This revised and updated version of the author's earlier “North Korea's 100th - To Celebrate or To Surrender?” was prepared for the Korean journal Changbi. Given strong interest in the issues, The Asia-Pacific Journal is publishing the updated version.

Spring always brings reminders of the abiding insecurity that stems from the continuing division and confrontation of two states and systems on the Korean peninsula. On the one side, South Korea and the United States conduct large-scale military exercises, involving land, sea and air forces, (Operations Key Resolve and Foal Eagle) designed to rehearse a reopening of war. North Korea inevitably raises its levels of alert and readiness and its tone of belligerence, and in such climate the Cheonan incident occurred in March 2010.