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Manage the situation without a military clash

Published: 13 Oct. 2024, 19:56

South and North Korea are exchanging thorny accusations after the North claimed that South Korean drones had penetrated its airspace three times in October alone and spread leaflets denouncing the Kim Jong-un regime in “skies above Pyongyang.” When asked about the volatile issue in the National Assembly last week, Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun denied that our military had sent such drones to the North. But after one hour, he said, “I can’t confirm if the North’s claim is true.”

After our government showed strategic ambiguity, the truth behind the drones over the capital city of North Korea will likely remain a mystery for a while. Given the analyses by our military and drone experts, we can think of various scenarios, including the possibilities of our forces or civilian groups dispatching the drones or the possibility of the North self-fabricating the drone flights or simply making false accusations.

In December 2022, North Korea flew several drones into our airspace and took photos of sensitive facilities in Seoul. After the shocking infiltration, the Yoon Suk Yeol administration established the Drone Operations Headquarters in 2023 and displayed sophisticated drones during the Oct. 1 Armed Forces Day parade. If the drones were really sent by our military, it means they could penetrate the North’s airspace without being detected. But if the movement of the drones were really captured by the North’s reconnaissance equipment, it shows loopholes in our “stealth drone operations.”

Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a free North Korea, denied his group’s “dispatch of the drones this time.” North Korea may have cooked up the story given its urgent need to highlight the South’s security threat to cement its internal control or fuel its residents’ animosity toward the South after Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean relations as “being between two hostile states.”

Some security analysts lowered the possibility of the North’s self-fabrication as the leaflets revealed the Kim dynasty’s corruption and failed governance. Other experts link the North’s recent replacement of its defense minister to the responsibility for failing to block the drone penetrations. On Saturday, Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong said, “If South Korean drones are discovered once again, it will lead to a terrible disaster.”

National Security Office Director Shin Won-shik said, “The North won’t wage war [against the South] if it doesn’t want to commit suicide.” The North’s repeated dispatch of waste balloons to the South certainly deserves criticism. But raising the level of tension with provocative rhetoric is not desirable, either. Our government must manage the situation to prevent an accidental clash.