North Korea’s government on Friday firmly suggested that the diplomats present at embassies in Pyongyang consider taking their leave, in yet another escalation of their war of words. Across the border in South Korea, the question of whether or not their own nuclear arsenal is required to meet Northern aggression has taken on a new impetus in the last weeks.

Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday announced a new overseas trip that would take him the Korean peninsula, primarily to deal with the heightened tensions in East Asia. South Korea’s semi-official Yonhap news agency is also reporting that formal talks to revise a U.S.-Republic of Korea bilateral nuclear accord would take place soon after Kerry’s visit.

South Korea is one of twenty-four other countries engaged with the U.S. in what are known as 123 Agreements — so-called because they are established under Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The U.S. is also in the process of negotiating 123 Agreements with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam.

Under the terms of the 123 Agreement — which was last renegotiated in 1974 — South Korea currently operates 23 civilian nuclear reactors at four sites across the country. But under the 1974 agreement, South Korea was barred from reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel, due to fears of it being diverted towards a nuclear weapons program. That provision is what’s currently spurring South Korea’s push to open new talks over the agreement.

The argument over reprocessing, however, is being looked at under a new light, given the turning tide among South Koreans over whether their country requires nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent against the North — which at present possesses enough nuclear fuel for at least 10 plutonium-based nuclear bombs. Two recent opinion polls taken in South Korea showed two-thirds of those surveyed supported the idea of developing nuclear weapons to defend against a North Korean attack. Conservative politicians in South Korea are beginning to latch onto this idea as well:

“We, the Korean people, have been duped by North Korea for the last 20 to 30 years and it is now time for South Koreans to face the reality and do something that we need to do,” said Chung Mong-joon, a lawmaker in the governing Saenuri (New Frontier) Party and a former presidential conservative candidate. “The nuclear deterrence can be the only answer. We have to have nuclear capability.”

At present, the Republic of Korea falls under what’s known as the U.S.’ “nuclear umbrella,” a pledge to use its own nuclear weapons in the protection of South Korea in exchange for them not developing their own. That pledge was likely the deciding factor in the launch of B-2 stealth bombers over South Korea last week, a show of force meant to both reassure South Korea and warn Pyongyang. South Korea’s determination to allow for reprocessing, however, have some concerned that Seoul is no longer completely certain of the U.S. ability to keep them safe. At the same time, a new poll out by Gallup found that 55 percent of Americans said the U.S. should defend South Korea if the North attacks.

However, experts say that not only is it a bad idea for the South Koreans to push for nuclear weapons, but they’re also unlikely to go in that direction. It “would deeply undermine the security situation on the peninsula and the leadership in Seoul understands this,” Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball told ThinkProgress. “Talk about South Korean nuclear weapons only makes the situation worse and would further goad the North.”

“Developing a nuclear weapon would be disastrous to the world’s 13th largest economy that is heavily dependent of international trade,” said James Lewis, spokesman for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in a statement released this week. “There would be no smartphones, fashion or superstars like Psy. South Korea can either have Psy or a nuke — they will likely pick Psy.”

CNN reported Thursday morning that intercepted communications indicate that North Korea may be planning to launch ballistic missiles “within days,” in yet another potential escalation. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin also told a government panel on Thursday that North Korea has moved a medium-range missile to its eastern coast, possibly in preparation for either a test or military demonstration.

North Korea’s threat comes from three factors: the unpredictability of its leader, Kim Jong Un; its ongoing nuclear weapons program; and its large amount of conventional weapons. Despite the difficulty it has seen in testing and its lack of large stockpiles of fissile material, North Korea’s nuclear program remains a major concern. North Korea appears to have jump-started the process of getting its plutonium reactor at Yongbon back online, but it will possibly take years to produce enough material for new weapons. At present, North Korea is estimated to have enough plutonium for 10 nuclear warheads, but Pyongyang’s ability to shrink down a nuclear warhead to the size where it would fit on a missile has advanced significantly and the country theoretically maintains rudimentary delivery methods within the region. There is also concern that North Korea could sell its weapons and/or weapons technology to third parties.

Even in light of Pyongyang’s nuclear capacity, North Korea’s large array of missiles and rockets remain a considerable threat to the peace and stability of the region. Of those conventional weapons, North Korea’s short-range Scud and Rodong missiles pose the greatest risk to U.S. assets in the area, given their high number and accuracy. With an estimated 1,800-mile range, the Musudan medium-range missile — which is mostly likely the type moved to the North Korean cost on Thursday — also may pose a significant threat, but its effectiveness has been questioned given the missile’s lack of prominent testing.

North Korea’s longer range missiles — the Taepodong-2 and Uhna rocket — are less reliable, both in accuracy and in performance. In 2006, a test of the Taepodong-2 completely failed, as did its use in an attempt to place a satellite in orbit in 2009. In Dec. 2012, North Korea did successfully test the Unha rocket, claiming to use it to a satellite in orbit. Estimates of the range for the Unha places it at approximately 4,500 miles — able to reach the U.S. West Coast — although experts have said that it is highly unlikely that North Korean missiles can hit the U.S. mainland and the Unha’s accuracy is completely unknown.

In any case, it is more likely that the launch of North Korean missiles would be a threat to U.S. allies and assets in the region, including South Korea and Japan. South Korea is well-within range of the shortest range missiles, with Seoul being only 35 miles from the Demilitarized Zone. That short distance also lends itself to the possibility that North Korea could drop a nuclear bomb on the country, rather than launch a nuclear warhead. Japan, while not particularly caught in this current spiral, has also been on the receiving end of North Korea’s threats. The two countries are home to a combined 64,000 U.S. forces, stationed in bases at Okinawa, the DMZ, and other locations.
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North Korea has ratcheted up tensions on the Korean peninsula another notch, this time barring South Korean workers from accessing an industrial complex shared between the two countries.

Beginning on Wednesday, North Korea announced, the Kaesong industrial complex would no longer be allowing in workers from the South, nor shipments of goods, effectively shutting down the one remaining open entry point between the two countries. Seoul has indicated that its 850 citizens working at the complex’s factories at the time of the announcement will be allowed return, but few have done so yet:

The BBC’s Lucy Williamson, at the border, says many have decided not to return immediately because they fear they will not be allowed back in.

One South Korean worker who returned from the complex said some of his colleagues had been held up because they had no transport.

“Other people couldn’t return because they were supposed to be taken home on trucks scheduled to carry supplies into North Korea, but the trucks couldn’t get into the North,” said the worker.

South Korea has demanded that the access point be reopened immediately, and warned of retaliation in the event that South Koreans are harmed. More than 100 South Korean industries have production facilities at the Kaesong complex, which combined pay over $90 million in North Korean salaries every year.

Opened in 2004 as a gesture of goodwill between the states, the Kaesong complex is one of the few legal methods remaining for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — as the reclusive communist regime is formally known — to acquire hard currency. This isn’t the first time the complex has been closed; it was briefly shutdown in 2009, as a protest over joint United States-South Korea military exercise, but there’s no indication as to how long this closure may last. Meanwhile, the Demilitarized Zone — the 2.5 mile wide stretch of land between the two countries — is still being patrolled so far, ruling out any immediate threat of renewed fighting between the two countries.

The move from North Korea is the latest in a long string of moves that has observers of the situation on edge. While no new military movements have been detected on the part of North Korea, its rhetoric has made predicting the North’s next action difficult. On Tuesday, North Korea announced that it intended to restart its shuttered nuclear facilities, which are capable of producing plutonium and enriched uranium.

General U.S. James Thurman — commander of the U.S. forces in Korea and head of the United Nations Command there — spoke with ABC News about the continuing escalations on Tuesday in a rare interview. Asked whether he felt that North Korea’s rhetoric was just empty threats, Gen. Thurman replied, “No, I don’t think that they are. We’ve got to take every threat seriously.” In response to provocations from the North, the U.S. has positioned two warships capable of downing ballistic missiles off the Korean coast.

(Photo: Trucks re-enter South Korea from the North. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency)

With the U.S. election finally over, it’s entirely possible that some poll junkies are already looking for their next fix. While some may be jumping ahead to the 2014 midterms, or even the 2016 Presidential race, an easier solution would be to look at the multitude of elections coming up around the world. According to the National Democratic Institute’s 2012-2013 election calendar, there are still plenty of races to keep an eye on while the U.S. settles down.

Japan

Japan currently doesn’t have elections officially scheduled, though they must be held no later than May 2013. But in August 2011, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda promised that elections would be held “soon.” Since then, Noda has said that he is in no hurry to open the polls, fearing a “political vacuum” in the run-up to the vote and facing a fiscal cliff of its own at the end of November.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of the Liberal Democratic Party is particularly interested in having the chance for his party to reclaim control of the Cabinet given unpopularity of the Democratic Party of Japan in opinion polls. No matter who wins the eventual election, both Abe and Noda are signaling that a more muscular foreign policy may be ahead for Japan.

South Korea

The Republic of Korea’s Presidential race will conclude on Dec. 19. Leading the polls is Park Geun-hye, heading the Saenuri, or New Frontier Party. Park is the daughter of former President Park Chung-hee, who held power for sixteen years following a 1961 military coup and his election in 1963. Park has defended her father’s actions in the past, saying “I don’t think it’s the place of politicians to be fighting over whether [Park's rise to power was] a ‘coup d’etat’ or a ‘revolution.”

Park’s main competitors, Moon Jae-in, nominated to head the Democratic United Party following the end of current President Lee Myung-bak’s term, and independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo merged campaigns recently. Park is seeking to keep pressure on the duo though by pledging to ease Lee’s hardline stance against North Korea, even indicating that she’d be willing to meet with new North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

Israel

Israel will be choosing members of the 19th Knesset on Jan. 22, 2013. Israeli lawmakers voted on Oct. 16 to dissolve and move elections up from October 2013. In a surprise move, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avadgor Lieberman then announced the merger of their two parties as the new Likud Beiteinu.

Many experts have said it’s nearly impossible for the center and left-wing parties in Israel win, though Netanyahu’s new party may not wield quite as much power as currently thought. However, it’s unclear what a dominant Likud Beiteninu means for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and it looks like more heated rhetoric toward Iran is on the horizon.

Iran

Iran won’t be holding its presidential election until June 2013, but it’s worth it to starting to watch now. The race to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has yet to solidify into solid candidates, but speculation is already occurring. Some believe that Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, an ally of Ahmadinejad, may be being groomed to take over in 2013, despite Mashaei’s run-in with conservatives. Ali Akbar Velayati, former Foreign Minister of Iran, has also been mentioned as a potential candidate. Velayati has the advantage of having Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s ear and a history of work on difficult negotiations.

Whatever the result , the un-elected Khamenei holds the real power in the Islamic Republic. While Ahmadinejad has already started to feel the effect of his lame-duck status, whomever wins in June won’t wield the power that many associate with so high an office.

China

The Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Congress is kicking-off and in a completely choreographed event, over two thousand delegates will come together to begin the process that ends with current Vice President Xi Jinping being named the party’s leader and thus head of state. These delegates — who are not democratically elected — will still cast votes for those who eventually will winnow down to the either seven or nine members that will form the Politburo Standing Committee, the head of the country.

The Congress will also decide who sits on the Central Military Commission and amend the Party’s Constitution. All told, the Congress will usher in a new generation of Chinese leaders, though the previous may still seek a large role in determining China’s direction.