Tensions on the Korean Peninsula took a turn for the worse this week when North Korea launched hundreds of balloons transporting a nasty surprise for residents in the South — garbage and manure — framing it as retaliation for anti-regime leafleting by ROK activists.

For Moon Chung-in, a former special adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in during the heady days of inter-Korean diplomacy in 2018, it was a depressing spectacle. 

“It’s not just an impromptu response to the sending of balloons: They warned, then they showed,” he said, referring to a statementby the DPRK’s defense minister days before.