Korean Peninsula On The Brink Of War

[BRVoice]

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news...005400315.HTML


S. Korean military begins live-fire artillery drill near N. Korea

SEOUL, Dec. 20 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Monday fired artillery into waters near the western sea border with North Korea, pushing ahead with a high-tension exercise amid Pyongyang's threat to strike back if the drill goes ahead, an official said.

The drill began at around 2:30 p.m., an official at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

"It won't last long," he said on condition of anonymity.

(END)

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/W7VOA

Reporters on Yeonpyeong hearing booms from outgoing artillery. #DPRK has vowed a punishing response. #Koreas 2 minutes ago via TweetDeck

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/W7VOA

#ROK military says shells aiming SW away from #DPRK. #Koreas 2 minutes ago via TweetDeck

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/W7VOA

#ROK believed to be firing K-9 self-propelled howitzers, 105mm towed artillery guns, Vulcan guns and 81mm mortars. #Koreas 2 minutes ago via TweetDeck

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/W7VOA



AP: #ROK says fighter jets launched to deter #DPRK attacks. 2 minutes agovia TweetDeck

[BRVoice]

CNN reporter live from Seoul:

"No reaction yet from DPRK on these drills."

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/W7VOA

#ROK Defense Ministry: Jet fighters in the air on alert. #Koreas 2 minutes ago via TweetDeck

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/egalite_twitted

F-15K fighter jets hovering over west sea to deter attack by NKorea: Yonhap half a minute ago via twtkr

[BRVoice]

Well guys, I have to go, goodbye for now!

[vector7]

The Chinese Plan To Crush American Power In Korea

Posted By admin On November 25, 2010 @ 1:52 am In China Military News | No Comments

2010-11-25 (China Military News cited from strategypage.com and written by James Dunnigan) -- U.S. military planners have discovered that China's current arsenal of non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles could probably knock out five of six major American air bases in Japanese and South Korea.

Oops.

To make matters worse, this has become an issue as North Korea stumbles towards political collapse, and China indicates that it will assume control in the north if that happens. South Korea believes it should move north to deal with a collapse, and this plan is becoming a contentious issue with China.

It's long been obvious that China planned a similar tactic against [1] taiwan. Wargames and detailed analysis of possible Chinese attacks on [1] taiwan, indicated that the basic Chinese [2] missile attack [3] strategy might work, and do so within days. The key to such a blitz is the 1,300 Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles. Most of these are based on the coast opposite [1] taiwan (180 kilometers away across the [1] taiwan Straits).

The Chinese missiles carry one ton or half ton conventional (high explosive or cluster bomb) warheads, and were expected to be used to try and cripple Taiwanese air force and navy, as well as attacking headquarters and communications targets. Almost simultaneously, China would try to invade with airborne and amphibious forces.[4]

Without those missiles, Taiwans's superior air and naval forces would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the invasion force to cross the straits.

The wargames play out various targeting strategies, and defensive moves the Taiwanese could take. In most cases, the Chinese succeed. The barrage of missiles do serious damage to Taiwanese air and naval forces, giving Chinese air and naval forces an opportunity to get ground forces ashore.

China could use many of these missiles against Japanese and South Korean targets, although many of the missiles would have to be moved to new firing positions first. That would probably be noticed by the Americans, or Taiwanese. If North Korea showed signs of political collapse, and China began moving its shorter range ballistic missiles north, American commanders would have to prepare for the worst.

The U.S. has land based Patriot [2] missile systems that fire the PAC-3 anti-[2] missile [2] missile, as well as the ship based Aegis system. But even with these defenses, the Chinese still have a good shot at winning a quick victory. Or at least crippling American and South Korean air power as Chinese troops occupy North Korea.

Taking a different view of China

Posted By admin On December 18, 2010 @ 7:32 am In China Military News | 1 Comment

2010-12-18 (China Military News cited from joongangdaily.joins.com and written by Harold Piper) --Diplomats talk of the 'red line,' the limit that, if crossed, will trigger consequences. So, where is the red line?

Hi-ho. Another day, another appeal by a senior American official (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, or someone else) to China to put the squeeze on North Korea so we can all get out of this crisis.

As a patriotic American, I am a little chagrined to see my government try to buck the problem to China. It underscores American powerlessness to deal with this pipsqueak Pyongyang regime. Hey, China, it's your backyard. Clean it up for us, will you?

But China itself is powerless against the pipsqueak - or so it says. Our leverage is limited, they say. The North Koreans don't listen to our advice, they say.[1]



It's all probably true. Nobody can do anything about pipsqueak North Korea.

"We," the Americans and South Koreans, could defeat them on the battlefield, but at the cost of turning Seoul into a "sea of fire." No thanks.

The Chinese could cut off food and fuel deliveries to North Korea and perhaps destabilize the regime so that it collapsed, flooded northeast China with refugees, and deprived Beijing of a buffer against American interests in Northeast Asia. Do you wonder why China says no thanks?

Still, in the wake of Pyongyang's latest provocations, the development of a uranium-enrichment program that offers a second path to a nuclear bomb, and the lethal bombardment of a South Korean island, things feel different.

First, South Koreans have been shaken out of the delusion that North Koreans are merely wayward brothers, no serious threat except to the Kospi, the stock market. In other words, it is now understood that not only the wallets but the existence of South Koreans is at stake. What about Wednesday's civil defense drill? When was the last time anyone took such a thing seriously?

Second, unification is suddenly discussed as a present possibility, not a distant dream. "Unification is drawing near," President Lee Myung-bak said the other day. Even if this is merely a politician's rhetorical blather, it contrasts strikingly with what President Kim Dae-jung used to say, that unification must be deferred for 10, even 20, years until the two Koreas had overcome disparities of economic welfare and psychological animus.

And third, one senses in the Seoul press a rising distrust of China. In the early years of this decade, story after story in this newspaper and others suggested that China was supplanting the United States as the most influential outside player on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean trade was swinging toward China; so was investment. More young Koreans were studying Chinese and enrolling in Chinese universities, with a corresponding decline in English studies and American enrollments.

Polls recorded South Koreans as increasingly respectful of China and dismissive of the United States.

The statistics on trade, investment, language and university studies may have continued to follow those trends - I don't have the numbers - but there is a clear shift in underlying sentiment.

In 2002, Roh Moo-hyun won a presidential election by pledging not to "kowtow" to the United States. Now President Lee bases his policy on strengthening the South Korean-U.S. alliance.

Meanwhile, read what Korean pundits have been writing:
"China has given the appearance of participating in international efforts to prevent North Korea's nuclear development program. But in the meantime, it gave support to North Korea's nuclear program by providing grain, oil and other materials that the North needs, despite violating UN resolutions that imposed sanctions on the North." ("China is North Korea's Enabler," Korea JoongAng Daily, Dec. 2, by Park Sung-soo)

"Arrogant and hard to communicate with is how Korea's vice foreign minister allegedly described his Chinese counterpart at the six-party talks. This is also more or less the way ordinary Koreans are beginning to see China after the country's ambivalent attitude toward the current inter-Korean conflict."

("China Skepticism Spreads by Leaps and Bounds," Korea Times, Dec. 2, by Cho Jin-seo.)

Perhaps this shift is a pendulum swing that may be reversed before long. Moreover, it is not entirely a product of North Korea's provocations. China is also resented by Koreans for its perceived attempts to appropriate chunks of Korean cultural history.

But North Korea's provocations furnish the context of the South Korean reassessment of China. And that is why it is still true that China holds the key to the further development (or deterioration) of the aggravated situation on the Korean Peninsula.

It is a curious fact that as tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's strategic value to China increases. But is this pattern immutable?

Diplomats talk of the "red line," the limit that, if crossed, will trigger consequences. Part of the problem the United States, South Korea, Japan and other countries have had with North Korea arguably has been a failure to specify a precise red line.

It was not kidnapping Japanese civilians. It was not attacking South Korean fishing boats or even sinking a South Korean submarine. It was not violating repeated agreements to give up its nuclear-weapons program.

So where is the red line? Since any consequences Seoul and Washington could inflict on Pyongyang are either ineffective (economic sanctions) or terrifying (military force), the red line has remained a fuzzy, brickish blur.

Perhaps that is changing.

China may have its own red line. It wants to maintain its influence in the region and that means remaining North Korea's lifeline. But at some point might North Korea miscalculate its strategic usefulness to Beijing?

Where is China's red line?

[BRVoice]

Toad, do you really think it's over? I don't know, there is something uneasy about it, I'm still concerned.

[Toad]

Over for today, heh. For all the bluster they bitched out in a bluff. I think they know they can't win a war unless they got China 100% behind them. I'm not so sure China right here and now is at N. Korea's call and beck. China may make it's move, but it'll be on it's time and term, not N. Korea's.

[Toad]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/12...korean-drills/


N. Korea Says Won't Hit Back Over S. Korean Drills


Published December 20, 2010
| Associated Press

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea – South Korea's military staged live-fire drills from an island just miles from rival North Korea's shores Monday, despite Pyongyang's threats of catastrophic retaliation for the maneuvers.

Seoul launched fighter jets, evacuated hundreds of people away from its tense land border with the North and sent residents of front-line islands into underground bunkers in case of attack, but the North finally said it would hold its own fire.



The 90-minute exercise came nearly a month after the North responded to earlier maneuvers by shelling Yeonpyeong Island, killing two marines and two construction workers in its first attack targeting civilian areas since the 1950-53 Korean War. That clash sent tensions soaring between the two countries — which are still technically at war.
In an emergency meeting Sunday, U.N. diplomats meeting in New York failed to find any solution to the crisis, but there was some sign of diplomacy Monday, as a high-profile American governor announced what he said were two nuclear concessions from the North.
North Korea called Monday's drills a "reckless military provocation" but said after they ended that it was holding its fire because Seoul had changed its firing zones.

The official Korean Central News Agency carried a military statement that suggested that the North viewed Monday's drills differently from the ones that provoked it last month because South Korean shells landed farther south of the North's shores.

The North claims the waters around Yeonpyeong as its territory, and during last month's artillery exchange, the North accused the South of firing artillery into its waters; the South said it fired shells southward, not toward the North.

The North on Monday, however, kept its rhetoric heated, saying it will use its powerful military to blow up South Korean and U.S. bases.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said its artillery was fired in the same direction as during last month's maneuvers: toward waters southwest of the island, not toward the North.

"North Korea appeared to have issued this statement because it was afraid" of a full-blown war with South Korea, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.
He noted that North Korea has always resorted to surprise attacks on South Korea rather than launching a straightforward attack.

During the drills on Yeonpyeong, a tiny enclave of fishing communities and military bases about seven miles from North Korean shores, South Korean marines fired about 1,500 artillery shells into the island's water, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unidentified military sources.

About 20 U.S. intelligence and communications personnel took part in the drills, and nine representatives from the American-led U.N. Command observed the maneuvers, another Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said, on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. troops were to stay on the island to monitor North Korea's moves, he said.

Before the drills Monday, South Korea's military said that it would "immediately and sternly" deal with any provocation by the North. Fighter jets flew over South Korean airspace on a mission to deter North Korean attacks, a Defense Ministry official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.

Hundreds of South Koreans living near the tense land border with North Korea were either evacuated to bomb shelters or taken to areas farther south ahead of the drills, local officials said.
Residents, local officials and journalists on Yeonpyeong and four other islands moved to underground shelters, Ongjin County government spokesman Won Ji-young said.

On Yeonpyeong, residents in an underground shelter huddled on the floor as a South Korean soldier showed them how to use a gas mask, according to footage shot by Associated Press Television News.
"I feel the same as last Nov. 23, when North Korea fired artillery at us," said Oh Gui-nam, a 70-year-old island resident. "My emotions are all tangled up."

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak ordered preparations to cope with any possible attack by North Korea, even after the drills were over.

The U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, failed Sunday to agree on a statement to address rising tensions.

The United States and others had wanted the council to condemn North Korea for attacks that have helped send relations between the Koreas to their lowest point in decades. But diplomats said China, the North's major ally, strongly objected.

Several bloody naval skirmishes have occurred along the disputed western sea border between the two Koreas in recent years. The North does not recognize the U.N.-drawn sea border in the area.
In a diplomatic push, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a frequent unofficial envoy to North Korea and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., held meetings with top leaders in the foreign ministry and military during a four-day visit to Pyongyang. He called for maximum restraint.

Richardson said the North agreed to let U.N. inspectors visit the North's main nuclear complex to make sure it's not producing enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, The New York Times, which accompanied Richardson to Pyongyang, reported.

The North expelled U.N. inspectors last year and recently showed a visiting American scientist a new, highly advanced uranium enrichment facility that could give it a second way to make atomic bombs, in addition to its plutonium programs. Richardson also said Pyongyang was willing to sell South Korea 12,000 plutonium fuel rods, the Times said.

Richardson had been set to brief reporters Monday night in Beijing, but his flight was delayed. He told Associated Press Television News at the Pyongyang airport, "We had positive results."

[American Patriot]

I had to bail out last night. I'm at work now. I've just finished reading through the thread.

North Korea, in my humble opinion was attempting to control the US and SK by screaming how they would use nukes, or respond in some undetermined way. They figured out they couldn't control us - which is what WE wanted them to see.

The South Koreans are too ready for the North to pull some stupid stunt again. I think this will probably blow over today - or in a couple of days.

What actually kind of upsets me about the whole thing is the coverages news media is NOT doing.

I heard NOTHING about ANY of this on the news this morning. Fox news channel MENTIONED "Is Korea on the brink of war?" and they still have not yet covered that teaser 20 minutes later.

The American public is pretty much, completely, totally in the dark about what is going on over there.

People who I KNOW who have followed this stuff in the past told me last night "What are you talking about?"

They were completely clueless until I filled them in, then I was called "Alarmist". Hahaha

Perhaps we have something going here folks, we have more coverage on this thread than all the news channels in the world have. CNN, Fox, MSNBC... almost nothing on them at all.

Why are they trying to keep this out of the news?

Any one have a guess?

BrVoice - thanks for all your input. You've been a big help - I haven't been able to find some things myself which is unusual... apparently those in different countries see things we don't see in the US and vice versa.

I'm thinking this might blow over today with Toad's post pointing the way....

North Korea called Monday's drills a "reckless military provocation" but said after they ended that it was holding its fire because Seoul had changed its firing zones.

The DPRK was BLUFFING all this time.... imagine that.

[BRVoice]

http://www.informationdissemination.net/

Monday, December 20, 2010
South Korean Military Drill Ends Without Confrontation



It was nice to see so many talented National Security experts and top notch reporters in South Korea on Twitter last night during the South Korean military drill on Yeonpyeong island. One of the first questions that popped up after the drill concluded was "Did Seoul just win a terrifying game of chicken?"

No. Throughout the military exercise there were reports of an enormous show of military force in the air and at sea around the islands. North Korea is not stupid, they will not fight South Korea on the terms of South Korea, they will wait and strike when the time is right for them.

The real question we should be asking on December 20, 2010, is whether North Korea will respond before the new year, or after? A response from North Korea is coming, of that have no doubt. It will be on their time and in the place of their choosing.

Posted by Galrahn at 1:30 AM 5 Comments and 16 Reactions

[Toad]

This just proves to me what history has to offer time and time again. There's only one way to deal with a bully. You stand up, you do NOT back down, and ultimately you get ready to knock him on his ass.

[BRVoice]

Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China, killed nearly 75 million by hunger, Stalin, the Man of Steel, killed 7 million of Ukranians between 1932/1933 without counting nearly 30 millions of, in his majority, civilians in the World War Two.

Communism is not a mere ideology. Is a disease, an disgraceful disease, who poison the minds of generations.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a legitime son of Communism, this Empire of Evil.

To me, they are nothing more nothing less than mass murderers, the Kim family. They must be ousted, even if this mean a larger war.

That's it.

[American Patriot]

Agreed. My father fought against the North Koreans and eventually the Chinese at the border. He was wounded twice in a battle that left most of the Marines with him dead. I think something like five men walked away that night from the hill - but they held it.

Many years after, Dad told me there were piles of bodies and they were fighting with the butts of weapons, their bayonets and fists at the end... all of them were bleeding. It took a LOT to get that information out of Dad - and a lot of years, and it wasn't until I found his medals and had read the citations he and the survivors received.

He hates the Communists to this day - and he's a dyed in the wool "Democrat"... But Democrats of that era are the same as Conservatives today I think.

[BRVoice]

Agreed. My father fought against the North Koreans and eventually the Chinese at the border. He was wounded twice in a battle that left most of the Marines with him dead. I think something like five men walked away that night from the hill - but they held it.

Many years after, Dad told me there were piles of bodies and they were fighting with the butts of weapons, their bayonets and fists at the end... all of them were bleeding. It took a LOT to get that information out of Dad - and a lot of years, and it wasn't until I found his medals and had read the citations he and the survivors received.

He hates the Communists to this day - and he's a dyed in the wool "Democrat"... But Democrats of that era are the same as Conservatives today I think.

Very true Rick and my respect for your father is very great. Certainly he knew what Communism were and unfortunately, is.

All the pain these - I don't know if "human beings" can be applied to them - monsters are still causing to mankind is horrible.

You know, sometimes it's much better an Iron Fist Leader to deal with these kind of people.

[MinutemanCO]

I'm about as far from being a military strategist as humanly possible. So, someone set me straight if I'm off in the wild blue here...

When entering into military conflict, isn't it prudent to maintain an element of surprise? Would it be beneficial for NK, supported by China, to wait a few days or even weeks for the region to return to status quo before launching an attack? NK has mobilized equipment, troops, logistics, etc with a focus on SK. Everything is ready to go.

It's clear that NK has been publicly humiliated (and China and even Russia by proxy) by SK and the US. This would make them appear weak and impotent on the world stage. That's got to chap the Kims' collective hides no end.

Or, would China have put the brakes on due to their concerns? Readiness, their own strategic goals... Something caused NK to blink.

Chime in if you've got thoughts.