch. The launch would once again violate United Nations sanctions and be a major media event where once again North Korea will be dominating the headlines. The bottom line is that I don’t expect to see North Korea out of the news anytime soon; what they plan to do to dominate the headlines is still open to debate.
What does everyone else think the Kim regime will try to do in the coming weeks?
