The US military has deployed the 23rd Chemical Battalion to South Korea today, a group specifically equipped to deal with chemical and nuclear weapons attacks, in the wake of repeated threats to launch nuclear attacks by North Korea.

The US insists the deployment is “coincidental,” but with Congress openly talking up starting a war that seems certain to devastate the peninsula, jitters seem to be growing in South Korea, where the annual US-North Korea war threats are usually just ignored by the public.

Today though the attention being paid to the ever growing US arsenal entering the region is very real, and while no one thinks North Korea is likely to start anything, the chance of the US up and attacking them seems to be growing.

South Korean officials are continuing to try to downplay the situation, saying that the North Korean rhetoric is mostly empty and that the odds of “provocations” are small.