North Korea Continues Aggressive Actions

One of the costs of committing so many troops to Iraq and Afghanistan is that we don't have the resources to effectively deal with other potential emergencies, like

North Korea threatened a military response to South Korean participation in a U.S.-led program to seize weapons of mass destruction, and said it will no longer abide by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

“The Korean People’s Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with “prompt and strong military strikes.” South Korea’s military said it will “deal sternly with any provocation” from the North.

Pulling out of the 1953 armistice is a fairly dramatic gesture, and it's definitely threatening. The defense of South Korea is complicated by Seoul's proximity to the border with North Korea: