Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over

Bingo! Korea puts a flag there because it's Korean territory. Koreans are living there because it's Korean territory. There's no dispute there. Like I said if Japan really thinks its theirs have the Japanese go to Dokdo and drive a geomantic spike into the island, and then build a shinto shrine on the island, and just take it. It's not the first time Japan has stolen or taken land from Korea. Just take the fucking island or just shut the fuck up about it, every single god damn year they bring this shit up.

Well, it's not "actively" disputed in the sense Japan is not trying to take it by force, but from what I can tell Japan keeps making active noises every once in a while.

I mean, from their viewpoint, Japan has to. Since South Korea has been practically controlling Dokdo pretty much since the nation was founded, if Japan remains silent they would be basically conceding that the battle is lost.

IMHO, what is a little less explicable is why some South Korean politicians wants to make a huge deal out of this. I mean, we own it right now, and every day we sit on that piece of rock furthers our claim on it. There is no need to advertise that there's any border dispute going on.

But of course politicians trying to score cheap point by appealing to emotional nationalism is nothing new, isn't it.

To the average South Korean, North Korea is surprisingly a non-issue. Most people just don't all that fired up over it and view the efforts around it (mandatory military conscription, etc.) as a huge inconvenience and not much else.

China is mostly seen as a source of cheap stuff and transient air pollution (even when the pollution is clearly caused by domestic activities). When China comes up elsewhere its for reasons of economic competition or having to do with those weird ethnic Koreans that live along the border between China and North Korea.

What South Korea has as its most pressing problems are mostly economic, stagnant wage growth in an advanced economy, pending shrinking population, very limited agriculturally suitable land, an export dependent economy with economically depressed customers and so on. A few years ago the price of cabbage shot up a few hundred percent and almost caused riots. [1] Feeding the population cheap stuff is a national political priority.

You are right though, that the rocks are politically convenient to saber rattle over without having to worry about Japan too much (who does have bigger valueless rocks to fight over with China -- who is solving their problems my simply manufacturing new islands where they want them).

1 - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/world/asia/15kimchi.html

You're talking about the 2002 Korea-Japan fisheries agreement I think, which establishes catch quotas for fishing, but my understanding is that Korea is recognized as sovereign over the islands under precedent (Palmas and Clipperton) since it has permanent habitation and infrastructure, and under UNCLOS but it hasn't been formerly decided under international arbitration since Japan refuses to arbitrate while it's dealing with other Japan-China territorial disputes.

My word I knew it was remote and tough to access but I didn't know it was so overlooked. I remember The Reg launched a charity expedition (called "Rockall Ho!") there a decade back, however: http://m.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/22/rockall_triumph/

As an uninhabitable island with rival territorial claims from Denmark and Ireland mainly because the fishing rights are potentially worth something, it's a better comparison point than an island group which has been continuously occupied for nearly 200 years...

> Right now there's offshore oil exploration taking place in the Falklands - you could see tons of equipment near Stanley. If that comes back lucrative, I'd expect the dispute to heat up accordingly.

I don't think it's a co-incidence given that they think there is vast oil reserves around the Falklands that within a few years the UK will have two of the most powerful aircraft carriers in the world (outside of the US carriers) or that our Type-45 was designed to engage dozens of simultaneous air threats, the argentine military isn't even the threat it was in the early 80's, a British carrier battle group carrying F35's with MBDA Meteors (which are a more advanced but similar missile to American AMRAAMS with a variant having a 200 mile range) with a support group of Type-45's and nuclear subs would make it the most one sided naval battle since The Battle of the Nile in 1798.

Any in-bound Argentine planes would be dead before they got within 300 miles of the Falklands from the F35's not to mention the Type 45's which is acknowledged as the most advanced air defense destroyer in the world at the moment.

I lament that we spend so damn much on the things but within 5-10 years we'll have the 2nd most powerful blue water navy in the World (the question then is do we need that really...)

Throw in that the British government has very effectively used political pressure to block all sales of modern aircraft to the Argentine government they'd be flying an obsolete 40 year old fighter against a state of the art 5th generation fighter, it wouldn't even be a war it'd be a damn blood bath, they can't even afford to run the planes they have now, those planes are a mix of 60's era French Mirages and upgraded vietnam era A4 Skyhawks.