Gigantic South Korean loudspeakers blare BTS music. Large North Korean balloons carry manure, cigarette butts, and waste batteries. Small South Korean civilian leaflets slam North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.<\/p>\n
This dystopian psychological warfare scenario is starting to play again like the height of the Cold War era, leaving the distension of 2018 so far in the past that it\u2019s like it never even happened.<\/p>\n
The heavily fortified border is again filled with tensions.<\/p>\n
Associated Press<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201cOn Sunday, South Korea redeployed its\u00a0gigantic loudspeakers\u00a0along the border for the first time in six years and resumed anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts. The broadcasts reportedly included K-pop sensation BTS\u2019s mega-hits like\u00a0\u2018Butter\u2019\u00a0and \u2018Dynamite\u2019, weather forecasts, and news on Samsung, the biggest South Korean company, as well as outside criticism of the North\u2019s missile program and its crackdown on foreign video.<\/em><\/p>\n South Korean officials say the ear-piercing broadcasts were retaliation against North Korea\u2019s recent series of\u00a0balloon launches\u00a0that dumped trash into South Korea, though it suffered no major damages. The North says its balloon campaign was a tit-for-tat action against South Korean activists flying political leaflets critical of its leadership across the border.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n For North Korea, the broadcasts and leafleting campaigns are a huge provocation. They reinstalled its own propaganda loudspeakers at the border, but haven\u2019t switched them on.<\/p>\n The psychological warfare, that the two Koreas agreed to halt in 2018, is fully back on.<\/p>\n \u201cSome frontline North Korean soldiers testified after their defections to South Korea that they had enjoyed South Korean broadcasts that contained pop songs and accurate weather forecasts that warned of potential rain and advised them to gather up laundry hung on outdoor clotheslines.<\/em><\/p>\n In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting the South to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Back in 2018, things were much calmer, and North Korea even received some of the South\u2019s biggest pop stars for a rare performance. Kim reportedly called it a \u2018gift to Pyongyang citizens\u2019.<\/p>\n The psychological warfare increases the risks of direct military clashes between the Koreas.<\/p>\n \u201cDiplomacy between the two countries remains derailed since a broader U.S.-North Korea nuclear diplomacy collapsed in 2019. So it could be difficult for the rivals to set up talks as an off-ramp to get off the cycle of tit-for-tat tensions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And the threat of escalation and direct conflict is by no means simply a theory, since it now arises that a skirmish at the border has led to South Korean troops firing warning shots:<\/p>\n Daily Beast<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Korea\u2019s military fired warning shots when a group of around 20 North Korean soldiers crossed the nations\u2019 land border over the weekend, Seoul\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n The northern troops crossed the military demarcation line inside the DMZ separating the two countries at around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to a JCS spokesman. The breach took place amid heightened tensions between the two countries over the waves of\u00a0balloons carrying trash and excrement\u00a0which\u00a0Kim Jong Un\u2019s regime has floated southwards over the border.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n North Korea\u2019s \u2018Rocket Man\u2019 Kim Jon Un Halts the \u2018Excrement Balloon War\u2019 Against South Korea<\/a><\/p>\n\n The post Thundering Loudspeakers, Leaflets and Excrement Balloons: North and South Korea Restart Cold War-Era Psychological Warfare<\/a> appeared first on The Gateway Pundit<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gigantic South Korean loudspeakers blare BTS music. Large North Korean balloons carry manure, cigarette butts, and waste batteries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n