Simple Question of International Import

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

What are the odds that this gets a LOT worse by the traditional spring time offensive season when a young general's fancy turns to invasion?

Brief timeline:

North Korea is accused of torpedoing a South Korean warship.

South Korea fires at North Korean fishing boats crossing the maritime border North Korea refuses to recognize.

North Korea is revealed to have highly modern facilities for nuclear material enrichment.

Not to mention, North Korea is facing the challenge of passing along the regime to a third generation of the Kim family.

North Korea is known for rattling its sabre and demanding to have attention paid to it when it is being ignored, but this is looking like a very different than recent years -- South Korea really has to retaliate...and half of South Korea's population lives in the Seoul metropolitan area within artillery range of the DMZ.

So a question -- is North Korea suicidal or are they betting that this behavior can get them some more winter grain shipments?

Comments

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

And where are all of these Ottomans, Romans, British Empire, German Empire?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Where is the Soviet Empire?

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

There were none. There was USSR and a bunch of countries that have *legally* selected Soviet-style way of life. "Soviet Empire" is a Western euphemism. Communist idea that drove USSR totally crashed in 1968, after so-called 'Prague spring' and USSR and satellites had their logical end in 1991. [Sigh]

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, there damned well was one. The Soviet Empire was not simply the Soviet-friendly Euro-communist societies, it included areas in America and in Asia and Africa. The Communist idea that drove the USSR actually collapsed around 1986 when the Russians chose to give the finger to their Muslim citizens who were no longer afraid what Moscow would do them. They called Moscow's bluff and it blinked and the USSR was done.