NORTH KOREA: LESSONS FROM NOV. 23, 2010

CHALLENGES FROM YEONPYEONG

Tong Kim

The Korea Times, November 28, 2010

North Korea’s indiscriminate artillery attack of Yeonpyong Island, killing two South Korean marines and two civilians while injuring 20 more people, was an intolerable and inexcusable provocation that deserves strong condemnation. An exchange of artillery shelling between the North Korean MRLs (Multiple Rocket Launching Systems) with support of coastal howitzers and the ROK marines’ self-propelled artillery guns was the first of its kind since the Armistice Agreement of 1953, which ended the shooting in the war but maintained a technical state of war on the Korean Peninsula.

The North’s surprise attack triggered angry public resentment against the North Korean leadership, without whose order the attack would not have been launched. At the same time, the public was disappointed at the South Korean military’s poor state of combat readiness ― including the failure to anticipate such an attack, despite some physical evidence of the North Korean military maneuvers beforehand and a direct warning from the North against the live firings during the South Korea ``Hoguk” (Defense of Fatherland) exercise.

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