South Korea begins military exercises despite North Korean warnings

Anti-war demonstrators in South Korea, 28th February

South Korea and the US have begun large-scale military exercises on Monday 28th February, despite North Korean warnings that it could trigger all-out war on the peninsula.

Every year South Korea and the US carry out training drills, and commanders insist they are purely defensive. About 12,800 US troops and 200,000 South Korean soldiers and reservists will take part.

The drills will last 11 days and will involve computer war games and live-fire exercises. The aim of the drills is to prepare South Korea for an attack by the North. It is also a rehearsal for emergency deployments of US forces in the event of a sudden attack on South Korea.

The last time South Korea and the US carried out training drills, in November 2010, North Korea reacted to live-fire exercises taking place in disputed waters by firing artillery shells at Yeonpyeong island, killing four.

The drills continued after the incident, raising tension on the divided peninsula to the highest level in years. Tension has been high since March 2010 when a South Korean warship was sunk, killing all 46 sailors on board. A Seoul-led international investigation blamed North Korea, a charge which Pyongyang denies.

Hours after the exercises started, North Korea warned of nuclear war.

"It's an anti-national scheme aimed at prolonging the stage of confrontation and tension to realise a plot to start a northward invasion," North Korea's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean central news agency. "The danger of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula is deepening."

On Sunday, North Korea said that if provoked, its military would turn Seoul into a 'sea of flames' and would start a full-scale war with 'merciless' counterattacks.

South Korean officials dismissed Pyongyang's position. "Denouncing these kinds of drills as an aggression and provocation won't be a help to South-North Korea relations at all," Chun Hae-sung, a spokesman for the South Korean unification ministry, told reporters.

Not everyone in the South supports the drills, however. On Monday, about 20 anti-war activists rallied near a joint force command near Seoul, urging the South and the US to immediately halt the drills and resume talks with the North Korea.

North Korea has repeatedly pushed for talks, but when military officers from both sides met earlier this month, they failed to make any progress and a date for the next round of talks was not set.

The tension has led to conservative forces in South Korea calling for the redeployment of US tactical nuclear weapons. The White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, proliferation and terrorism, Gary Samore, said he believed the US would say yes if the South Korean government officially requested the redeployment.

The White House immediately countered by saying the US has no plans to bring tactical nuclear weapons back to the South, saying Washington continues to support a non-nuclear peninsula.

Another issue between the countries is Southern activists' distribution of leaflets into the North. Two and a half million leaflets were floated into the North in a balloon earlier this month. The leaflets carried messages ridiculing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and calling for people to rise up against the government. The balloons also carried news of the Middle East uprsings. On 27th February, North Korea threatened to fire into the South if the propaganda balloon campaign was not halted.

The two countries are still technically in a state of war, as the 1950-3 Korean War has never officially finished. The land border between the two neighbours, the Demilitarised Zone, is along the 38th parallel.

The maritime border is the UN-designated Northern Limit Line, which Pyongyang believes restricts their access to marine territory. Indeed, it gives them a 3-mile territorial sea, even though the international norm is 12 miles. Since 1999, the North has been arguing in favour of a more southerly 'West Sea Military Demarcation'.

The military exercises that were carried out in November took place in this disputed area, and therefore it was unsurprising that the North reacted. It is not yet clear if this latest round of exercises will also take place in the area.

Sources: The Guardian, BBC News, Voice of America, The Korea Herald

For more information, see the Menas Borders website, here.

Trouble between the Koreas rumbles on

It has been just over a week since the most recent trouble between North and South Korea broke out, and the political posturing – and military manoeuvring – continues.

South Korea's intelligence chief is reported to have said they think that North Korea is very likely to attack again. Won Sei-hoon, director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, was quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency saying “There is a high possibility that the North will make another attack”.

It must be considered, however, whether Seoul would have to take some of the blame if the North did attack, as their actions, and those of their ally, the US, seem very provocative. The South Koreans are building up their defences on Yeonpyeong island, the site of the conflict, and the US has sent warships, fighter jets and more than 6,000 personnel to the area, where 70,000 South Korean troops are already present.

On 28th November, the US and South Korea began carrying out joint military exercises in the disputed area. Beijing has expressed its anger at the joint military exercises. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on 26th November, “We hold a consistent and clear-cut stance on the issue. We oppose any party to take any military acts in our exclusive economic zone without permission.”

In July 2010, some 20 US warships and 200 planes carried out similar manoeuvres with the South Korean military in the waters bordering both North Korea and China, according to the International Action Center. The nuclear powered carrier, the USS George Washington, which carries 75 fighter jets and is currently in the Yellow Sea area, also took part in the July exercises. Beijing expressed their displeasure to the exercises at the time, and it must be asked why they need to carry out two major military exercises within such a short time frame.

Much of the Yellow Sea area is disputed by the two Koreas. A US-led UN team awarded it to South Korea following the 1950-53 Korean War, but North Korea has never acknowledged the boundary, known as the Northern Limit Line. It believes Yeonpyeong Island, and the waters surrounding it, to be North Korean territory.

The US and South Korea have also rejected China's calls for the resumption of the six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programme. The BBC suggests that Seoul and Washington are anxious to avoid the impression that bad behaviour from the North will be rewarded with talks or offers of aid.
Talks have been stalled since April 2009, but Pyongyang has recently expressed interest in restarting them. The US has said that talks cannot resume until North Korea apologises for the torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, and stops further nuclear enrichment plants from operating. North Korea has denied any involvement in the sinking of the corvette Cheonan.

Others in South Korea, however, have suggested the worst may be over. "There will be ongoing measures to beef up our forces including the stationing of new weapons, upgrading our marines on Yeonpyeong island but I think on this particular crisis we are reaching the apex and we will see a gradual de-escalation," Chung Min Lee, ambassador for international security affairs, is reported by the BBC to have said.

Sources: BBC News, International Action Center

For more information on North Korea and South Korea dispute, see the menas borders website.