It will be interesting to see if the Yoon administration has the political will to continue to allow the defector groups to send propaganda balloons into North Korea when the response is this:
North Korea is once again sending balloons presumed to be carrying trash to South Korea on Saturday, Seoul’s military said, after it launched nearly 1,000 similar balloons across the border since last week.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised people not to touch the objects and report them to nearby military or police authorities, and cautioned of possible damage from the balloons, adding the balloons may move southward overnight due to a change in the direction of the wind.
Since May 28, North Korea has sent the trash-loaded balloons across the border into South Korea, which it described as a “tit-for-tat” response to anti-Pyongyang leafleting.
The North announced it would temporarily suspend the balloon campaign after Seoul warned of “unendurable” countermeasures, but threatened to send “a hundred times the amount of toilet paper and filth” in response to any further leafleting from the South.
Despite the threats, North Korean defector groups have continued their anti-regime campaigns on Thursday and Friday.
You can read more at the link, but this is a provocation that the North Koreans can pretty much continue to do indefinitely. I just don’t see any response by South Korea other than outlawing the defector groups from flying their balloons to end these trash attacks.
It will be interesting to see how long the Kim regimes decides to keep launching these trash attacks:
North Korea has sent around 600 more balloons carrying trash to South Korea and continued jamming GPS signals for five straight days against the South, Seoul’s military said Sunday, as South Korea’s presidential office was considering taking countermeasures.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it has detected more than 600 balloons that floated across the Military Demarcation Line separating the two Koreas and fell in different parts of the country between 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.
The balloons carried various pieces of trash, such as cigarette butts, paper and plastic bags, just like the previous balloons, according to the JCS.
“About 20 to 50 balloons are moving per hour through the air and coming down in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, North Chungcheong Province, and North Gyeongsang Province,” a JCS official said on the condition of anonymity, adding it is possible more balloons will be detected.
You can read more at the link, but these trash attacks are actually very clever. It is a cheap provocation with little threat of escalation that puts pressure on the Yoon administration to negotiate to stop them the longer they go on.
‘Garbage’ balloons presumably sent by N. Korea This photo, provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shows garbage littered from a balloon presumably sent by North Korea, found in Seoul’s Guro Ward on May 29, 2024. Some 90 such balloons have been discovered so far, according to military and police sources, adding that they contained trash and other waste. (Yonhap)
I have to give the Kim regime points for creativity on this latest provocation because this is definitely a new one:
North Korea has sent more than 150 balloons carrying trash across the inter-Korean border, Seoul’s military said Wednesday, after the North warned of “tit-for-tat action” against anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by the South’s activists.
Since Tuesday night, the balloons have crossed the border to fall in various locations across the country, reaching as far as the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang, and scatter waste as they fell to the ground, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The fallen balloons appeared to have carried various pieces of trash, such as plastic bottles, batteries, shoe parts and even manure, a JCS official said, with military officials collecting the objects for a detailed analysis.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that North Korea is likely to ramp up their provocations this year during Korea’s parliamentary elections and the U.S. Presidential election periods:
Yang Uk, a research fellow at Asan Institute of Policy Studies in Seoul, said North Korea had probably been refraining from aggression for the past month in light of political events in China and Russia, like annual plenary sessions and Moscow’s presidential election.
“North Korea is probably going to start to ramp up provocations from now,” he told The Korea Herald. “Pyongyang probably opted for a short-range, rather than a long-range ballistic missile, with its possible summit with Tokyo in mind,” he said, referring to recent news that North Korea is seeking to meet with Japan.
The ruling People Power Party believes North Korea may escalate aggressions ahead of South Korea’s general election and the US presidential election.
Rep. Park Jeong-ha, the People Power Party chief spokesperson, said in a statement Monday that as the risks of “military and cyber provocations” from North Korea were “very high” over the year, greater political fluidity is expected internationally.
“North Korea’s provocations are anticipated to get more frequent and aggressive as the year progresses,” he said.
My response to the "will North Korea do another provocation" media inquiry. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula ebb and flow in response to actions and declarations, usually committed by North Korea. The regime's threats of imminent hostilities are (1/7)
That is one of the theories being bounced around on why North Korea is conducting so many missile tests and other drills in recent weeks:
In this photo carried by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 10, North Korean soldiers stage an artillery firing exercise. Yonhap
“Rather, the recent moves are assumed to be aimed at gaining international attention for its seventh nuclear test with missile launches and other provocations, and showing its force to the world,” Go said. “Bragging about its nuclear forces seems to be the ultimate purpose of the recent moves.”
Another theory is that North Korea is trying to test President Yoon and see if he will actually cancel the Inter-Korean military agreement as he has threatened to do:
Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Friday’s provocations should be seen as its reaction against South Korea’s strengthened military posture and Seoul’s debates over discarding the military agreement so as to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear test.
“It was unusual that the North announced that it was reacting to a 10-hour long artillery drill,” Hong said. “It seems like the shelling was aimed at testing whether Seoul really thinks about breaking the military agreement. If the North dared to ignore the agreement, it can simply arm its soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone.”
This is something that very visible, but at the same time no cost to North Korea to do:
Smoke rises from North Korea’s border town of Kaesong on June 16, 2020, as North Korea, according to the unification ministry, blew up the inter-Korean liaison office there in protest over South Korean activists’ anti-regime leaflet campaign, in this photo provided by a Yonhap reader.
North Korea blew up the inter-Korean joint liaison office in its border town of Kaesong on Tuesday, sharply escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula after near-daily threats to punish Seoul over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets.
The surprise explosion sparked concern that the communist nation could put other threats against the South into action, including taking military action and moving troops to border regions disarmed under inter-Korean agreements.
South Korea expressed “strong regret” and warned the North not to aggravate the situation.
“The destruction … is an act that breaches the hope of all people wishing for the development of inter-Korean relations and a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Cheong Wa Dae said in a statement after an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.
“The government makes clear that all responsibility caused by this rests totally with the North Korean side,” he said. “We sternly warn that if North Korea takes steps further aggravating the situation, we will respond strongly to it.”
You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime has no fear that the Blue House “will respond strongly to it” and that is part of the problem. The Kim regime expects a Hans Blix style response.
The Kim regime will likely next occupy all the DMZ outposts they vacated two years ago. This will force the ROK Army to reoccupy their outposts, but they blew them up and would have to rebuild them all. By the way does anyone still think the shots fired last month by North Korea at a ROK DMZ guard post was still unintentional as the Moon administration has been claiming? This is all part of the usual provocation patterns used by the Kim regime for decades to extract the concessions they want from South Korea.
In this case it is to defy international sanctions and move forward with the cross-border projects they want the ROK to fund. It also appears they are using this provocation cycle to build up Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong’s standing within the regime since she has been the main spokesperson so far.
I guess we will see if North Korea follows through with its Christmas gift threat:
Few signs of unusual military moves have been detected in North Korea so far, officials said Tuesday, amid concern Pyongyang could test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as a “Christmas gift” to the United States.
Officials noted, however, that the North could undertake a surprise provocation at any time and that the South’s military is maintaining readiness for a worst-case scenario while keeping a close watch over the communist neighbor.
“There have not been specific moves in the North as of now that indicate high-profile military actions,” a military officer said. “We have been fully prepared for any incidents, and we always keep in mind a worst-case scenario.”
As denuclearization negotiations with the U.S. have made little progress, North Korea warned that it is entirely up to the U.S. to decide what Christmas gift it gets, sparking concerns that Pyongyang could carry out highly provocative acts such as an ICBM launch.
When firing its Hwasong-14 ICBM on July 4, 2017, the North labeled it as “a gift” for the U.S.
