North Korea’s trash balloons have become a new headache for South Korea. The filthy contents stir up disgust and require considerable manual effort to clear the debris strewn across the ground.

The North has sent over 6,000 trash balloons as of Wednesday, keeping South Korea’s military on high alert while also occupied with detecting and retrieving them.

Pyongyang’s dirty campaign is its version of the “garbage for garbage” tactic as the North claims the trash balloons are a retaliatory response to South Korean activists sending anti-Kim Jong-un leaflets, which the North dismisses as mere garbage. The activists, however, argue that their efforts help keep North Koreans informed about events outside their isolated country.

Are the trash balloons just a tit-for-tat move in a psychological warfare campaign, as the North claims?Maybe not. North Korea’s trash balloons carry a hidden danger. As some analysts suggest, the trash balloons could be an experiment to develop crude, low-cost weapons designed to exploit
security blind spots — a possibility that cannot be ruled out.

Policymakers and military strategists should be fully prepared for this possibility and develop tactics to counter the North’s efforts.

Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) cautioned against North Korea’s potential weaponization of trash balloons. During a National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee inspection of the Ministry of Unification, Tuesday, the lawmaker said North Korea continues to send thousands of trash balloons, likely to explore their use as a tool for soft terrorism.

“North Korea will be able to accumulate a considerable level of data needed to develop weapons. For example, by sending those balloons to the South, the North can obtain data like how far balloons with a certain weight can travel and how the direction of the wind would affect their trajectory,” he said, adding that such data is needed to develop weapons that can carry biological or chemical agents or other dangerous materials.

T
he lawmaker urged Unification Minister Kim Young-ho to implement measures to prevent North Korea from sending the balloons, emphasizing that collecting garbage is not the ministry’s intended responsibility.

Rep. Yoon’s observation is valid. Trash balloons rigged with explosive timers and gunpowder detonators have sparked 18 fires nationwide. According to the military, while the gunpowder alone is insufficient to cause an explosion, it can ignite fires upon contact with flammable materials. This indicates that, if maliciously used, the balloons could serve as a crude yet potentially deadly weapon.

The National Assembly’s bipartisan support is more than necessary to help the nation prepare for all possible scenarios. Unfortunately, bipartisan measures are rare, even on defense and North Korea-related issues. Partisan politics dominate the legislature, making it a chronic barrier to formulating consistent policies.

The National Assembly’s inspection of the unification ministry on Tuesday highlights the destru
ctive nature of partisan interests and their role in the inconsistent approach to North Korea policy. North Korea’s trash balloons were addressed as a bipartisan concern. But there was a perception gap between conservatives and progressives about why the North launched the filthy campaign and how it could be deterred.

Lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) claimed that activists should stop flying leaflets toward the border as this is what North Korea wants, urging the unification minister to crack down on the violators and take necessary measures.

But the ruling PPP lawmakers dismissed their DPK counterparts, saying that cracking down on the activists for flying leaflets violates freedom of expression as the Constitutional Court ruled against the ban on sending leaflets to the North last year.

A war of words won’t protect the nation from North Korea’s growing threat. It’s essential to build consensus and bipartisan support to enable the military to develop an effective strategy,
ensuring the nation is better prepared for the North’s diversification of weapons.

Source: Yonhap News Agency