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.
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.
Maybe they’re sending everything to Ukraine and just want to make sure the South doesn’t get any idea
/jk
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.
South Korea doesn’t want to invade. The costs of rehabilitating the North Korean people would be crippling.
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?
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.
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…
They also sent garbage to SK to no repsonse and no purpose.
The garbage was in response to leaflets being sent north by SK. But it was both a non-proportional and just gross response.
