Tuesday, November 23, 2010

North Korean wake-up call

At 6:45AM, I woke up to the news that North Korea has shelled the small South Korean island of Yeonpyeong-do. The Drudge Report is sporting the breathless, overwrought headline, "IT BEGINS." Casualties have been reported (the Marmot seems to be liveblogging, or at least updating regularly). Whether this incident may spiral out of control remains to be seen, but South Korea has shown a remarkable tolerance for having its nose bloodied in the past. Even if NK were to lob a few shells into some glass buildings in the heart of Seoul, SK would more likely wait to see whether the North was planning to come pouring across the border than reply in kind and/or escalate.

My suspicion is that, as with all other such instances, things will die down and return to the familiar, taut norm. Here's hoping. Meanwhile, to all my friends and students in South Korea: take care.


UPDATE, 7:45AM: As always, Joshua is an excellent go-to source on all things NK-related. See here.


_

2 comments:

Charles said...

"Even if NK were to lob a few shells into some glass buildings in the heart of Seoul, SK would more likely wait to see whether the North was planning to come pouring across the border than reply in kind and/or escalate."

Actually, the South Korean government has made it very clear that they will reply in kind to any North Korean attacks. This is why they returned fire, shooting 80 rounds at the North.

Escalation, of course, is another matter entirely.

Kevin Kim said...

One wonders whether the South hit anything. Have you seen Aaron McKenzie's little cartoon?

My feeling is that the North/South standoff is more symmetrical than people generally allow. South Koreans often see the situation in terms of how much there is to lose if war broke out. They forget that the North's very survival depends on there not being a full-on war, because the North's clock would be thoroughly cleaned should such a war break out. South Korea would be ruined by a war, true, but rebuilding and recovery would both be easier for the South than for the North.

Right now, the North relies on its ability to tweak the South over and over again, but really, there's nothing to stop the South from doing exactly the same thing, consistently answering all provocations with its own. Such actions would drive the North batty, but they'd never precipitate a full-scale war. This all circles back to the expat Koreablogosphere's favorite question: is the Kim dynasty crazy? I think most armchair pundits agree that the correct answer is "no." A twisted form of rational self-interest is operating in Kim Jong Il's mind. He knows that a war means the collapse of the NK government, and by extension, the collapse of his family line and his country. South Korea can thus afford to take a firmer stance. Lightly shelling NK in response to NK's shelling of Yeonpyeong-do strikes me as a promising start... but will SK maintain that stance?