You may have heard vaguely about the back-and-forth between North and South Korea—it’s gone viral several times on social media. On the surface level, in May, the North began sending childish jabs at its neighbor in the form of balloons composed of human excrement and various trash. Though they have not had any physical effect on South Koreans, they served to greatly anger the South Korean public. Soon, South Koreans amped up their efforts by blaring various anti-North Korean broadcasts on loudspeakers in the DMZ that separates the North and South—one of the most heavily militarized borders in the world. This is not something new—South Korean activists for many years have been broadcasting information as well as sending drones that would drop leaflets and USB drives (full of K-pop videos and even Korean TV shows) in hopes of making a change and exposing the regime to the general North Korean public.
But in reality, this confounding situation goes decades back. The devastating Korean War was a result of tension between the newly separated North, supported by Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), and the South, supported by the United States. After three years of bloody warfare, the two sides settled on a precarious truce, resulting in the cold war that has lasted over seventy years until now. Yes, the war never actually ended. The aid from Russia to the North and the United States to the South has resulted in what we now know as the two very different autocratic and democratic sides of the peninsula. Over the years, there have been attempts to unite the Korean peninsula or come to a solution once and for all, but to no avail. Now, it seems like the situation is finally reaching a breaking point. Taking into account that the North has over ninety warheads, ones that could reach South Korea, Japan, and even the United States, a full-out assault could result in much more than just your favorite Korean celebrities re-entering their “military era.” A second battle between the two countries, though unlikely a full-blown assault, could potentially result in four trillion dollars worth of stress on the global economy—more than double that caused by the Russo-Ukrainian War. The balloon situation may be meme-worthy, but one can not forget that legitimate political tensions are brewing beneath the surface, which could result in real-world implications that could further affect millions more.
Photo Credit Reuters
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