I find this troubling. I’d like to think that this just a ploy on the part of the North Koreans to get a stronger hand in any future negotiations, but in the back of my mind rumbles the thought that NK’s ruled by a total nutjob, who might just decide that he has start flinging nukes now, to prevent the US from invading.
Well, I see your point, Dr_Paprika, but you should keep in mind that N. Korea regularly calls off talks for all kinds of reasons, and virtually every year accuses the S. Koreans and their puppet-masters (umm… that would be us, I guess) of planning invasions and open hostilities.
I saw this on the news (while I was living in Korea) virtually every time the US and the ROK held joint training excerises (once a year, I think…).
Having said that: I wouldn’t be surprised if the NK leadership were a bit taken aback by the speed of the coalition advance into Baghdad. I’m sure it has given them pause for thought. It must be pretty clear to them, however, that the US is not currently planning on invading NK. We have nowhere near the number of troops/equipment in the area to accomplish this. Any hypothetical invasion would require at least a couple of months of military buildup.
Sarcasm doesn’t play well on the SDMB unless you use rolleyes or lots of cues. I’m really not that shocked that this happened. North Korea does have a history of this sort of thing as you point out.
They could do it pretty quick, actually. Almost everybody at this base is on the list to go to korea if it was necessary. And there’s still more bases in japan and around the pacific.
Honestly I don’t think we’re going to invade them until after we’re done with the main chunk of the war in iraq. then we can move more troops from there and concentrate on yet another war.