'Dirty things': North Korea drops trash-filled balloons on South Korea
USA TodayMAY 2024
North Korea Attacks South Korea With Trash-Filled Balloons
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Above: Balloons carrying anti-North Korea leaflets are released by North Korean defectors, now living on South Korea on February 16, 2013 in Paju, South Korea. Image copyright: Chung Sung-Jun/Staff/Getty Images News via Getty Images
The Spin
Anti-North Korea narrative
The ridiculousness of the waste-filled balloons aside, Pyongyang's potential to integrate balloons with modern warfare tactics is quite high. They offer advantages in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, operating at altitudes and capabilities for wide-area monitoring. Historically used for propaganda and other purposes, balloons are cost-effective tools in the modern geostrategic environment and the North's actions must be closely monitored.
Pro-North Korea narrative
For some time now, South Korean activists have been sending anti-Kim Jong-un pamphlets into North Korea via balloons, despite a ban. While they also send balloons carrying vitamins and painkillers, propaganda is a key motive — especially against North Korea’s nuclear program. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s government is supportive of such activists. The North is now answering them with both proportionality and wit.
Metaculus Prediction
There is a 26% chance of at least one fatality from nuclear detonation in North Korea by 2050 if any detonation occurs, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
