Desperate North Korea taunts the US

North Korea is free to believe that it is in a “state of war” with arch rival South Korea (and by extension the United States), as it announced this past Saturday. But across the world, Pyongyang's threats, which have been flowing thick and fast in recent weeks, have been summarily dismissed as little more than bluff and bluster. Saturday's announcement came on the heels of a notice on Friday from that country's leader Kim Jong-un, warning the US that his forces were ready “to settle accounts” with it after two American nuclear-capable B-2 bombers dropped dummy munitions on a South Korean island range as part of joint drills. This was preceded by North Korea's decision to call off its ceasefire agreement with South Korea as well as snap its military hotline with that country in March. There has also been some troop movement in the demilitarised zone while small North Korean warships conducted maritime drills near the South Korean border last week. But while there is no doubt that Pyongyang has been turning up the heat for quite some time now — it all started with North Korea's February 12 nuclear test that attracted much Western ire including UN sanctions — a full-scale war is extremely unlikely.

The possibility of North Korean missiles attacking American targets can be virtually ruled out, although, if the situation escalates further, a localised conflict with South Korea may erupt. But then again, such encounters have happened off and on over the years; since 1999, there have been at least three instances of naval skirmishes between the two countries. Against this backdrop, long-time Korea observers agree that there is really nothing new in this latest bout of grandstanding from Pyongyang. In fact, some have even written off this entire episode as a routine response from North Korea to South Korea's joint military exercise with the US, that happens annually. Others have also pointed to Pyongyang's continued support to the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which it runs jointly with Seoul, as a strong indicator of the fact that it has no real intentions of launching a full-scale military operation against South Korea. Established on the border of the two countries in 2002 as an incentive for continued cooperation between the two countries which, otherwise, do not even have diplomatic ties, the industrial complex is staffed by both the North and the South Koreans. It offers the former the hard currency it desperately needs and provides the latter with cheap labour. That Pyongyang has not yet shut down Kaesong is evidence that pragmatism still rules. But it still does not answer the question: Why provoke South Korea, and especially the US, in the first placeIJ Most experts agree that Pyongyang is using, and foolishly so, the threats as a tool to draw the US back to the negotiating table for more aid, while also boosting its new leader's sabre-rattling image at home. If this is indeed the case, Pyongyang is miscalculating badly.