The United States and South Korean militaries have long had a plan (with multiple revisions over the years) for fighting and winning an all-out war with the Norks: OPLAN 5027. Regrettably, a copy of this was snaked by North Korean hackers last year. Following that debacle, a new strategy is of course in the works.
But these days -despite never-ending belligerence emanating from the DPRK- fear of war on that scale has diminished on the SK/US side: the penniless Stalinist hell of North Korea is on the cusp of a possible leadership crisis, while also painfully aware that they simply cannot win a full-scale continuation of the Korean War. Any serious attack on the South would promptly lead to the demise of the so-called 'hermit kingdom', according to most observers... and the nefarious Kim regime knows it.
CNS News:
President Lee Myung-bak's government is suffering intense criticism that its response to North Korea's Nov. 23 barrage on a South Korean island was weak, and over the stunning revelation that the South's spy chief dismissed information in August indicating the North might attack the front-line island of Yeonpyeong.
Lee's nominee, Kim Kwan-jin, told a parliamentary confirmation hearing that further North Korean aggression will result in airstrikes. He said South Korea will use all its combat capabilities to retaliate.
"In case the enemy attacks our territory and people again, we will thoroughly retaliate to ensure that the enemy cannot provoke again,"...
Yesterday former US Naval intelligence officer Dennis Blair confirmed that Seoul indeed sees no potential benefit in mantaining a failed strategy of appeasement with North Korea... and is preparing to deliver a long-overdue push-back.
Breitbart:
Breitbart:
The former chief of US intelligence has warned that South Korea has lost its patience with provocations by North Korea and "will be taking military action."
Retired admiral Dennis Blair, who was director of national intelligence until May, said he did not think that hostilities would escalate into a larger war with artillery attacks on Seoul because North Korea knows it would lose.
"So I don't think a war is going to start but I think there is going to be a military confrontation at lower levels rather than simply accepting these, this North Korean aggression, and going and negotiating," he said on CNN's State of the Union.
Blair said the North had gone beyond its usual pattern of brinkmanship with an artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed four people November 23, and the sinking in May of a South Korean warship, which killed 46 sailors.
Blair said the North had gone beyond its usual pattern of brinkmanship with an artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed four people November 23, and the sinking in May of a South Korean warship, which killed 46 sailors.
"So South Korea is beginning to lose patience with the North, which there was a great deal of patience," said Blair, who just returned from South Korea. Asked what that meant, the retired admiral said, "It means they will be taking military action against North Korea."
His comments came as South Korea was preparing to go ahead with live fire drills off its coasts, but not near the contested maritime border with the North in the Yellow Sea.
And where are Kim Jong-il's traditional supporters -the Chinese- on all this? Shooting themself in the foot, basically-
While WikiLeaks-exposed cables last month indicated Beijing was also frustrated with the Kim regime's unpredictable brinkmanship -and would possibly acquiesce to a Korean unification under SK control- all we've seen in public is a diplomatically-clumsy Chinese leadership acting like nothing has changed at all... an ill-advised and wholly-irresponsible approach that is starting to inflict some serious damage on China's aspirations as a world power...
Robert Haddick writing in Foreign Policy:
Beijing's ham-fisted approach to the North Korean issue is causing other countries in East Asia to rally around the United States in alarm over Chinese intentions, a result exactly contrary to China's long term policy goals in the region.
With no change in its policy toward North Korea, China should prepare for more diplomatic isolation and a stepped-up security response by the United States and its neighbors.
On Dec. 6, the Washington Post's John Pomfret described Beijing's clumsy approach to South Korea in the wake of the North's hour-long artillery bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island. Four days after the attack, China sent State Councilor Dai Bingguo to Seoul, without an invitation or advanced notice. Upon landing, Dai demanded that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak abandon his schedule for the rest of the day in order to meet with him, which Lee refused to do.
When the two met the following day, Dai told Lee to "calm down" and then delivered a history lecture on China-South Korean relations. Dai's diplomatic bungling was startling.
After his departure, Lee and his new defense minister adopted a policy of military retaliation against the North. Lee then sent his foreign minister to a policy coordination meeting with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts. The United States proceeded with large military training exercises with South Korea and Japan. Soon after that, the U.S. and South Korean governments unveiled a completed free-trade agreement.
China's actions regarding North Korea have done wonders to bring together the United States and its Asian allies...
And although plenty predictable, the official North Korean news agency's somewhat less-than-nuanced take is always good for a few chuckles:
The war confab of the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean warmongers is, in fact, little short of a declaration of an all-out war aimed at the escalated skirmish, declared a spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea in a statement released on Saturday.
He went on to say: The U.S. imperialists and the puppet warmongers held a meeting of the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of south Korea and the U.S. in Seoul on December 8 at which they discussed a very dangerous war scenario calling on the puppet forces and the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces to mount a military attack on the DPRK under the pretext of "deterring provocation" of someone.
The U.S. imperialists openly approved the puppet forces′ plan to attack the DPRK by mobilizing all fighters and warships, etc. not bound to the existing "rules and regulations for battles," touting "their right to self-defence."
They, at the same time, declared they would consider the proposal for supporting the puppet forces with "information about north Korea" and with "F-22 Raptors" advertised by them as the "most sophisticated fighters in the world" in case of a war between the north and the south of Korea.
Looks like one pugnacious pygmy dictator with a funky-looking Elvis 'do may be soon be getting an abject lesson in just how sophisticated the F-22 Raptor actually is: they'll never see it coming until things just start blowing-up.
UPDATE: Norks now threatening nuclear war...