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    Korea
     Mar 3, 2011


Korean tensions reach new heights
By Sunny Lee

BEIJING - Tension has spiked again on the Korean Peninsula over annual joint United States-South Korean war games, with North Korean threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire".

Washington and Seoul have stressed that the "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle" exercises are defensive in nature. But South Korea's daily DongA Ilbo reported on Tuesday that they simulate scenarios such as "fighter jets striking Pyongyang and South Korean special commandos securing the Yongbyon nuclear site" in the event of a "military coup or the death of Kim Jong-il".

Some 200,000 South Korean soldiers and about 12,800 US troops are participating in the 11-day exercises that began on

 
Monday involving computer war simulations, live-fire drills and field training.

Claiming the exercises are a preparation for invasion, North Korea's military is reportedly on high alert, with Mercedes limousines sighted near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Tuesday, a sign that high-ranking generals are inspecting the area. "The situation is most sensitive," said the Korea Herald on Tuesday.

Further ramping up tensions is the launch of aid balloons to North Korea by the South Korean military, with the packages containing clothes, daily necessities, medicine and student stationery - and millions of propaganda leaflets detailing the popular revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.

North Korea has called it "psychological libel tactics", threatening to shoot anyone along the Korean border seen launching the balloons. While there have been sporadic distributions of propaganda by balloons in recent years by civic organizations, this is the first time the military has done it in seven years.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told lawmakers on Friday that he expected the North to launch fresh attacks this spring, after its attach last November on a South Korean island, killing four, and alleged sinking of a South Korean corvette in March. Inter-Korean military talks hoped to ease the tensions raised by those incidents in mid-February broke down after a matter of hours.

North Korea's DMZ representative warned that its military would respond to any provocations with "merciless counteraction" and "full-scale war", and that it would "counter a nuclear threat with a nuclear deterrent and missile strikes with counterstrikes".

Piao Jianyi, an expert on Korean affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, warns that the situation could get out of control, and that if it does, it is the South's fault.

"At a time when North Korea is focused on building up its economy, it is South Korea that is mounting the real provocations," he said. "When North Korea's patience runs out, all possibilities are on the table, including artillery and even nuclear attacks. South Korea is goading [the North] to ratchet up tensions."

Claiming that the South is reluctant to resume the stalled six-party talks on the North's nuclear program, which Beijing promotes as the best option among all the other alternatives, Piao said, "I've been watching the Lee Myung-bak administration's approach on North Korea for the last three years. And now I find it quite difficult to comprehend."

South Korean analysts, however, remain nonplussed. "North Korea's threats are not news. They've been there all the time," said Lee Sang-hyun, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute think-tank near Seoul. "The North appears particularly worried about possible information inflow on the unrest in the Arab countries."

Lee said North Korea's unusually strong warnings were a sign that it was "cornered", proposing that Seoul take this opportunity to send a "clear signal" of deterrence. "Of course, there are risks involved. But South Korea shouldn't scale down or halt the military drills, succumbing to the North's threats."

A senior South Korean military official told the New York Times that the propaganda messages carried by the balloons were intended to act like a "virus". "The most dangerous virus for the regime is the truth about the outside world and the truth about themselves ... They try to contain and prevent information from infiltrating. But they don’t have a vaccine against this kind of virus."

However, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday extended an olive branch to Pyongyang. In a speech commemorating the 92nd anniversary of the March 1 popular uprising against Japan's colonial rule of Korea, he said, "We are ready to engage in dialogue with the North any time, with an open mind."

The Ilmin International Relations Institute of Korea University, a Seoul-based security think-tank focused on relations with the North, released a newsletter on Tuesday titled "Drills are necessary for North Korean contingency". The university is where hardline Unification Minister Hyun in-taek taught before he assumed the post.

"I think it's not Lee Myung-bak, but rather his hardline advisors who are the main source of this tension," said Piao in Beijing.

Critics say Lee and his administration are playing a good-cop, bad-cop routine, but they are more likely just seeking the right contingency plans.

Observers have long warned about miscalculations on the fraught peninsula. "There is always the danger of escalation. North Korea can retaliate at a time and place of their choosing," said Daniel Pinkston, an analyst who focuses on inter-Korean relations at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

Unlike Piao in Beijing, Pinkston believes it is Pyongyang that cannot risk provocation. "North Korea has to think about consequences. They will suffer greater losses if they launch a rocket attack or artillery attack against the South. It's almost certain, based on the very senior [South Korean] military people whom I talked to, that there will be counter-strikes against those positions. In terms of firepower and precision-guided weapons, the North Korean army will take some serious punishment. So, if I had the chance to speak to any North Korean officials, I would tell them: 'Just don't do it'."

"This is a war of nerves," said Park Sang-seek, a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies of Kyung Hee University in Seoul. "And no one seems to know the exact secret recipe of how to deal with North Korea. That's the problem."

Sunny Lee (sleethenational@gmail.com) is a Seoul-born columnist and journalist; he has degrees from the US and China.

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