North Korea launched another flotilla of trash-filled balloons toward South Korea, Sunday, just three days after Seoul resumed daily propaganda broadcasts along the border in a tit-for-tat move to counter Pyongyang’s balloon offensive on Thursday.
This latest launch marks the North’s ninth “balloon offensive” since the first one in late May. In response, the South’s military has fully implemented its loudspeaker broadcasts along the DMZ starting Sunday afternoon.
Observers say that the South Korean government seems to be caught in a chicken-or-egg dilemma, highlighting the need for more effective measures to address the intensifying cross-border psychological warfare.
In a text message sent to reporters around 9:15 a.m., the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that the balloons appeared to be heading toward northern Gyeonggi Province.
The military detected around 360 balloons in the air, with approximately 100 falling within South Korea’s territory, mostly in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province.
“We will respond firmly to these balloons using the loudspeakers currently in operation,” a JCS official told The Korea Times shortly after the balloons were spotted.
Later in the day, the JCS announced that it would operate all fixed loudspeakers across the border regions simultaneously from 1 p.m.
Since last Thursday, the military has been operating several fixed speakers from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., deployed along the western, central and eastern sections of the DMZ, with broadcasts differing by region and time.
From now on, the speakers will be turned on in all border regions at the same time each day until the North halts its balloon launches, a military official said.
These broadcasts include K-pop songs and news critical of the North Korean regime, such as recent reports on the defection of North Korean 스포츠 diplomats to the South. High-powered speakers reportedly have a listening range of 10 to 30 kilometers, depending on the equipment and time of day.