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]

Gigantic army?
NK military budget: $1,7bn (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/North_Korea.pdf)
SK military budget: $29bn (according to Wikipedia)

Who is victim?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

South Korea's military, counting all reserves: 3,000,000.

North Korea's military, counting all reserves: 9,000,000.

Who is the greater threat to whom?

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

1. The total military reserves of SK: 5209000 with 12,5bn potential military workers
2. 9bn soldiers with shovels and axes -- that's really frightening to death

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually North Korea's troops have 60s-era weapons, though Kim Jong Un would no doubt try hurling all 13 million (if you count the entire manpower pool North Korea *still* comes out superior to South Korea) troops at once, plus there's the reality that wiping out Seoul is equivalent to disemboweling South Korea while North Korea's still too much of a shithole for bombs to do anything significant to it.