Those Damn Islets, Northwestern Edition

For every step in the right direction toward closer and deeper relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, there is the ever spiraling nuttiness over Dokdo
/Takeshima/ the Liancourt Rocks.

In a piece for The Diplomat, Rajaram Panda of the Instite for Defence Studies and Analyses chides South Korea for spending money on a deep water naval pier for the island of Ulleung, the spot of dry land nearest to the DTLR (why not coin an acronym?). What is fascinating is not the article itself, which is a level-headed plea for level-headed thinking about the ROK's actual security needs. It is the comment string afterward, which demonstrates just how insanely worked up South Korean activists can get about a set of islets which Japan will never, ever do anything about, save make pro-forma statements about how they are a part of Japan.

India, of course, has recently completed work on an agreement nailing down its disputed border areas with its least threatening neighbor and moving now on to new, less lethal means of enforcing that border, all so that the Indian government can concentrate on its border disputes with the two countries that really matter to Indian security.

Seen from New Delhi, South Korean wackiness over the DTLR must look like a tremendous waste of money and emotion.