South Korea has set up a special observatory in Kangwon province to detect any large detonations on North Korean territory, which could indicate nuclear tests.--Stephen V Cole

September 25; South Korea's Ministry of Defense has proposed cutting the South Korean military from the present 690,000 to only 300,000 by 2015. Virtually all of the cuts would come from the ground forces.--Stephen V Cole

September 20; North Korea is setting up its next round of shakedowns by announcing that it's current halt in testing its long range missiles was only temporary. How long the missile test was delayed depended on how much money and other material inducements the US, Japan and South Korea would come up with. North Korea gets away with this extortion because it still has several hundred thousand combat ready troops on the South Korean border and still has the ability to go forward with it's nuclear bomb project. No one wants another war, except, according to frequent public pronouncements, North Korea. The reason is simple, the communist economy up there is bankrupt and there is no hope of  reviving it. The North Korean communists have always been purists, and thus would have a difficult time justifying even the kind of market economy reforms that China, and even Cuba, have successfully undertaken.