Korean War II: Atomic Boo-Ga-Loo?

Hot flashes from the Korean Peninsula:

Choe Sang-Hun / New York Times:

South Korea Removes President Park Geun-hye  —  SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean court ousted the president on Friday, a first in the nation's history, rattling the delicate balance of relationships across Asia at a particularly tense time.  —  Her removal capped months of turmoil …

Discussion:

Anna Fifield / Washington Post:   South Korean president impeached from office over corruption scandal

Peter Weber / The Week:   South Korean court upholds impeachment of President Park, removing her from office

Taegan Goddard / Political Wire:   South Korea Removes President

Ryan Pickrell / The Daily Caller:   Panicked China Is Desperately Trying To Stabilize A Korea In Crisis

Meanwhile, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, typing in Foreign Policy, thinks all involved are ready to shoot first & ask questions later.

North Korea Is Practicing for Nuclear War

North Korea isn’t testing its missiles. It’s preparing for a nuclear first strike.

Pyongyang very vividly demonstrated the warnings from Thae Yong-ho, a high-ranking North Korean diplomat who defected last year and described how the country was taking the final steps to arm its missile units with nuclear weapons. North Korea is developing an offensive doctrine for the large-scale use of nuclear weapons in the early stages of a conflict. When combined with what we know about U.S. and South Korean war plans, this fact raises troubling questions about whether a crisis on the Korean peninsula might erupt into nuclear war before President Donald Trump has time to tweet about it.

[...]

North Korea has started launching Scuds and No-dongs from different locations all over the damn country. These aren’t missile tests, they are military exercises. North Korea knows the missiles work. What the military units are doing now is practicing — practicing for a nuclear war.

The North Koreans haven’t exactly been coy about this. Last year, North Korea tested a No-dong missile. Afterward, North Korea published a map showing that the missile was fired to a point at sea that was the exact range as South Korea’s port city of Busan, with an arc running from the target into the ocean, down to Busan. In case you missed the map, the North Koreans spelled it out: “The drill was conducted by limiting the firing range under the simulated conditions of making preemptive strikes at ports and airfields in the operational theater in South Korea where the U.S. imperialists’ nuclear war hardware is to be hurled.”

This time, North Korea launched four “extended-range” Scud missiles that are capable of flying up to 620 miles. The map showed all four missiles landing on an arc that stretched down to the Marine Corps Air Station near Iwakuni, Japan. Once again, the North Korean statement doesn’t leave much to the imagination: “Involved in the drill were Hwasong artillery units of the KPA (Korean People’s Army) Strategic Force tasked to strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in contingency.”

Also:

Trump’s Ramped-Up Bombing in Yemen Signals More Aggressive Use of Military

Nothing to see here, move along now.

Hope as I do for human extinction, this will no doubt be another exercise in sabre-rattling disappointment. The only intestinal fortitude Trump & Kim have demonstrated is sporting their weird coiffures in public. Posing chickenshits. G'wan, one uh yuh pansies throw a nuke!