What I found of most interest in this article is that US soldiers are training to look for North Korean “mad scientists”. Wouldn’t this be something the ROK Army would be better equipped to do then having random patrols of US soldiers in North Korea trying to find these scientists?:
A soldier with the Fort Riley, Kan.-based 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division crouches on a staircase during a drill at Rodriguez Live Fire Range, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016. The exercise was held with the 501st CBRNE Company as part of training to increase the readiness of troops to confront threat of chemical and biological weapons and nuclear weapons.
The U.S. soldiers donned gas masks as they cleared building after building after receiving intelligence that North Korean scientists were cooking up chemical weapons in the vicinity.
They found the makeshift lab with beakers and tubes filled with a yellow substance in a room off the icy rooftop of a two-story brick building. It was time to call the 501st CBRNE Company (Technical Escort), a specialized unit trained to deal with weapons of mass destruction.
The scenario was part of a training exercise, but the dangers facing the soldiers stationed near the front lines of the divided peninsula are all too real.
North Korea has demonstrated alarming progress in its nuclear weapons program this year, with two underground atomic explosions and two dozen ballistic missile tests.
But the Stalinist state is believed to have vast stockpiles of other nasty stuff, too.
“North Korea has the full spectrum of all types of chemical and biological weapons … and they’ve weaponized all of it,” Lt. Col. Roberto Salas, commander of the 23rd Chemical Battalion, told Stars and Stripes. [Stars & Stripes]
North Korea is preparing to conduct its next nuclear test amid disturbance in South Korea. Pyongyang will reportedly conduct another test around the time of South Korea’s presidential election, a high-profile North Korean defector has said.
Bit of a political gamble. Most folks tend to resist being threatened. Especially such obvious theatrics as popping off a nuke during an election. Makes the pro-North candidates look like the puppets the North accuses Park Geun-hye of being.
It’s all in the timing. Will popping off a nuke during the South Korean elections push the voters towards more conservative candidates, or pro-North Korean candidates?
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/north-korea-reportedly-set-hold-nuclear-test-during-south-koreas-presidential-election-1597980
Bit of a political gamble. Most folks tend to resist being threatened. Especially such obvious theatrics as popping off a nuke during an election. Makes the pro-North candidates look like the puppets the North accuses Park Geun-hye of being.