Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeRedskin
South Korea admitted: 1) conducting drills in disputed waters; 2) firing shells.
"Pyongyang accused the South of firing first. The Southern military said it had conducted exercises but shelling was directed away from the North."
BBC News - North Korean artillery hits South Korean island‎
Not saying this provides an excuse to shell innocent civilians.
Similarly, CRR, in your hypothetical, the problem is that it was occuring in disputed waters which are slightly more amorphous than the Mexican army marching north of the Rio Grande to conduct drills. If Mexico conducted naval drills in US waters, I suspect they would be kindly asked to leave by a couple of USAAF wings who might, while conducting drills of their own, accidently drop a few air to surface missiles near some Mexican ships. Regardless, I doubt anything short of an armed invasion of undisputed US territory would provoke the US into shelling civilian areas.
SK & NK govts. extremely dislike each other and would like to wipe the other off the face of the earth. BUT - neither of there supporters are willing to just let them duke it out. So, like two little kids who don't like each other, they do everything they can to provoke the other into starting a fight so they can claim self-defense.
Just reading the reports, I think this will blow over although China is royally pissed that we parked an aircraft carrier group off their border in support of SK. Pretty sure we would feel the same if they, in support of NK, gunned up right next to Japanese waters. |
I agree about my very weak hypothetical. I thought of using the Bering Sea, or some other waterway, but couldn't find one that made sense. Another problem with my hypothetical is that Mexico and the US have decent relations overall. What I was trying, and failing, to do was evoke a sense of outrage that NK might claim to feel. Look, to us it's a silly line on the map, but maybe the better one would have something from the Civil War era. This is one country that is split in two due to political ideology. Add to that the fact that one side is failing economically and is stagnant, and the other is pretty robust, and you get a very toxic environment.
All that said, this will blow over, unless either China or the US miscalculate a response. The key is good communications between our governments. Like JR said, the Chinese don't like our aircraft carrier, and that is pretty understandable since they have demonstrated themselves to be formidable offensive weaponry.