How worried am I supposed to be about what's happening between North and South Korea?

Pretty serious stuff.

Any ideas on WHY N Korea might have done this?

Distract people from the hardships of home?

There's a good article in today's NY Times that addresses this question

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/weekinreview/30sanger.html?hp



The author goes on to explain why this crisis may not be part of this infuriating, but heretofore containable cycle.

Rogue states like North Korea and Iran are extremely dangerous, because they cannot be relied upon to always step back from the brink.

The price of militarily putting an end to North Korea's provocations and threat is not something the South Koreans are willing to pay, and who can blame them.

The dilemma is that any one of these provocations can escalate into a situation where the price will be paid despite what saner minds want. I would even suggest that as long as the current regime is in power the odds are that at some point provocation will escalate into much broader military action.

There seems to be little hope that the regime will pass away on its own, or that the populace has any ability to send it packing, and so we are faced with the continued Russian Roulette that is trying to contain a nuclear North Korea, hoping that Kim Jung Un is a little less unstable than his father Kim Jung Il.

I suppose our best hope is that the regime will undergo an internal power conflict that results in someone other than a Kim running the show. Although it seems like just about everyone in Korea is named Kim, Park or Lee, so the chances of another dictator named Kim, albeit unrelated to the current mad dwarf, are pretty good. This is, in essence though, the problem. Whether a Kim, a Park or some other name, whoever rises to power after Kim Jung Il is not likely to be anything of a reformer, and will continue to rule North Korea with an iron fist. Perhaps a little less insanely though.

There is no good, let alone simple, solution to North Korea because they have nuclear weapons.

This is why the United States should do everything in its power - including military intervention - to stop Iran from obtaining the means to create the same insoluble dilemma in the Middle East.

North Korea threatens our interests only to the extent it threatens our allies in the region - South Korea primarily, but Japan as well. Indeed, its threat as a source of black market nuke technology is of serious concern, not to mention its efforts to develop long range missiles, but, at present, it cannot really do anything that will immediately or directly bring us to our knees. Not so with a nuclear armed Iran.

For what it's worth, I am more worried about conventional artillery within range of Seoul than any nukes they might have.

Their conventional weapons are, of course, of concern, and they can do great damage to South Korea (not to mention our troops stationed there) with them, but the fact that they have nukes makes it more likely that they will use their conventional arms.

While I doubt that even Kim Jong Il believes South Korea would not respond militarily to a brazen attack against Seoul, he knows they will be forced to only go so far or risk a nuclear attack.

I am too busy to google up anything, but I heard it is the anniversary of a stouch between the two over the disputed area where the north copped a flogging and have been bitter ever since, nautically speaking...

I'm not. Conventional fixed artillery would be very vulnerable to bombing attacks of the type used to subdue the Iraqi army. A few dozen missiles and a couple hundred bombing runs and no more big guns. Nucs are one shot kills.