To distract China from [other] global concerns?
China can only do one thing at a time?
…and now North Korea responds. The closing of North Korean airspace is bad for South Korea, and the instability will generally hurt the economy. Still, the DPRK is generally leach on the South — there’s a low limit to how much it can do by way of diplomatic retaliation.
In other news, one imagines there are a few Chinese diplomats who won’t be getting much sleep in the near future.
A condemned man’s execution is postponed for months for interrogation purposes. Yes, I can think of a great reason to lie. If they wanted him to say Martians were responsible then that would be the headline.
I think Marmite Lover broached this topic in a different thread. But even if he didn’t, this topic belongs in a discussion about Iran.
I KNEW I should have bought dollars ahead of time for my summer vacation. Grumble.
South Koreans usually aren’t fazed by North Korea’s saber-rattling, but I think everyone’s a bit nervous at this point. I hope our government doesn’t do anything stupid. There have been conservative protests in the streets demanding action against North Korea, but I honestly don’t know what they want the government to do - how is it supposed to respond in a way that isn’t going to get us all blown up?
Do you live in Seoul? If N. Korea attacks, will you help set up a perimeter around Pusan?
South Korean, born and bred. If NK attacks, I’m hoping it’s while I’m on vacation in Ireland. 
Is it? How many SK flights have been crossing NK?
There won’t be a military response to the initial attack. The question is, when North Korea next provocation comes… what will be the response then? There are no non-military options left.
Perhaps the plan is: entice the North to fire some missiles. Step aside and let them hit American stuff. Then let America worry about retaliation.
That’'s what I would do anyway.
The United States and South Korea have a mutual defense treaty. If North Korea “fires some missles” at South Korea, it doesn’t matter if they hit American or Korean targets.
Really? So you think the situation in Korea would be the same today if it has been a United States Navy vessel that was torpedoed on March 26, sinking with the loss of forty-some American lives?
Of course it does. North Korea has already fired on South Korea, that’s what started this whole mess. The US is not going to intervene with force unless Americans are killed, or American aircraft are shot down, or American ships are sunk. Maybe not even then – but the South can always hope.
Two words for you: USS PUEBLO.
I was obviously addressing the seriously mistaken view that the United States Forces Korea would sit idly by and do nothing if North Korea were to start lobbing missiles at Seoul.
Well, using a great circle calculator (and I’m afraid the size is pretty small), I would guess that anything between Seoul and Europe or North America would tend to cross over North Korean airspace. Since they’ve explicitly had an agreement to let South Korean planes fly over, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have done so.
I’ll agree that Kim is not crazy. He has done impetuous things (like kidnapping movie directors) because nobody’s told him not to. After all, if you’v been kidnapping people for years just to teach Japanese to your spies, what’s one more pair of abductees?
Remember that:
(a) there’s some question how good the NK nuclear test explosion was. My first impression was that the thing half fizzled, but the sources very quickly shut up about it because they did not want to rub it in the North’s sensitive face that they had failed.
(b) someone tried to kill Kim by blowing up his train last year. The paranoia is real and the politics are deadly.
We have this impression that these guys - Saddam, Kim, Stalin, etc. - are absolute rulers and can do anything. The truth is very different. Even suspicion of plotting against the ruler will earn you a death penalty, but people continue to do it regularly. The “absolute dictator” is engaged in a very delicate balancing game and one which also needs massive security apparatus just to forestall serious attempts on his life. There are factions and the leader has to balance them off, or some people will commit suicidal attacks which may just succeed - whether they do because they hope to succeed, or because they expect to die anyway.
The recent attack was in part retaliation for the rpevious incident, I’m sure. I suspect there’s a tug-of-war between factions. One side wants more detente and in the tradition of dictator states, the graft that comes with it. The other side recognizes that any ties with the outside world, and especially the enemy, are destabilizing; contact makes it easier for outside forces to infiltrate and make it easier for rivals to gain the resources to challenge the leader.
So raising tensions probably helps cut off possible support for rivals, and makes it harder for anyone to try something that might overthrow him.
He’s not as dumb as he looks…
Most flights from Seoul to North America stop in Osaka or Tokyo first, I think.
Anyway, avoiding North Korean airspace can’t be a major inconvenience, and presumably would be something they’d be doing anyway now to avoid running into some rogue AA fire.
KAL 007 was shot down by Soviet interceptors for inadvertently crossing into Soviet airspace (and overflying Soviet territory) at least twice.
The plane was never even near North Korea.
Of course, you just know the next Irish Civil War is gonna break out at the same time . . .