North and South Korea exchange fire

[EJK]

Personally I don't feel good about this.

http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10689680&ref=rss



<img width="500" src="http://asset.ninemsn.com.au/img/000/000/133/553/korea5.jpg" />

"South Korean soldiers buy bus tickets to return to their military bases."

[Swoop]

It's just a "fuck off" signal to the south.
China is getting ready to move in and make north Korea a state of China.

[EJK]

I'm not being all excited here but didn't Dean (youngbikerboywhatever16) once posted a thread about his WW3 prediction? lol

[mashman]

fuck 'em... tis their own fault for allowing politicians to take them to war in the first place. (although i do wish they wouldn't be so pissed at each other after nearly 60 years... i wonder if they even know why they're still fighting)

[Swoop]

I'm not being all excited here but didn't Dean (youngbikerboywhatever16) once posted a thread about his WW3 prediction? lol
Cannot see why. The north Korean army hasn't the fuel to get their troops to a major excercise and play wargames, let alone fight a real war.

Kim Jong Il went on a very "hush-hush" trip to China a short while ago...

The corruption is still rampant and changing over the currency to new notes has simply pissed off everyone who had a few $$'s stashed away for a rainy day.

[Banditbandit]

Yeah .. pretty bad .. but the Korean war has not ended - never did - they just stopped shooting at each other ...

They occassionaly exchange fire ... but this is the largest scale for a while ...

Hopefully China will pull in the North and the USA will pull in the South ... otherwise .. hands up who will go and "fight for freedom"? ...

[MisterD]

These kind of things by the North are usually taken as a sign that KJI is feeling under pressure somewhat aren't they?

I presume that there are people who are less than impressed by his annointed heir.

[Swoop]

I presume that there are people who are less than impressed by his annointed heir.
:yes:

But they get taken off to a special jail...

[retro asian]

http://www.morethings.com/fan/south_park/team_america/upstage-alec-baldwin17.jpg



Hey EJ, hope all is well. Told my missus about it this morning.
A bit worrying how many more troops the North has... but then I guess their military gear is probably all second hand, so hopefully shouldn't pose too much threat to the South?

[SMOKEU]

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:pRVBrMzOS3BiBM:http://www.korea-dpr.com/pmenu-kji-ng.png&t=1

I think he's trying to start a Fourth Reich.

[Banditbandit]

I think he's trying to start a Fourth Reich.

What's with the "trying ..." I thought North Korea was the world's longest surviving facist state ?

[SMOKEU]

What's with the "trying ..." I thought North Korea was the world's longest surviving facist state ?

Where's the genocide?

[Banditbandit]

Where's the genocide?

I'm sorry .. does Facism entail genocide ? I thought that was the pathway to creating the Facist state ... not a necessary requirement of the continuing facist state ...

Clearly, North Korea is already a homogenous ethnic entity and does not require cleansing to make it so ...

See Dickhead ... if the facists really won we would look like North Korea (or at least a westernized version of it) .. and you'd really hate that ...

[SMOKEU]

See Dickhead

You meant to say 'dickshit', right?

[Banditbandit]

You meant to say 'dickshit', right?

Yeah .. whatever .. if you want to get your dick in shit .. then you know what you are ...

[SMOKEU]

Yeah .. whatever .. if you want to get your dick in shit .. then you know what you are ...

How charming.

[twinbruva]

I think he's trying to start a Fourth Reich.

Haha, don't you mean "forf wike"?

[EJK]

<center><img width="500" src="http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/20/ror_big.jpg" /></center>

[Fatt Max]

Fuck it, there goes my cheap motorbike parts, TV's and teenage hookers...

I'm moving to Belgium

[SpankMe]

Go to war already. Makes the news worth watching.

[SPman]

So - what did the South Koreans expect....lob a few shells into a disputed bit of sea to piss off the NK's......got back rather more than they bargained for.....
Still, it's election time in SK, isn't it - always worth while making yourself seem under attack to garner a few votes.........

[admenk]

Fuck it, there goes my cheap motorbike parts, TV's and teenage hookers...

I'm moving to Belgium

Yeah, but have you tasted their pies ?

[Swoop]

26 November, 2010: China may be criticizing North Korea privately for its November 23rd artillery attack on a South Korean town (Yeonpyeong Island), but it is publically chastising South Korea and the U.S. for conducting naval training exercises off the west coast of Korea, in international waters. This sort of thing has been a favorite communist diplomatic ploy for over half a century. It goes like this, the communists concentrate on building up their military forces, but keep details secret and insist they are all for peace. But at the same time, democracies, which have a free media, are criticized for the size and disposition of their armed forces, and for holding training exercises (which the communist nations cannot afford as many of). If the democracies make the same accusations, the communist states deny everything and insist that it's none of your business. As absurd as this sounds, it's what's been going on for decades. This drill has become part of the media landscape and isn't really noticed. But occasionally it gets violent. In the 1950s and 60s, Russia and North Korea would attack American intelligence ships and aircraft outside their air space or coastal waters (as recognized by international law) for "spying." As recently as 2001, a U.S. Navy recon aircraft was hit, and damaged, over international waters, by a Chinese fighter. China has more recently ordered state owned fishing vessels to deliberately get in the way of American and Japanese warships who were getting too close to China, despite being in international waters. It's the old "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable" ploy taken to a deadly extreme.
What the North Koreans are saying to South Korea is "give us more food and oil or we will keep attacking you in the name of self-defense". North Korea is starving again, and the leadership (representing about ten percent of the population that are well fed) need help and don't want to risk their control of North Korea to get it. Meanwhile, South Korea and Japan are fed up with over a decade of North Korean extortion and are no longer willing to provide free food to North Korea unless the nuclear weapons program is shut down. North Korea refuses to consider this, and has come up with a new tactic; fatal warning shots. Over half of South Korea's population (and more than a third of its GDP) is within range of thousands of North Korean 170mm guns (range of 50 kilometers) and 240 mm multiple rocket launchers (range of 45 kilometers). Actually, North Korea has hundreds of ballistic missiles capable of hitting anywhere in South Korea. What if North Korea demands that free food and oil shipments resume, or more South Korea towns (or neighborhoods in cities) will be hit? What's South Korea going to do, when North Korea threatens to launch a major offensive if the south fights back and tries to destroy North Korea guns, rockets and ballistic missiles? Because North Korea has the ability to do major damage to the southern capital (where half the population and a quarter of the GDP are), the South Koreans have more to lose than the northerners. Sprawling Seoul is 40-50 kilometers from the North Korea border. The city alone is 600 square kilometers, and the suburbs even larger. There are over 17,000 people per square kilometer (45,000 per square mile) in the city. The southerners know the north has nothing to lose, are desperate and heavily armed. What do you do?

Last March, a North Korean submarine torpedoed and sank a South Korean corvette (killing 46 sailors) , in South Korean waters. North Korea denied that it was responsible (although the attacks was played in the north as very much a North Korean military operation). The north noted that the south did not retaliate.

Many South Koreans are now demanding a military response, but the majority of southerners will do almost anything to avoid a major war. Over the last decade, southerners have become less tolerant of northern extortion tactics, and have cut off most aid. So the north has done what any criminal gang would do, it has sent a message. The question is, do you call in the cops, or give in? In this case, it's uncertain if the "cops" (U.S. and South Korea armed forces) can do anything that will work. Military commanders point out that the North Korean military is not invincible, and is vulnerable. Nearly two decades of food shortages, and economic collapse up north have had an effect on the military. North Korean troops, who grew up during the first rounds of famine in the 1990s, are noticeably shorter than the previous generation. There's not enough money to train, or maintain the vast North Korea arsenal of vehicles, weapons and other equipment. There's lots of evidence of this, from satellite photos, electronic chatter, and the thousands of North Korean refugees who have made it to South Korea in the last few years (and many more who made it to China, and can be reached by journalists, and intelligence agencies.) But the North Korean leadership knows this as well. Without massive aid, the northern military will continue to rot, and the North Korean people will become more unruly. Already, anti-government graffiti is showing up in the north. This was unheard of until recently. The security agencies up there are becoming corrupt, as a result of the shortages, and the creation of a limited market economy to try and prevent more widespread starvation and privation. Many in the north, especially in the ruling Kim family, would rather go out with a bang, rather than a whimper (or a firing squad). The U.S. says it will not reward bad behavior, but South Korea and Japan, being within range of North Korean weapons, are not so sure of that approach.

The South Korean military has a third fewer troops in uniform than the north, but they are better armed and trained. However, North Korea has not been at war since 1953, and South Korea since the late 1960s (when they had troops in Vietnam). Armed forces tend to get stiff and inefficient in peacetime. But both nations have most of their troops lined up along the mountainous border (the DMZ, or demilitarized zone). There are plenty of fortifications, and plans for the south to keep the northerners out. The basic drill has always been that the north would try to invade again (as it did in 1950), with the southerners and their American allies defending. Based on historical experience, the north could do a lot of damage, but not win. The north has chemical weapons, and it is feared they would use them. The north also, technically, has nuclear weapons. But based on two tests of their nukes, it is not believed they have a weapon that could be delivered. The north could make the big push, but the southerners and their American allies would eventually prevail. The invasion is a threat, not a solution.

Artillery firing was again heard on Yeonpyeong Island today, but this time, no shells or rockets fell on the island. North Korean artillery was practicing again, within its own territory. You'll be hearing a lot more North Korean artillery practice, because they have large stocks of aging munitions that must either be fired or disposed of because the stuff is too dangerous to use. After a few decades, the chemical components of rockets and artillery shells decompose and become unreliable. But North Korea can't fire all this stuff, since each time you fire a shell it damages the barrel, which must be replaced, in some cases, after only a few hundred shells are fired. It's similar for rocket launchers, with heat of the rockets causing some damage to the launch tubes and the launcher (or launch vehicle) in general. The north cannot afford replacements. North Korea's poverty since 1991 has meant it could not afford to replace its older munitions like it used to in the past, and there's a lot more old stuff to worry about. Fuel shortages mean that the old munitions can't even be trucked to coast and dumped at sea, or buried on land (to provide a hazard for over a century). So a lot of these increasingly unstable ammo just rots in storage bunkers.

25 November, 2010: The South Korean Defense Minister resigned, a victim of an impossible situation. While South Korea forces took nearly half an hour to return fire on the 23rd, South Korean voters insist that the military be careful when dealing with the north. No one wants a war, and the South Korean population is willing to pay a high price to avoid one. The North Korean are pushing to find out just how high. The South Korea Defense Ministry did announce that it would send more military forces to the islands off the west coast that are within artillery and rocket range of North Korea. This will provide the northerners with more targets, and set the stage for some impressive artillery duels.

24 November, 2010: In the north, the attack on Yeonpyeong Island was described as self-defense, and Kim Jong Un (the son and heir to ruler Kim Jong Il) was given credit for the order to fire, and described as the "Youth Captain" (his dad is called "The General.") Electrical power was kept on in most parts of the country for a few extra hours so that the media could announce this latest victory. There was not much public reaction. Fuel shortages have reduced electrical power to only a few hours a day in most parts of the country.

23 November, 2010: North Korea artillery fired about 200 shells and rockets at South Korean Yeonpyeong Island, starting at about 2:30 PM and going on for about two hours. There is a village there, with about 1,700 people who make a living fishing. There's also a military base. Four people were killed by the attack, and dozens injured (most of them military personnel). At least 30 homes or commercial buildings were destroyed by direct hits or fire. Most of the shells and rockets appeared to land in the water. Most of the population promptly fled by boat. North Korea said it fired because South Korea and the United States refused to call off naval exercises off the coast, and had conducted other military training exercises that the north considered a threat. South Korea artillery on Yeonpyeong Island, after a getting permission from the Defense Ministry, began returning fire.

20November, 2010: The U.S. put sanctions on two more North Korean companies, which were believed to be managing the personal funds of the ruling Kim family. The sanctions have become more of a problem for the north in the past few years, especially those blocking access to the international banking system. This has made the North Korea government very angry, but the United States refuses to back off.

19 November, 2010: North Korea has revealed that it has built a centrifuge facility (possibly with Iranian assistance) to enrich uranium enough to be used in nuclear weapons. Satellite photos also revealed that the north is building another nuclear reactor.

[oldrider]

You have employment problems simply export a bit of obsolete ordinance, no tariffs, no trade embargoes, just a bit of political aggravation but then! :whocares:

Nobody really! :sick: Except the relatives and friends of the poor cunts that die! :facepalm:

[Swoop]

24 November, 2010: In South Korea an air force officer, Lee Chul-Su, was recently promoted to colonel. What was special about this was that 14 years ago Lee was a captain in the North Korean Air Force. But he decided to defect, in his elderly MiG-19 fighter, flying out over the water, along the west coast, to a South Korean air base. Lee was allowed to join the South Korean Air Force, where he served as an expert and instructor on how the North Korean air force operated.
Very few North Korean pilots have defected like this. The only other one got out in 1983, also flying a MiG-19.

This is no accident.

The North Koreans take precautions to prevent this sort of thing. But other pilots have tried anyway. Last August a North Korean MiG-21 jet fighter crashed in China, 200 kilometers north of the border. The pilot did not eject and there was no fire after the plane plowed into the ground (indicating it was out of fuel.) China later reported that the aircraft went off course because of "mechanical problems." But that does not explain why the pilot did not try to land or bail out.
A more likely explanation was that the pilot was trying to defect (to Russia, as China tends to return defectors). To avoid that possibility, North Korea warplanes are supplied with minimal fuel for training flights, and their ejection seats are disabled in peacetime.
Other interceptors are kept in readiness to chase down and destroy defectors. So to get out, pilots have to evade all this scrutiny, and use your minimal fuel to get to someplace you will be safe. It isn't easy.

North Korean aircraft are much older than their South Korean counterparts, and their pilots get much less time in the air. North Korea air combat tactics do not emphasize initiative, anyway. Increasing economic problems in the last decade have further reduced fuel available for pilot training. Thus most North Korean pilots are trained to carry out surprise, and often suicidal, attacks early in any future war with South Korea.

[mashman]

Increasing economic problems in the last decade have further reduced fuel available for pilot training. Thus most North Korean pilots are trained to carry out surprise, and often suicidal, attacks early in any future war with South Korea.

Increasing economic problems = Sanctions and Embargo's put into place by the UN Security Council, United States and pretty much every other country in the world... damn how we've evolved:)

[Hans]

It is becoming increasingly clear that China has thrown NK overboard. One more fuck up from the norks and they're done for.

Both SK and Japan have said there will be no more negotiating.

[Swoop]

21 December, 2010: The situation is grim, especially if you are North Korea. The rest of the world is imposing more sanctions and trying harder to disrupt the arms smuggling that helps keep the police state government alive. Open opposition to the North Korean leadership is spreading, and the usual police state tactics are not stopping it. Food and fuel shortages have hurt morale in the armed forces. Being cold and hungry does little for fighting spirit. The North Korea armed forces have been in decline for the last decade, as they received less money (for new equipment), less fuel (for training and heating), less food (for morale) and fewer physically and mentally capable recruits (the children of the great famine of the 1990s were noticeably smaller and weaker). The officers, most of them the children of the small ruling class, were much taller than their troops. This only made the differences in living standards more visible. This did not help morale. The planners in the general staff, drilled in Soviet methods of measuring combat power and the outcomes of battles, have watched the "correlation of forces" go increasingly against North Korea in the last decade. Nuclear weapons were supposed change that, but North Korea really hasn't got an effective nuclear bomb design yet. The current design has been tweaked once more, and a deep tunnel is being dug for a third nuclear test next year. Even if that works, it would be several years before a militarily useful weapon was available. Meanwhile, the fraying of North Korea society and military power continues.
North Korea has increased security along its Chinese border, and ordered Communist Party and security officials to increase efforts to halt the spread of jokes, posters and graffiti criticizing the heir Kim Jong Un. Official propaganda praises the young Kim Jong Un as the "youth captain," and hails him for his role in making South Korea submit to North Korean power. But most North Koreans know that this is just more of the usual political theater North Korea specializes in. This growing opposition is saying that people want food and heat, not more propaganda and secret police. The police fear that much of this opposition is coming from the children of the ruling class. More than their parents, the kids see that North Korea is a hopeless mess, and want change.

China has told South Korea and the United States that it has limited influence in North Korea and that the leadership there is out of control when it comes to rational decision making. China has good reason to be honest with South Korea, because huge amounts of Chinese money is pouring into South Korea. In addition to being a major trading partner, South Korea is considered a great place for Chinese companies to invest. So the last thing China wants is a war with North Korea. The Chinese don't think the North Korean military could do much, even if Kim Jong Il ordered them to march south. But just to be sure, and limit potential Chinese financial losses, the Chinese do what they can to keep North Korea out of another war. The Chinese explain to Americans that all this gamesmanship is North Korea doing all it can do, given its busted economy and declining military power. If they push, push right back, but don't go overboard. It's all a game, not a real attempt to start a war that everyone will lose.

The North Korean Army has organized a new organization, the 10th Corps, to guard the Chinese border in Yangkang province. The North Korean Army had nine corps until 1995, when one of them, the 6th (stationed along the Russian border) was disbanded because some of its officers were involved in an attempted coup. The new 10th Corps is also in the north, but southwest of where the old 6th Corps was, and guards part of the Chinese border. In the grand scheme of things military, this means very little.

North Korea's latest round of brinksmanship has led South Korean and American officials to double check their evacuation plans. This has not been very encouraging, as any major North Korean attack would send millions of prosperous South Koreans and foreigners fleeing south in their automobiles. No one has been able to come up with a convincing plan on how to handle this, but now it the time to give it another try. American military planners, who have wrestled with this problem for decades in Europe during the Cold War, believe that such an exodus from Seoul will create the largest traffic jam ever. Best advice anyone can come up with is; "prepare to improvise".

20 December, 2010: After over a week of increasingly strident threats against South Korea, the north said not to worry. The north would not attack if the south held its usual monthly artillery exercises off the west coast, which the southerners did. These exercises have been held every month for decades, but recently North Korea declared the exercises provocative and threatened to retaliate if South Korea went ahead. The south did, and north responded by asking for some negotiations, peace talks, or whatever.

14 December, 2010: Russia put its troops on the North Korea border on higher alert. It’s unclear why this was done, other than Russian fear that the current round of North Korean brinksmanship might actually lead to another war. Three days earlier, a team of North Korean officials arrived in Russia to try and obtain more economic and military support.

The commander of the South Korean army resigned, apparently over a property investment scandal, not a military issue.

13 December, 2010: While over a third of the population in North Korea is either out of work, or only has part time employment, the unemployment rate in South Korea continues to decline. The rate is currently 3.2 percent.

12 December, 2010: Japan announced that, starting next year, and for the next five years, more Patriot anti-missile missiles would be added to Japanese air defenses.

11 December, 2010: Rice prices in North Korean markets has gone down, from a peak two days ago (when it was more than twice what it was before the November 23rd shelling of the South Korean island Yeonpyeong). Some parts of the country had much better harvests this year, but the government took most of the additional grain, telling farmers that the "Youth Captain" needed it for the army.

[Swoop]

11 January, 2011: In the north, food has increasingly become the main obsession. That's because there's so little of it. Despite that, there are other problems. Among the upper class (Communist Party officials and military and police commanders), another big issue is growing drug use by their well-off children. Since the late 1990s, pharmacists and other medical personnel have been manufacturing methamphetamines, and selling the stuff to Chinese dealers across the border. This was a vital source of income at a time when starvation was an ever present danger. But in the last few years, more and more of the methamphetamines have been sold inside North Korea, to the children of the ruling class. Angry, and very influential, parents ordered a crackdown earlier this year, which has only been partially successful. Most of the methamphetamines are produced in towns near the Chinese border, but distributors have been found in the capital, and some other major cities. Many of those caught are executed, others are given the fate-worse-than-death and sent to prison. These "labor camps" (which kill a large number of inmates via malnutrition, violence or disease) are overcrowded. Normally built to hold about 150,000 enemies of the people, there are now closer to 200,000 inmates. That is controlled with less food and more violence, but this takes time (less time during the cold seasons).
About ten percent of North Koreans are much better off than everyone else up there. But even these people, working for the bureaucracy, military or security agencies, and their families, are getting less food, or, more noticeably, food of much lower quality. Chinese traders are seeing a lot more household appliances being sold by these "middleclass North Koreans" in the markets, in order to buy more food or fuel.

The anti-government graffiti and jokes are out of control in the north. The problem is that it's no longer cool to tell the secret police about who is doing this stuff. This is a fundamental shift in the north.

The sanctions on North Korea are hurting. It's estimated that total trade up there is about $3 billion a year, and that it's been declining at least ten percent a year for the last three years. This is despite efforts to come up with new ways to smuggle weapons and military tech out. About 80 percent of the legal trade is with China, which has been enforcing more and more of the international sanctions.

China has been more cooperative in some ways. For example, North Korean border guards are under more pressure to halt people from fleeing North Korea. If you shoot escapees, there are rewards (like more food). China does not want more North Korean refugees, who often resort to illegal or semi-legal activities to survive once they arrive. So in remote areas of the border (now easily crossed over frozen rivers), North Korean border guards are allowed to pursue escapees into China, kill them, and drag the bodies back to North Korea (and collect the food bonus). Hunting has been good this year.

Over the last few weeks, North Korea has been asking for "peace talks" between north and south. North Korea does this when it realizes that South Korea is very angry about something. The north knows that it is not going to get any freebies out of the south unless the anger over northern aggression (and fifty dead South Koreans last year alone) can be reduced. But the southerners know this drill all too well, and are refusing to talk unless the north makes some concrete proposals, and follows through. The north isn't doing that, so the south is not answering the calls from North Korea.

China is going to deal with the economic crises in parts of North Korea (close to the Chinese border) by investing billions of dollars to build factories there. North Korea does not dare mess with Chinese assets, and with these investments China will build more and more control over parts of North Korea. This new round of investment is being matched by North Korea diverting part of the military budget to build export (to China) items.

8 January, 2011: North Korea did not officially celebrate the birthday of heir Kim Jong Un. The reason is believed to be a combination of not enough money, and too much public unhappiness with the "Youth Captain." Despite months of efforts to halt the spread of jokes, posters and graffiti criticizing the heir Kim Jong Un, there's more and more of this stuff out there, in the open. Worse, some critics of Kim Jong Un posted an unflattering video on YouTube to celebrate the heir's birthday. South Korean hackers also took over the official North Korean website and Twitter account, posting angry denunciations of the Kim dynasty. Inside North Korea, many people would have liked a celebration, because such events are usually accompanied by a gift of food (half a kilo/1.1 pound of corn per person being typical). But there's not a lot of food in North Korea this Winter. However, key government officials gave Kim Jong Un rare (in North Korea) and expensive items as birthday gifts. The Youth Captain did quite well.

6 January, 2011: South Korea and the United States have reduced the alert level of their troops, in response to a similar action in North Korea.

[pete376403]

NK doesn't even have enough money to keep the lights on...

http://bigthink.com/ideas/21270