Though the recent provocations by North Korea have been termed as highly unacceptable and provocative by countries from all across the globe.
The tensions had the world worried and it fears that the situation could spiral out of control. Major nations of the world have appealed for calm.
North Korean and South Korean guards face each other in the Demilitarized Zone, 2011. Photo: Michael Jesus
North Korea is known for its bizarre ways of life. In a bizarre revelation, it came to light that North Korea's regime policies are not based on relevant facts and concern, rather the Kim's regime is purely guided by superstition. The North Korean regime has a 'fixation' with the number NINE.
In fact, it bases all its important event on dates that sum up to number nine.
According to history, at the time of liberation from Japan, Korea had eight shamans representing the eight provinces. One of the shamans, representing the strongest province of Pyongan-do told Kim il-Sung that the destiny of his bloodline was aligned with number nine. Since then, number nine has become an important feature of the Korean regime.
Consider these facts-
-The founding date of Democratic People's Republic of Korea is September 9 (09/09).
-In the beginning North Korea had five provinces, that number was increased to nine, in accordance with the belief.
-Kim's personal bodyguard corps- Supreme Guard Command was named Unit 963.
-Kims have their own food chain. The chain also uses number nine.
-In North Korea, No 9 farms, No 9 work specially assigned by the central Party's financial administration department.
-The meal of Kims food chain, feeds Kim's family and are called No 9 products.
-Kim Jong-il changed his birth date to 16 February ( 1+6+2=9). Even his vehicle number plate read 2.16.
-Kim Jong-il was appointed on the highest military post on 24 December.
-Kim Jong-un was given the first public role on 27 September 2010.
-It is also said that dates of important rocket launch and missile tests have a close relation to number nine.
-The last nuclear test took place on 12 February 2013 (1+2+2+1+3=9).
-On Friday North Korea has announced it cannot protest foreign embassy staff on 10/04/13 (1+4+1+3=9).
“North Korea will launch an attack,” predicts Sue Mi Terry, a Columbia University professor who served as a senior analyst on North Korea at the CIA from 2001 to 2008. The attack won’t be nuclear, she thinks, nor will it be a barrage from the massive amounts of artillery Pyongyang has aimed south.
Unless North Korea wants to be annihilated, its leadership has to find a way to climb down from its current wave of provocative rhetoric. But one of the CIA’s former top Pyongyang analysts thinks dictator Kim Jong-un will order a limited strike on South Korea — as a way to actually tamp down hostilities.
Instead, Terry believes, “it will be something sneaky and creative and hard to definitively trace back to North Korea to avoid international condemnation and immediate retaliation from Washington or Seoul.” This, she thinks, is what counts as de-escalation in 2013 from the new regime in Pyongyang: a relatively small attack that won’t leave many people dead.
North Korea’s bluster waxes and wanes so often that it’s hard to know what to take seriously. But in recent years, North Korea has shown a willingness to follow its rhetoric with actual violence. In March 2010, it sunk the South Korean corvette Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. That November, Pyongyang attacked the island of Yeonpyeongdo during a U.S.-South Korea military exercise. Today, it moved an intermediate-range missile to its east coast, seemingly a feint at Japan.
“Something like Cheonan is more likely than an artillery strike like the November 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, because it lessens the chance of a definite retaliatory strike by the South,” Terry assesses.
You might not know it from the American debate about North Korea, but Pyongyang has to strike a difficult balance. Regime survival is the top priority of the militaristic nation, Terry believes, so it’s got to signal strength to its own populace while not provoking either the South or the U.S. into a devastating war. “An all-out war with South Korea would spell the end of the North Korean regime,” she says. “Pyongyang knows this and wants to avoid it.”
That right there points to the dangers of miscalculation. South Korea didn’t respond to the Cheonan. But new president Park Geun Hee is “determined not to echo that weakness and has vowed a strong response to any direct provocation,” writes regional expert Patrick Cronin. Terry thinks President Obama will restrain South Korea from a major reprisal — and she wouldn’t “bomb Pyongyang” in any case — but Washington “won’t be making any significant gestures to the North,” either.
The Obama administration’s goal seems to be to give North Korea diplomatic room to climb down without making substantive concessions. It’s sent bombers, fighter jets and guided-missile destroyers to the Korean peninsula, and ordered a missile-defense system to Guam. But, as the Wall Street Journal reported, the administration is “ dialling back the aggressive posture” so Pyongyang doesn’t think an attack is the only way the current tensions can end.
North Korea tends to bluster about attacks it can’t deliver, against foes that could destroy it — albeit at terrible cost, measured in Korean lives. And intelligence assessments are hardly crystal balls.
But if Terry’s assessment proves accurate, the erratic stand-off might get worse before it gets better. “While Washington and Seoul tries to figure out next steps, the North will then engage in a ‘peace offensive’, after a deadly attack, to pressure Washington and Seoul to return to [diplomatic] talks,” she says. But it’s hard to predict either capitol’s willingness to talk if the North starts firing its weapons.
