I Wonder What They’ll Look Like on a SAM-2 Radar Screen

Plenty of armchair psyoppers, myself included,  have talked about ways to  fly leaflets and other items into North Korea, but here’s the most ambitious concept I’ve seen yet.

A Japanese advocacy group said Tuesday it will use balloons to scatter flyers over North Korea, offering residents a US$10,000 cash reward for information on Japanese citizens kidnapped by the regime decades ago.  [Pravda]

Yes, Pravda!   Not only does it still exist,  but now reports on capitalist conspiracies to  infitrate future former Communist dictatorships, and  even features work-safe  p*rn star picture galleries.  If you’re aware of a more dubious Cold War victory, I’d like to hear about  it.  The leaflets are coming to a bleak and reclusive tyranny near you (but thankfully not near me) in March.

The 5-meter- (20-foot-) long balloons are fitted with simple timers and can be preset to release sacks of flyers over the Pyongyang region, Araki said.

There is also some precedent for this, if any of you have read of the balloon bombs Japan used during World War Two.  I still remember seeing a defuzed one in the South  Dakota  State Museum in Pierre, and  although I was probably just four at the time, I remember it clearly.  A few  of of those balloons hit the United States and started a number of forest fires.  One even caused several fatalities.   

The postcard-sized flyers, which are waterproof and printed in Japanese and Korean, call for details on Japanese citizens abducted by communist agents in the 1970s and 1980s. 

The flyers also offer a cash reward of up to US$10,000 for information on Japanese abductees and urge residents to contact a hot line in Japan or tune in to a radio program the group transmits toward North Korea.

I hope — as the story suggests — that these things have guidance or navigation systems, since I’d hate to  see one  drift over the DMZ and cause any “misunderstandings,” or needlessly confuse  pensioners in Khabarovsk.   These days,  even cell phones carry GPS chips, so I see no reason why a nation as technologically advanced as Japan couldn’t penetrate the North Korean coast in a fairly remote area, and then  drop the leaflets on a more  populated one. 

The other interesting question is just what the groups paying out those rewards get for their money, since retrieving those abductees may not be a simple matter even if someone knows their location.  Still, I like the idea as a demonstration project and for its economics.  I don’t know what these things cost to make, but it’s probably less than an SA-2, a long burst of 57-milimeter fire, or the cost of sending out a battalion of soldiers  to comb an entire square mile for leaflets.   This could greatly raise the cost of not accounting for all of the abductees.