Why must we constantly antagonize North Korea? [View all]
It seems to be a constant pattern. The US and South Korea conduct military drills that piss off North Korea, they react angrily, we conduct more drills, and so on.
We'd be pretty pissed off as well if Russia or China had thousands of troops based in Mexico, and were constantly conducting large-scale war games near the border and right off the California coast. We'd be even more pissed off if Russia few nuclear bombers right off our coast.
Not only that, but NK has repeatedly asked for a peace treaty, which we refuse to do. They've also asked for unilateral talks with the US, which Bush refused and Obama seems to be continuing that refusal.
Doesn't really excuse the temper tantrums and threats coming from NK, but it's not exactly as if we're not doing anything that might provoke such angry reactions. The real problem is that our continuing military drills may wind up pushing an untested Kim Jong-Un into a corner, where he feels that he has to take some sort of military action just to save face with his military. This time around, there's a very good chance of retaliation by South Korea, which could quickly escalate out of control.
Instead of backing away from the situation and letting things cool off, it just seems like we're ratcheting up the pressure. Why?
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