# What the hell is happening in Korea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 6, 2024, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251 "2024-12-06T11:37:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/1 "2024-12-06T11:37:30Z")
The President declared martial law and apparently tried to have the leader of his own party (and much of the opposition) suspended as NK sympathizers. Does this make more sense in context? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/2 "2024-12-06T11:48:19Z")
Here’s 60 posts (and still adding more) on the topic with LOTS of explanations: > [@South Korea Declares Martial Law](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-korea-declares-martial-law/1011111): > > What the hell? I’m a pretty well informed person, I read The Economist and the BBC on a daily basis. And while I’m aware that South Korea has some issues, like a real problem with gender equality and a plummeting birth rate, I certainly haven’t been hearing about anything that would remotely warrant martial law. Does anyone have any insight into this? Is it as frightening as it sounds? It’s so new that the only news available is what I posted- no real details on what’s going on and what it m… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/3 "2024-12-06T11:57:31Z")
Thanks. Didn’t think to look in MPSIMS. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/4 "2024-12-06T11:58:52Z")
Here’s a short(ish) video explaining it pretty well. It’s still really weird though. Hard to understand what the SK leader thought he was doing and how it would work. That still seems a big question mark. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/biCFL7ML_MQ/maxresdefault.jpg "South Korea Declared Martial Law… For Six Hours. Here’s What Happened.") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biCFL7ML_MQ) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/5 "2024-12-06T12:02:51Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Thanks. Didn’t think to look in MPSIMS. I use search when I’m interested in finding a thread on a topic that may or may not exist. Rather than manually trying to scan each category I can think of. To locate that thread so I could link it for you I did [in:title korea after:2024-12-01] and there it was. Good bet any thread on this event will include “korea” in the title. And would have to date from after the event had started. The Discourse advanced search page is very useful for controlling parameters of your search to reduce the problem of finding either nothing, or hundreds of false hits. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/6 "2024-12-06T12:07:12Z")
I live in South Korea. Martial law was declared late Wednesday night and countermanded by Korea’s parliament before the start of business Thursday. President Yoon is finding out the hard way that his powers have limits. Until pretty recently, all ROK presidents either died in office or were marched out in handcuffs, and Yoon looks to be returning to this standard. If you watch _The Daily Show_, Ronnie Chieng showed a clip of an overnight protest of the martial law, and an unarmed protester repelled an armed soldier with some Taekwondo moves. South Korea conscripts all male citizens into their armed forces, so the average protester has had the same fight training as the average soldier. They use martial law sparingly these days, mainly for this reason. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/7 "2024-12-06T12:38:32Z")
I think the bottom line is that none of the soldiers wanted to to be the first to shoot, and none of the officers wanted to be the first to give the order to open fire. When the protestors realized that it was all over. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-korea/1011251/8 "2024-12-06T13:32:27Z")
See here: > [@South Korea Declares Martial Law](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-korea-declares-martial-law/1011111): > > What the hell? I’m a pretty well informed person, I read The Economist and the BBC on a daily basis. And while I’m aware that South Korea has some issues, like a real problem with gender equality and a plummeting birth rate, I certainly haven’t been hearing about anything that would remotely warrant martial law. Does anyone have any insight into this? Is it as frightening as it sounds? It’s so new that the only news available is what I posted- no real details on what’s going on and what it m…