Russians Warn that North and South Korea on the Brink of War

A Russian diplomat is claiming that North and South Korea are one step from conflict.

From the Telegraph article by Andrew Osborn:

"In Moscow's bleakest assessment of the situation on the Korean peninsula yet, Russian deputy foreign minister Alexei Borodavkin said tensions between the two countries were running at their highest and most dangerous level in a decade.

"'Tensions on the Korean Peninsula could not be any higher. The only next step is a conflict,' he told foreign policy experts at a round table on the subject in Moscow.

"His prediction came two months after North Korea vowed to wage 'a sacred war' against South Korea and its biggest backer, the United States.

"Tensions bubbled over in March after Washington and Seoul concluded that a North Korean submarine had sunk a South Korean naval vessel in the Yellow Sea. Mr Borodavkin called for the investigation into exactly who was responsible for the sinking of the vessel, the Cheonan, to be urgently closed in order to remove an obvious source of tension."

Maybe. Maybe not. North Korea is frustratingly difficult to analyze and great fans of brinkmanship. The people within the government seem to be completely uninhibited by logic and practicality, and continue to perpetrate some of the stupidest provocations possible-- from kidnapping a 13-year-old Japanese girl (and many others) to kidnapping South Korean movie directors and actresses. Is something a little more conventional, like the torpedoing of a South Korean warship, a sign of increasing bellicosity? Hard to say.

Whatever the case, Obama's penchant for downplaying American military might and his outright disinterest in protecting American allies has done nothing to help the safety of South Korea and other American allies in Asia.