That's Not Good.

Today (23/11) the Americans and the Chinese are meeting to discuss how best to get North Korea to give up it's nuclear weapon(s). The North Koreans have not been invited to this meeting.

Obviously angered by the perceived snub the North Koreans have responded by firing over 200 artillery shells into South Korea killing 3 South Korean Marines, injuring 17 more and at least 3 civilians. As North Korea and South Korea are technically still at war with each other this has got a lot of people very worried because this incident certainly breaches the ceasefire agreement and artillery barrages are normally the sort of thing that turn cold wars into shooting wars. When at least one side has nuclear weapons this is generally considered a very bad thing.

While this is clearly a very tense situation there shouldn't be too much to worry about because this is the sort of unsophisticated diplomacy that everyone's come to expect from North Korea. Whenever the North Korean government wants something, be it attention or more usually money, they go and do something dangerous, provocative and downright silly. This gets the World to focus on them and puts other countries under great pressure to give them things in order to stop them doing dangerous, provocative and silly things. This particular instance is more dramatic then most because North Korea is in the process of grooming Kim Jong-un to take over power from his father Kim Jong-il. As such the North Korean military are using this as an opportunity to school the younger Kim in their particular way of doing business. Also people have recently been comparing North Korea to Britain. This has offended the North Koreans because not even they would be prepared to put up with the crap the British tolerate from their own dear leaders.

Hopefully what will happen now is that the Americans will discreetly speak to the South Koreans and the Chinese will discreetly speak to the North Koreans to make sure that this doesn't escalate any further. So with a bit of luck this will calm down again right up until the North Koreans decide they want something else.