“From this moment, the supreme command of the Korean People’s Army will be putting into combat duty posture No 1 all field artillery units, including long-range artillery units and strategic rocket units, that will target all enemy objects in US invasionary bases on its mainland, Hawaii and Guam,” said North Korea’s military command, as stated in their KCNA news agency.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, has been unimpressed but wary of Korea’s antics. “We’re concerned about any threat raised by the North Koreans,” a spokesman said, as was reported by the Guardian. “They need to stop threatening peace on the peninsula, that doesn’t help anyone … and we stand ready to respond to any contingency.”
Leonid Petrov, a North Korea expert at the Australian National University, said: “It’s attention-seeking behavior. It’s like a child in a candy shop: if you haven’t bought him a lolly and don’t pay attention to his tantrums he tries to intimidate you with things – even if they are self-harming.
“North Korea really doesn’t have the capability to strike the US, though they could strike US interests in north-east Asia and South Korea. They can spur another round of the arms race, as they have already done successfully. I don’t know who benefits from that, but it’s obviously not the North, because they can’t afford it.”
“It is more of a message to the domestic population. Despite all the promises of the last year about people leading a better life, the imperialists are about to attack so you have to forget that. The North is trying to seal the loyalty of the people, insulate the country and buy more time for the regime to survive.”
If he is right, North Korea is demonstrating a lot of madcap posturing to cover the real state of affairs: that their people are starving and their economy is in shambles. WAR IS PEACE, their slogan might read, according to the old military shrewdness that an external enemy unifies a people. What this ultimately means for the U.S., what we will have to do to respond to the vicious nonsense, remains to be seen.
