I've not heard a plausible explanation for the non response to those war like events. Is there one? Should we expect anything different if a new attack occurs? What will obama do? Perhaps send a strong objecting letter to the North?
Zero to Kim:
We have stockpiled mountains of harsh words.
Our forces of mild rebuke are at a hair trigger status.
My State Department flacks are poised to invade the chambers of the
UN at a moment’s notice and beg for a weak sanction.
I could have a whole flotilla of ships steaming at full throttle to North Korean ports to deliver proper rewards for bad behavior.
Zero brandishing a pen) “Don’t make me use this Kim!!!”
What you haven’t heard are the large number of incidents over the years where the NKors try it on, to greater or lesser effect, and often gets seriously slapped by SKor.
For example, some years ago the NKors crossed the naval border with warships, and the SKors were there, Johnny-on-the-spot with more capable warships. One of the NKor ships foolishly opened up on an SKor ship with of all things, small arms fire.
The SKor ship responded with its Phalanx CIWS at pretty much point blank range, and about cut the NKor ship in half, horizontally.
And violent incidents happen on the DMZ all the time. I new a former Warrant Officer who was manning an LP/OP when they lobbed over a mortar round that seriously crippled him up. But he was a font of information on the subject.
He said one incident he was amazed got zero press was when the NKors sent an entire platoon across a river at night, who then snuck into an SKor barracks and murdered a bunch of men before retreating. They made one mistake, however. They tried to do it again at the same river crossing, which was now heavily armed and watched 24/7. Cost them an entire platoon.
As far as the SKors go, their soldiers are intensely trained and chomping at the bit to fight the NKors, so it was said for many years that the US was there to prevent the SKors from invading the North.
Out of decades of crap like this happening, the only event which got any attention was the axe incident on the border, and then, only because there was civilian witnesses.
Oh, and one thing, after the bombardment of Yeonpyeong island, the SKors responded with counter-battery fire, which with western technology is insanely accurate. The NKor units that fired on the island were probably reduced to scrap.