At first glance, the white balls in the sky hardly look like any danger. For weeks, hundreds of them have been sailing from north to south in the border region of the Korean peninsula. They look slow, peaceful, almost beautiful.
But in South Korea, which has been formally at war with the North for almost three-quarters of a century, this sight is not enjoyed. There is trash in the balloons. Sometimes it’s cigarette butts, sometimes it’s excrement. And it just doesn’t stop.
South Korea’s threat has a new quality
Since the end of May, a total of around 5,500 garbage balloons have flown south near the border on 22 days, and around 120 recently sailed through the air again. And in South Korea people are no longer just amused or annoyed, but also worried and even increasingly aggressive.
Media quotes residents in the border region to the north who express fear of the balloons. You don’t know what’s inside. At Incheon, the country’s largest airport, operations had to be interrupted repeatedly.
The South Korean military is increasingly emphasizing that this must be enough. Last week it threatened in a statement: “If the security of our citizens is seriously threatened or the North crosses the border, our military will take strict military action.”
To some ears this may sound like a war threat from the South. Because why else should it be the military instead of the President or the Ministry of Unification that makes such a statement?
In the conflict between the North and the South, this announcement has a new quality. Since the Korean War (1950 to 1953) – which began with an attack by North Korea and resulted in millions of deaths – ended in a ceasefire, the louder threats have mostly come from the North.
The capitalist and now democratic South Korea is significantly wealthier and is under the nuclear shield of the USA. For poorer North Korea, the military is life insurance.
A populist now also rules in South Korea
Amid serious human rights violations and repeated missile tests, North Korea has also been burdened with increased UN sanctions since 2017, banning almost all trade with the state. In 2019, negotiations between North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un and then US President Donald Trump over a possible end to sanctions and an end to the North Korean nuclear program failed.
Against this background, North Korea’s Kim has apparently given up on the idea of reaching an agreement with South Korea and the USA. Instead, he is seeking confrontation – including through increased cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country has also been burdened by international sanctions since the renewed attack on Ukraine from 2022. North Korea doesn’t just support Putin’s war against Ukraine. South Korea is also threatened with war.
Since the right-wing populist Yoon Suk-yeol was elected South Korea’s president in spring 2022, the tone has also become harsher in the south. He wanted to “teach Kim manners,” claimed the now 63-year-old Yoon Suk yeol, who could be Kim Jong-un’s father in terms of age, during the election campaign.
From then on, Yoon oscillated between offers of help and threats in his approach to North Korea. Military maneuvers with the USA and Japan were increasingly carried out. Armament is being upgraded, but threats have mostly remained indirect.
The opportunities for exchange and rapprochement have not been so difficult for a long time.
Koh Yuh-hwanChairman of the Korean Institute of National Unification
“Nobody in Korea is interested in war,” said Koh Yuh-hwan, chairman of the Korean Institute for National Unification, a state-funded think tank that advises the government on a variety of North Korea-related issues.
Koh, who stands for exchange rather than confrontation, means: Neither in the south nor in the north do they want a military conflict. But he also says: “The opportunities for exchange and rapprochement have not been so difficult for a long time.”
Koh does not want to say directly whether South Korea is also overreacting in the tense situation. With reference to the North Korean balloons, the military emphasizes that they don’t just get upset about rubbish. “These have timers attached to them so that they will eventually burst and then throw the trash,” said Lee Sung-jun, director of public relations for the South Korean military. “It also led to a fire recently.”
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When asked by the media, spokesman Lee Jung-sun did not want to answer questions about what exactly the mentioned “limit” would be at which South Korea would become militarily active – nor what exactly “strict military measures” would look like.
But he did say: “North Korea’s provocations in a gray area are expanding in the long term and are causing inconvenience and fear among the public.” That doesn’t sound like a reason for military counterattacks, but it is still fueling the conflict.
The past shows that North Korea is unlikely to feel discouraged, but rather encouraged. It is therefore to be feared that at some point there will be an escalation that no one actually wanted. In previous years, similarly difficult situations were sometimes the moments in which a hand was extended, followed by a phase of relaxation.
However, this role mostly fell to South Korea, from where the statements of the past few weeks tend to point to further escalation.