21st Century Korean War

call his bluff imo.

Guardian :

Eleven years ago South Korea turned off the loudspeakers it used to broadcast propaganda across the demilitarised zone (DMZ), heralding a friendlier, “sunshine” policy towards its neighbour in the north.

This week, as relations between the two Koreas plummeted after a landmine injured two soldiers on border patrol, the loudspeakers were back in action. This time Seoul turned the volume up even higher, setting up stall at several points along the frontline to barrage the North Korean army with anti-DPRK messages.

The broadcasts provoked outrage among the North Korean leadership, which said the mine explosion had been part of a South Korean plot to escalate tensions and bring down the regime. On Thursday Kim Jong-un convened his National Defence Commission, promising military strikes if the propaganda was not stopped and instructing border troops to “enter a wartime state to be fully battle ready to launch surprise operations”.

Taking North Korean rhetoric at face value is a hazardous business, but usually the messages have some meaning. A handful of North Korean army defections in the past year suggest that the military leadership has good reason to be sensitive to the effects of Seoul’s propaganda on its troops – many of whom are underfed and several inches shorter than their southern peers.

The mobilisation will keep the army attentive and the rural population engaged in a crucial harvest as the 10 October commemoration of the founding of the Korean Workers’ Party approaches. Every work unit and overseas North Korean business has been gathering gifts for the leadership and working strenuously to prepare for this event.

The anniversary on 10 October would be a logical date for another nuclear or missile test intended to further cement the charismatic leadership of the Kim family, showing the population that progress on North Korea’s much-vaunted Byungjin line, the policy of pursuing parallel economic and nuclear weapons development, is being made.

At the same time, the latest moves remind North Koreans that the country is in danger of imminent war and help to justify chronic shortages of consumer goods and predictable shortfalls in the economic sector.

One analyst went as far as to suggest on Twitter that the escalation might have been provoked as a welcome distraction to internal conflicts:

Is it just me that thinks the NK PM looks like Michael Mcintyre?

I've read more out-there conspiracies on the internet, and even on this forum