Scary times indeed. I believe this is an unprecedented step. So far, Un looks to be worse than his father, and that's saying something. Unless he's suicidal (and he might be) he'll avoid a war. The only thing that will come out of this is more isolation and economic depravation.
Nothing's going to happen, just response to our talk of sanctions. What's important is what China will do about it, not us.
I don't think China has that much that they can do. They are scared as hell. N. Korea is not on very good terms with China. China doesn't want there to be a war because it will reek hell on N. Korea, and then N.Korean immigrants will flood China and China will have ton of people they have to take care of, feed, and shelter at great expense to them. These are people that are already malnourished and in bad shape. Meanwhile S. Korea needs to be on guard. N. Korea has a million person army, and they are right there on the border.
There was a diplomatic cable that was leaked during wikileaks that says the exact same thing. There is a real fear of the government collapse leading to a mass exodus to South Korea and China. I provided a link to an article below. Most of the info is older and related to Kim Jong Il and the fear that China and Seoul had about him dying. But you can still see there is real tension there. I don't think this will escalate to war but it's tough to predict what the new regime will do. Hard to imagine they would be dumb enough to go to war again. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-china-reunified-korea
This is a lot of posturing. I don't care how many people they have in that army. If they attack South Korea, they will get obliterated. Their weapons technology is from the 1950's. They can't possibly be that stupid.
A BBC correspondent was speculating that this is more of the regime trying to build up public morale and support, as opposed to them picking a fight. Nevertheless, without the diplomatic cables, it's more likely for spats to escalate.
Reminds me of that little guy on the playground that use to talk a bunch of noise, but everyone ignored him because people just felt sorry for him and didn't want to get into trouble. Then there is that one day, when he just pushes someone a little too far and gets knocked out Debo style. It may be getting to that point.
That may not be the most accurate analogy. The American public is weary of another war, and the N. Koreans have sufficient supplies to invade and hold parts of the South for 100 days, and that's without the full war machine going. They won't win a full-scale conflict, but they'll cause a significant amount of damage, and a full scale invasion of the North will be impossible unless the Chinese help.
