The Siberian Light blog noticed a South Korean article back in March 2005. According to the JoongAng Daily, Seoul recently asked Moscow for the right to conduct military exercises in the region of Khabarovsk, near Russia's narrow border with North Korea. Commenters at the Marmot's Hole blog have suggested that this is expressing a desire to threaten Pyongyang from the north, when in fact it confirms what I've argued previously here.

For all the talk in Washington D.C. about Seoul pursuing a policy of appeasing Pyongyang in the vain hope of forestalling the enormous costs of national reunification, South Korea is beginning to prepare for the worst. Or what it now perceives to be the worst case scenario - checking a mass exodus out of North Korea, rather than beating back an invasion.

The infrastructure for these "exercises" in fact is being built to support a surge of humanitarian forces into the area, just as the Six Party Talks have been about establishing a forum for the surrounding nations to handle Korean reunification, rather than merely ridding North Korea of its nuclear arsenal.