Posted on 12/05/2010 5:45:02 PM PST by jhpigott
2010-12-06 09:53:12 The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Seoul says the military will hold maritime shooting drills at 29 sea locations from Monday through Sunday.
The JCS says that 16 of the drill locations are in the Yellow Sea, including areas southwest of Daecheong Island. Seven of the locations are in the East Sea and six are in the seas off the southern coast of the peninsula.
However, the JCS says the drills will not be conducted in areas around Baengnyeong Island or Yeonpyeong Island near the Yellow Sea maritime border with North Korea. Yeonpyeong was the site of a deadly North Korean artillery attack on November 23rd.
The military says the timetable for drills near Yeonpyeong will be announced soon in consideration of weather conditions and the safety of residents.
ping
It appears the Chinese press is all over this . . .
FLASH: SOUTH KOREAN LIVE-FIRE SHOOTING EXERCISES START — MEDIA
[link to news.xinhuanet.com]
“drills will not be conducted in areas around Baengnyeong Island or Yeonpyeong Island near the Yellow Sea maritime border with North Korea”
Because of that, I would be very very surprised if NK were to react to these drills.
I wonder if things have really changed in SK and they are trying to provoke NK into doing something they will regret?
PING A ROO
Bump
“I wonder if things have really changed in SK and they are trying to provoke NK into doing something they will regret?”
For better or for worse, NO.
This is not provocation.
Provocation is something like sinking a Destroyer or shelling another countrys’ island. These naval exercises happen all the time, even NK does them.
Your missing the point here...
Timing is issue not the action when dealing with lunatics such as NK.
Regardless of the action, how benign it is. It’s a question of timing.
The most commonplace, most reasonable and rational of actions, if they occur at the right time can send any mentally ill person into a full-blown panic or rage.
“I wonder if things have really changed in SK and they are trying to provoke NK into doing something they will regret?”
If that were the strategy, All the SK president would have to do is address the Dear Leader as a fat, drug addict, pot bellied pig.
Are “maritime shooting drills” anything like naval gunnery practice?
;^)
Yep. For now anyways. Still no word when they will start the drills up again by Yeonpyeong Island. When/if they do, that’s when we have to watch out.
One of the locations of the drills will be Daecheong Island, 80 kilometers west of Yeonpyeong Island. The island is near the Northern Limit Line, which North Korea does not recognize.
From: http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/06_01.html
To maximize the psychological impact, they usually hit it when anxiety in S. Korea dies down and things appear to go back to normal. Then they hit again, preferably the place others may not have expected, but not necessarily so.
They had some good results after Cheonan's sinking. Non-stop belligerent posturing ignited fear among some S. Korean electorate and pro-North opposition benefited. They figure that the right level of military provocation would create enough fear among S. Korean population but short of exploding outrage, so that SK population would rather succumb to N. Korea's will, abandoning tough policy against N. Korea, and starting to accommodate N. Korea's NLL agenda.
This time around, outrage won over fear. So far. They could figure the more deadly provocation could change the balance to their advantage. This is to maximize the fear among SK population that they could lose everything they have while giving some room for renewing their vain hope that they may avoid more disaster by placating N. Korea again.
In the end, N. Korea wants Finlandization of S. Korea
I suspect they (the Reds) will start shelling somewhere, probably initially shore to DPRK territorial waters, or within DPRK territorial waters, to make some noise. One thing is for sure, keep one's eye on the little fat, pot-bellied pig one and Junior. If they go to deep ground, either in Pyongyang under KWP headquarters in one of the bunkers, or worse yet, up near Paektu, they could be readying for the final act.
Maybe all these bogus "on the spot guidance" news stories for the last six days are just that..."bogus". Who is to say that he really did visit those various places and on those various days. They could well be going down below at this time.
There have always been credibility problem with these stories.
I guess that is where the “Pyongyangologists” come in, with an incredible eye for detail, eh?
“However the JCS said a drill off Daecheong, one of the five frontline islands, had been delayed due to bad weather.”
Surprise surprise! “Bad weather” once again causes the delay/cancellation of an exercise in an area that might p!ss off North Korea. This must be the 3rd or 4th time an exercise in an area close to NK has been canceled due to ‘bad weather’ or ‘no reason given’ in the past few days while all the other exercises away from the NK border seem to have no problems!
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