WASHINGTON , Dec 12, 2010 (AFP) - The former chief of US intelligence warned Sunday that South Korea has lost its patience with provocations by North Korea and "will be taking military action."
Admiral Dennis Blair, former director of national intelligence, said he did not think that the conflict would escalate into a larger war because North Korea knows it would lose.
"So I don't think a war is going to start but I think there is going to be a military confrontation at lower levels rather than simply accepting these, this North Korean aggression, and going and negotiating," he said on CNN's State of the Union.
Blair, who just returned from South Korea, said a recent North Korean artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed four people, and the sinking of a South Korean warship before that had gone beyond the North's usual pattern of brinkmanship.
"So South Korea is beginning to lose patience with the North, which there was a great deal of patience," he said.
Asked what that meant, the retired admiral said, "It means they will be taking military action against North Korea."
