This is the sixth time that North Korea has declared the Armistice ended. So the news from the dysfunctional NORKs (DPRK) is nothing new. Without a cease fire in place, the rules change and North Korea is choreographing their moves prior to beginning a large skirmish against South Korea designed to do what?
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| Dear Leader, mobilizing for a small war. |
China is tired of the DPRK, which is much like having an abscessed tooth that needs to be pulled, but you don't want to go to the hassle. China won't bend and neither will the US or South Korea, so what does North Korea want with a "small war". Clearly, North Korea doesn't want a nuclear conflagration that ends up in a tit-for-tat nuclear exchange that ends the lives of the generals who run the country. But they want something. More on that later.
First, timing. North Korea is emerging from winter and any war on the peninsula needs to be fought in the winter because it's almost impossible to fight there once the ground has thawed with any sort of mechanized force. North Korea is not like South Korea. There are steep mountains and swampy valleys and all that it takes to stop equipment from moving south is one well placed bomb. They know this. If the DPRK really wanted a war, they'd attack in November because it would give them a good fighting season.
Second, the nuclear test. That was to get everyone's attention because nobody seemed to care much about them and they're starving as usual. The US and China will see that sanctions are applied even more firmly and that's not what they want.
Third, the US Navy is in port due to President Obama's shenanigans. Sequestration was his idea and because he wants to buy votes, the US aircraft carriers are out of the Western Pacific. The US does have four destroyers in the area and an undisclosed number of submarines (SSN's). The Air Force can bring assets to the table as well, but where is the fleet? It's in port. The DPRK can read the papers too, President Obama. The USS George Washington carrier battle group can be in the area in about a week.
Fourth, the DPRK is conducting the largest military exercise in the last decade on the border with South Korea. If you read history, that is often the excuse for bringing people and equipment to the jumping off point for an attack.
Fifth, the US has a new (possibly weak) Secretary of Defense and a new (likely dithering) Secretary of State. The President has a history of running off to Vegas to party when a crisis looms and being loaded on his drug of choice while things fall apart - leaving Vice President Joe (Slow Joe) Biden at the helm of the ship of state. Why wouldn't the DPRK feel bold?
(North) Korean Central News Agency: The Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army declared in part "...the farce for the adoption of "resolution on sanctions" against the DPRK being backed by the U.S. at the UN Security Council will compel the DPRK to take at an earlier date more powerful second and third countermeasures as it had declared.
Rodong Sinmun (Communist Party Daily Publication in North Korea), Colonel General Kang said "Soldiers are already positioned to launch a war of reunification if the order is given by its leaders. The paper said the general made clear at a speech given at a rally in Pyongyang that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other rockets capable of attacking pre-set targets have been armed with various types of atomic warheads."
"He claimed that missile warheads have been made lighter and smaller, and can turn Washington and other lairs of forces that collaborate with the U.S. imperialists into a 'sea of fire.'"
"Kang also said that with the Korean War Armistice Agreement having become null and void, the North Korean military can now launch preemptive strikes against the country's enemies without warning or restraint."
Without belaboring specifics, which you can research on your own, North Korean leaders are generating a national perception that North Korea is under threat and that war is coming.
More from the (North) Korean Central News Agency: The South Korean puppet forces are working with bloodshot eyes to invade the DPRK in collusion with the U.S. This situation reduced to dead papers the north-south agreements on nonaggression which calls for nonuse of force against the other party, prevention of accidental military clashes, peaceful settlement of disputes and the issue of nonaggression demarcation line...the DPRK will close the Panmunjom liaison channel between the north and the south. There is nothing to talk to the puppet group of traitors hell-bent on the moves for a war of aggression against the north, blinded with confrontation and hostility towards compatriots...What remains to be done is to settle accounts with them by physical force only.
The DPRK is driving the discussion and lighted a nuke and canceled the armistice to change the dialog in negotiations. Their agenda calls for blackmail based on the possession of nuclear weapons based on security concerns that South Korea has. AND to do it by starting a "small war" to show that their intentions are serious without letting it escalate into a general war with the use of nuclear weapons, which the DPRK leadership are unlikely to survive.
The DPRK government does not feel as if the US has the spine for war and hopes (fervently) that the US will cave at the onset of hostilities because of weak an indecisive leadership. They feel that the US is a paper tiger.
Free Advice: The US must be prepared to meet a North Korean attack and win it. President Obama has selected lack luster 'yes men' to fill his cabinet. That's his choice. Elections have consequences. The only way to block North Korean adventurism is with force. Sorry. Sometimes it comes down to that. In the short run, that sort of engagement will save lives. If the DPRK is allowed to run amok, many millions will die needlessly.