Psychological warfare has long been utilized as a strategic tool in conflict resolution and manipulation. In the case of the two Koreas, this form of warfare has taken on a unique and creative approach through the use of K-Pop music and trash balloons. This unconventional method serves as a means to influence, intimidate, and provoke psychological responses from the opposing side.
K-Pop, a genre of popular music originating from South Korea, has gained immense global popularity in recent years. By blasting K-Pop music across the border into North Korea via loudspeakers, South Korea aims to infiltrate North Korean society with Western culture and values. The upbeat tunes and catchy melodies serve as a stark contrast to the regime's propaganda-filled media landscape.
Since late May, North Korea has sent over 1,000 balloons that have rained trash and manure over South Korea. North Korea’s vice-defence minister said the provocation was a “tit-for-tat” move in retaliation for South Korean activists sending balloons across the border with leaflets criticizing North Korea’s human rights abuses.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to these leaflets because most of its 26 million people have no official access to foreign TV and radio.
After sending over 700 balloons, North Korean vice-defence minister Kim Kang Il announced on June 2 that the balloon activities would cease and that North Korea had proven its point to the South. But he warned the campaign would resume if South Korean activists continued to send leaflets.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) has maintained North Korea is “fully responsible” for the current situation and urged the North to “immediately stop such mean acts like sending waste balloons.”
In a statement Monday, a JCS spokesman would not say whether the South would continue to broadcast over the loudspeakers, noting only that the military would conduct missions “with flexibility according to the strategic and operational situation.”
The escalating tit-for-tat has sparked concerns of potential retaliatory military action. Last week, the South Korean government suspended a 2018 deal to reduce military tensions with the North, allowing it to resume propaganda broadcasts and potentially restart military exercises along the border.
South Korea’s military once routinely deployed propaganda broadcasts as a means of psychological warfare against the North, until it withdrew the equipment following the 2018 deal.
South Korean leaflet activists "human scum" and in 2020 demolished an inter-Korean liaison office during a spat over leaflets. In 2022 they claimed that these "alien things" could carry the coronavirus.
The flights are also controversial in South Korea where some residents have clashed with activist groups, arguing the balloons are confrontational and put them at risk.
The smart balloon group said South Korean marines near the border have previously verbally warned them away from conducting launches. The military has said troops have no right to restrict balloon launches by private groups.
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