Toggling Tensions in Korea

^{The truce village of Panmunjom, situated within the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea. Image by Travis Wise.}

The geopolitical landscape of the Korean peninsula might be off to a perilous shift as Pyongyang declares that North Korea will respond immediately to any provocation, following its recently held artillery strikes near its border with the South.

January Artillery Drills

These prompting remarks come after the South condemned its neighbor over the latter’s artillery launches that sent 200 rounds near their disputed maritime border on January 4th, followed by 60 more rounds the next day.

According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the rounds did not cause any civilian or military casualties and fell north of the Northern Limit Line, which was designated by the United Nations as the disputed de facto border after the end of the Korean War.

The South deemed these actions as a “provocative act that threatens peace and heightens tension on the Korean Peninsula,” though the North denied their intentions of harming the South, stating that the artillery launch was parallel to the border.

On January 7th, Kim Jong-Un’s sister and one of the most influential members of the government—Kim Yo-Jong, denied the artillery launches supposedly held on Saturday and stated that the North only detonated explosives as a deception tactic.

“I make myself clear once again that the safety catch of trigger of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) had already been slipped… the KPA will launch an immediate military strike if the enemy makes even a slight provocation,” Kim said in the same statement.

Red Flags

At the time of this writing, JCS placed the military in full readiness posture after detecting a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile launch from Pyongyang at 2:55 PM, which was reported to have flown about 1,000km before falling in the East Sea.

It’s not unusual for North Korea to carry these exercises, if it weren’t for the fact that the goodwill generated by the Comprehensive Military Agreement has already dissipated as the two Koreas have recently retreated from the agreement.

The Comprehensive Military Agreement was signed on September 19, 2018 by the former SoKor President Moon Jae-In and North Korean premier Kim Jong-Un, where they set regulations on live fire exercises, military drills near the border, hotlines, and no-fly zones.

Inevitably, the South has partially suspended the said agreement as the government deemed the North Korea’s provocative actions and restraining the South’s military actions by continued adherence to CMA would put South Korean assets and lives in danger.

The North could’ve been a hypocrite but they got what they wanted—they retreated from the CMA, so as to not ‘restrict’ their forces within the bounds of such, and declaring that the South is wholly responsible in case a conflict breaks out—much to the dismay of South’s pro-CMA.

“I believe that it is a mistake that we must no longer make to deal with the people who declare us as ‘the main enemy’ and seek only opportunities for ‘[our] regime collapse’ and ‘unification by absorption’ by collaborating for reconciliation and unification,” Kim Jong-Un stated on December 31st.

Kim’s statement declared the South as their main enemy, formally retracted the North’s advances for unification, and strictly reaffirming their dogmatic views on maintaining and improving their ever-changing wide array of nuclear deterrents against Washington and its Pacific coalition.

Arising Conflict?

It’s important to be reminded once in a while that though there have been no major clashes between DPRK and ROK in the past decade, they are still technically at war as the 1950 Korean War ended with a truce, rather than a peace treaty.

Kim Yo-Jong and Kim Jong-Un’s fiery comments serve as a predicament, a wake-up call perhaps for the South to boost their military improvement efforts as their counterpart would no longer entertain advances for reconciliation.

This is the beginning of an era where any of the South or Washington’s appeasement policies would no longer entice the sights of Pyongyang, which could leave the latter to maintain the current status quo or forestall further ‘provocative’ actions from its ‘belligerents’.