Nordkorea - bisarrt, fascinerande, sjukt

North Korea may have successfully bluffed its way into getting the US to stop holding massive army drills with South Korea's army.

According to the FT, South Korea has politely asked the US to "delay" joint military exercises until after the Winter Olympics, in order to lower the chances that North Korea takes provocative actions during the Pyeongchang Games, which Seoul wants to use to showcase the country’s development. The unexpected request means that Seoul will want to postpone the start of the annual spring exercises — called Key Resolve/Foal Eagle — until after the Paralympics, which end on March 18. And since the FT's sources said the US was likely to accept the request, it means that Pyongyang has just succeeded in getting the US to bend to its demands that the US and South Korea stop conducting army drills on its border for at least three months.
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The decision is also good commerce: Seoul is worried that the current tensions on the peninsula will cool demand for the Pyeongchang Olympics and Paralympics, particularly since ticket sales have been weak, and are about to get much weaker now that Russia has been effectrively banned. Another reason for poor ticket sales is that China has banned tour groups from visiting South Korea since March, because of a dispute over an American missile defence system that Seoul allowed the US to install in the country earlier this year.

But the real reason behind South Korea's request for the US to keep away may be far simpler: Seoul wants to rebuild bridges with its far more important, and closer neighbor, China.

One of the people familiar with the South Korean request said it was probably partly an effort to gain goodwill with China, in the hopes that Beijing would relax the travel restrictions. He added that China was looking for ways to restart de-nuclearisation talks, and that Beijing viewed some recent US actions, such as putting North Korea back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, as an obstacle to those efforts.

“A delay in the exercise would be a prudent move to decrease tensions . . . as athletes and guests from around the global come to a South Korean city only 50 miles from the demilitarised zone,” said the person, who added that the need for major exercises was reduced because US and South Korean troops had done extensive training this year.

And since the US has yet to respond formally, there are two points of view: those who say a delay will not be a problem to the US, and obviously, an opposing camp who claim that such a delay would be risk.

The newly-established unit would use "new media" channels to push its message and "set the record straight", Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said.

President Bush has said recently that terror groups were trying to influence public opinion in the US, describing their efforts as the "war of ideas".

A 2015 version of the list included more than 9,000 people, according to news reports. The list contained some of South Korea’s most beloved filmmakers, actors and writers, including the director of “Oldboy,” Park Chan-wook, and the “Snowpiercer” actor Song Kang-ho.

The blacklist is just one element in the sprawling case that has infuriated the public and prompted national introspection about South Korea’s young democracy and its authoritarian past.