North Korea has abolished key government organizations tasked with managing relations with South Korea, state media said Tuesday, as authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un said he would no longer pursue reconciliation with a rival he declared as his country’s most hostile adversary.
The Korean War never actually ended. It’s a frozen conflict with the demilitarized zone serving as a defacto border. Because of this, both the south and the north never demilitarized. The US and South Korea still to this day conduct massive military exercises which, from North Koreas perspective, could be used as cover for an invasion. While Americans have largely forgotten about the war, it still plays a large role in Korean policy decisions on both sides of the divide.
For anyone who has never been to the DMZ in Korea, it’s worth a visit. It’s been decades since I went, but when I was there the room that they use to meet had big North Korean guards on one side, hard-eyeing the big (The picked guys who were all like 6’5" or something) guards from the South. Like that feeling you get when you’re out at night and a couple guys start eyeing each other and you know shit is probably about to go down. That’s how it felt in the room. Like the guards were ready to start brawling at any second. It was very tense, weird, and surreal.
The Korean War never actually ended. It’s a frozen conflict with the demilitarized zone serving as a defacto border. Because of this, both the south and the north never demilitarized. The US and South Korea still to this day conduct massive military exercises which, from North Koreas perspective, could be used as cover for an invasion. While Americans have largely forgotten about the war, it still plays a large role in Korean policy decisions on both sides of the divide.
For anyone who has never been to the DMZ in Korea, it’s worth a visit. It’s been decades since I went, but when I was there the room that they use to meet had big North Korean guards on one side, hard-eyeing the big (The picked guys who were all like 6’5" or something) guards from the South. Like that feeling you get when you’re out at night and a couple guys start eyeing each other and you know shit is probably about to go down. That’s how it felt in the room. Like the guards were ready to start brawling at any second. It was very tense, weird, and surreal.
Yeah, I should put quotes around “ended”.