In the past week, North Korea has launched hundreds of balloons bearing what North Korean officials claim to be 15 tonnes of trash. Their reason? To “let the South Koreans experience enough of how dirty it feels and how much joint effort it takes to clean up spread out rubbish,” said Kim Kang II, North Korea’s vice-defense minister.
A Psychological “Trash War”
South Korea views the balloons as an “irrational act of provocation” by the North Korean government. South Korea’s defense minister, Shin Won-sik, went so far as to inform U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that, according to the South Korean military, the balloons violated the 1953 armistice agreement between the two Koreas.
North Korea views South Korean leaflet balloons in the same manner, as evidenced by Kim’s statement. Leaflet balloons have been launched by South Korean activists into North Korea since the 1950s. These balloons contain leaflets, among other items, that critique the Kim regime and its policies.
The two countries have been locked in a psychological war since the Korean War and are still technically at war to this day. Each side seeks to influence the attitudes of the citizens of the opposing country. South Korean activists seek to send the outside world into the severely isolated North. The North, on the other hand, favors terror.
The trash balloons should not be dismissed as just a nuisance. The balloons send the message that next time, North Korea could send bags filled with biological, chemical, and even radiological weapons. Some of the bags the trash was sent in also contained timers that had the ability to pop the bags while in the air. Should timers be included in a balloon carrying weapons, and should they actually work, there could be catastrophic results.
Why Send Them Now?
The trash balloons aren’t a random act of aggression by North Korea against its southern neighbor. Since the 1950s, South Korean activists, mostly North Korean defectors, have sent balloons of their own into North Korea. These balloons have carried leaflets critiquing the Kim regime, medicine, bibles, food, and even USBs containing news and information about the outside world.
In 2020, South Korea President Moon Jae-in of the centrist-liberal Democratic Party of Korea caved to pressure from North Korea, led by Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong, to crack down on the activists. A law that criminalized the launch of balloons from South Korea into North Korea went into effect in 2021. The law was immediately controversial, with critics saying it violated freedom of speech rights.
It wasn’t until last year, under President Yoon Suk Yeol of the conservative, right-wing People Power Party, that the law was repealed. The full resumption of the leaflet campaigns likely motivated North Korea to retaliate.
Future Actions
A South Korean official has already declared that “unendurable” measures will be taken against North Korea in response to the trash balloons. Another official from current President Yoon’s office threatened the resumption of the use of loudspeakers to play propaganda across the demilitarized zone, a practice that ceased in 2018 thanks to an agreement between the two countries during Moon’s presidency. South Korea’s presidential national security council also decided to suspend that 2018 agreement.
North Korea maintains that its actions were strictly retaliatory, but tensions continue to rise and fears of North Korean use of nuclear weapons continue to increase.
It’s important not to underestimate North Korean aggression. While “trash warfare” may seem silly, the future it could lead to may very well be dangerous.
Katelyn Livorse is a junior studying political science and French at Grove City College and an intern at The American Spectator.
