A new report from the Yonhap News Agency has confirmed reports of North Korea re-arming the border between North and South Korea. Officials with the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the military leadership in Seoul, told them that they detected North Korean soldiers installing the new landmines in late 2023. Littered along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), now they are removing streetlights on their side of the border and making it a clearly defined piece of no-man’s land. North Korean President Kim Jong-un now seems to be solidifying his border for war.

As the report by Chae Yun-hwan for Yonhap continued, “The moves came after the North’s leader Kim Jong-un called for scrapping a decades-long policy of seeking unification with South Korea and defining their relations as those between “two states hostile to each other.” In January, Kim gave instructions for “strict” measures to block all the channels of inter-Korean communication along the border, such as cutting off the Gyeongui land route to an “irretrievable level.”

Moves like this, along with Kim confirming South Korea as their mortal enemy back in January, have all but put the wheels in motion for war. As South Korea is incredibly vulnerable, even with its troops, the US military is largely responsible for its defense. Troops stationed in South Korea have no illusions about the situation.

While the posturing from North Korea comes in waves and is largely laughable, these latest tactics imply that they could be looking to start an aerial attack against South Korea. These landmines would prove to be a huge deterrent against South Korea and the US sending in ground troops in response. As such an aerial attack could prove to be incredibly dangerous, especially as Russia has already been battle-testing North Korean drones against American detection systems in Ukraine.