this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
94 points (98.0% liked)

World News

38830 readers
2033 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

North Korea blew up the northern parts of inter-Korean roads, amid rising tensions over the North's claim that South Korea flew drones over its capital.

South Korea's military said it fired warning shots near its heavily fortified border on Tuesday after North Korean forces reportedly destroyed roads along the border.

It comes days after the North vowed to permanently seal off its southern border.

top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Interestingly, I think this indicates the outbreak of real hostilities is slightly less likely. The existence of roads in/around the DMZ would be to the benefit of the party launching an offensive. The fewer roads there are, the harder it becomes to effectively deploy troops south of the line.

Blowing up transportation links is a defender's trick. The attacker seeks to preserve them to aid in further troop movement and supply. Unless the plan is to launch a limited attack and then sit back in a defensive posture. I don't see how a war of attrition benefits the North though, with their much smaller population and economy.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Maybe they're sending everything to Ukraine and just want to make sure the South doesn't get any idea

/jk

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

I'm not even sure if that is a joke. If they've sold a lot to Russia and are paranoid about the south exploiting their relative weakness, removing road links would make sense.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

South Korea doesn't want to invade. The costs of rehabilitating the North Korean people would be crippling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I unironically think that that’s NK’s logic here, despite the fact that there’s an approximately 0% chance SK would EVER launch an unprovoked invasion of the north.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

NK is probably doing this because they don't have any big rockets to shoot into the ocean right now. Anything for attention.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Really good thoughts. And pontoon bridges or other temporary structures have their limitations.

With that said, I don't really see S. Korea wanting to invade N. Korea. Short of a radical change in leadership.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There have been reports that North Korean troops are now in Ukraine.

Could this indicate that North Korea is switching to a defensive posture along the Korean DMZ if they are deploying troops to Ukraine?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

North Korean troops are in Ukraine to gain valuable experience in modern combat, and bring it back to the DPRK. As well as to serve as technical advisors and in theater support personnel for North Korean systems being deployed by Russia.

They aren't there as a reserve source of cannon fodder, or secondary invasion force. Some have already died, and more will, but they're not there and enough numbers to seriously weaken their domestic security concerns, and that's not their purpose.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago

I know what will stop those drones.... blowing up the roads, of course that's the only way the drones can get to the capital.....

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The photo the DPRK released showed a fairly small drone with a triangular shape. It doesn’t look sufficiently large to fly all the way from the ROK to Pyongyang, drop some leaflets and return to the south, meaning they should have been able to recover the crashed drone. Also, if it were a civilian group, they usually take credit for the balloons they send and none have said anything about sending a drone to the north. It really seems like something might be going on internally and the DPRK is trying to blame whatever is happening on outside agitation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

This time civilian groups might be laying low as they might have broken the law regarding flying things around the DMZ

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They also sent garbage to SK to no repsonse and no purpose.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

The garbage was in response to leaflets being sent north by SK. But it was both a non-proportional and just gross response.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Is this what they meant that North-Korea is entering the war? Will the Axis of Dictatorship go all out?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is North Korea shitting their pants that their military doctrine (I assume based on Russia's) is fucked?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Russia is not following their own military doctrine - or at least not what we know of it (which comes from Soviet doctrine) where Russia (and Ukraine) follow their known doctrine they get better results long term (but short term what they are doing gets faster results but it isn't sustainable)