North Korea's recent announcement that it had entered a ‘state of war' with South Korea was the latest in a long line of escalating threats and postures adopted by all sides in the current crisis on the Korean peninsula. Retaliating, the US, South Korea's principal ally, said it would soon send a missile defence system to Guam to defend South Korea as US military adjusts to what Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel called a ‘real and clear danger' from Pyongyang. Hours later, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea had moved what appeared to be a mid-range Musudan missile to its east coast. North Korea also repeated its threat to launch a nuclear attack on the US. Pyongyang said it had ratified a potential strike because of US military deployments around the Korean peninsula that it claimed were a prelude to a possible nuclear attack on the North. It was not clear if the North planned to fire the rocket or was just putting it on display as a show of force. The US has also flexed its muscles during annual military drills with South Korea, flying two radar-evading stealth bombers on a first-of-its-kind practice bombing run over South Korea. Are the North Korean threats genuine or partly intended for domestic consumption to bolster young leader Kim Jong-un ahead of celebrations marking the anniversary of the April 15 birthday of Kim Il-sung, the state's founder and the younger Kim's grandfather? Or are they mere reaction to new UN sanctions imposed on the North after it carried out its third nuclear test in February? Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental US with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve nuclear-arms capability. North Korea has previously threatened a nuclear strike on the US and missile attacks on its Pacific bases, including in Guam, a US territory in the Pacific. Despite the rhetoric, Pyongyang has not taken any military action and has shown no sign of preparing its 1.2 million-strong armed forces for war as the White House itself said. Whatever the case may be, the US regards some -at least-of North Korea's actions and statements over the last few weeks as ‘a real and clear danger,' as Hagel told an audience at the National Defence University in Washington. Or, according to Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, are they ‘yet another offering in a long line of provocative statements that only serve to further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community and undermine its goal of economic development'? There have been such threats for about fifty years now. Security crises on the Korean peninsula have come and gone over the decades and have tended to follow a similar pattern of white-knuckle brinkmanship that threatens but finally pulls back from catastrophic conflict. North Korea's founding leader Kim Il-Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-Il were both considered skilled practitioners of this high-stakes game of who-blinks-first diplomacy. Though the world has become used to the rhetoric North Korea routinely hurls at Seoul and Washington, serious action is badly needed and it should be forthcoming from very circles most directly concerned to get the conflicting parties to ‘stop threatening' and ‘start talking' lest the soaring tensions on the Korean peninsula take a familiar game into dangerous territory. It is China's job to stop their puppet from attacking their largest customer. C'mon, China, step up to the plate for your own good. It is China's job to stop their puppet from attacking their largest customer. The danger of ‘miscalculation' is especially high from North Korea's young supremo Kim Jong-Un and therefore China, step up to the plate for its own good. Then, there is a major role for the United Nations whose HYPERLINK “http://www.un.org/sg/" Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed the current crisis on the Korean peninsula ‘has already gone too far,' following an announcement by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to restart its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. “I am deeply troubled. As Secretary-General, it is my duty to prevent war and to pursue peace. It is also my responsibility to state that the current crisis has already gone too far," Mr. Ban said. “Nuclear threats are not a game. Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counter-actions, and fuel fear and instability." The Un Chief thus called for dialogue and negotiations, underlining that this is “the only way to resolve the crisis," and expressed his readiness to help all the parties involved to this end. The whole world is sincerely hoping this ugly game is over soon.
