SEOUL, S. Korea, Nov. 29 — As we go to press, the crisis on the Korean peninsula is, in the words of North Korea’s central news agency, “inching closer to the brink of war.”

This morning, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak took to the airwaves to denounce the North, saying they will “pay the price” for firing back at the South’s military base on Yeonpyeong Island last Tuesday.

Over the weekend, Lee sacked his Defense Minister and appointed a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the position, and approved new rules of engagement that allow Seoul to respond to any actions by the North with a disproportionately larger response.

As Lee and his Grand National Party, the “political party” created by the military generals that controlled S. Korea for decades during the Cold War, strike a more belligerent posture, the Obama White House sent the 70th Carrier Task Force, led by the USS George Washington supercarrier, into the area of the Yellow Sea near Yeonpyeong Island.

The task force also includes a number of destroyers and frigates, as well as the E-8 JSTARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System) planes that can keep precise track of N. Korean troops, planes and missiles.

The George Washington is in the Yellow Sea near the disputed border of North and South not just to participate in war games, but also as a show of force by Washington, meant for both Pyongyang and its patron, China.

Indeed, the U.S. is taking the opportunity created by the latest conflict in Korea to put pressure on Beijing. Washington wants the Chinese to concede its claim to the 200-mile “exclusive economic zone” and accept the presence of U.S. surveillance and war ships off its coastline, as well as act like the proxy of Obama and use their economic power over North Korea to force them to back down.

For their part, Chinese officials have called for the resumption of the six-party talks to settle the growing conflict, as well as issued a measured public response to presence of the George Washington off its coast. U.S. officials immediately rejected Beijing’s push for talks, calling it a “reward” for Pyongyang.

The belligerence of both Seoul and Washington has pushed the tensions between the two Korean states to its limits. Unlike in past clashes, there does not appear to be any willingness by the U.S. or its client state to strike a deal with the North and pull back.

The drive toward a new Korean War can only result in mass slaughter, either through a protracted stalemate, like the first conflict on the peninsula, or through a nuclear exchange that annihilates millions within a second .