Ho Ryung Lee, Director of the Security and Strategy Center at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, notes that North Korea's recent strategy of "complex provocation" integrates military actions with gray zone tactics, like trash balloon campaigns. This strategy aims to enhance the effectiveness of nuclear coercion, increase public anxiety in South Korea, and strengthen internal control within North Korea. Lee predicts that in the latter half of 2024, North Korea will emphasize the repetitiveness, simultaneity, and persistence of these complex provocations to sustain the fatigue of the South Korean military and the anxiety of its citizens, rather than drastically escalating tensions on the Peninsula.

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