Across this area. The other side of this river is one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the whole world north Korea. Korea has been split for decades after.

A major war in the 1950s.

But here's the thing. That war technically never ended. Yes, the fighting stopped, but it was just a ceasefire and relations have barely improved.

But there has been a lot of this it, and right now it is.

As tense as it's been for years.

The current relationship between north and South Korea is on a very negative trajectory.

North Korea is not going to give up its nuclear weapons anytime soon.

So could fighting really break out here again? And if it did, what would that mean for the world?

Korea has a long and complex history. But to understand what's happening there today, you need to understand what's happened in the last hundred years or so.

Have a look at this.

This is a map of Korea as it was back in the 1930s. Then it was one united country, as it had been for centuries before. At that stage, though, it was under the control of its imperialist neighbor, Japan.

But then the Second World War broke.

Out, and after years of conflict, japan was defeated by the Allies in the Pacific.

At that point, the victorious nations, the United States, the United Kingdom, the USSR and China, decided to split Korea in half.

And they did so right along the.

Middle here, across the 38th parallel. The communist countries, China and the USSR, would control the north and the south would be controlled by America.

This was supposed to be temporary. But as tensions between the superpowers grew and developed into the Cold War, that became less and less likely. And then war broke out again. The north was led by this man. Kim Il sung. Kim, backed by Joseph Stalin in the USSR and Mao Zedong in China, sent his troops across the 38th parallel. In the summer of 1950, a huge war erupted. The US sent troops to support the South Koreans who were being outgunned by the north. The fighting was intense. Major cities were raised to the ground with the US bombarding much of the north with their air support. Hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, died, traumatizing the peoples of both north and south.

In July 1953, an armistice was signed and they agreed to split the country in two to north and South Korea along this line, almost exactly where the 38th parallel was. So much lost for so little gain. It was also agreed that a four kilometer demilitarized zone would be set up along the border. It's essentially a piece of neutral territory where neither side is allowed to station troops.

This is about as far north as you can realistically come these days up to the edge of the demilitarized zone, and it's a peaceful place. There are lots of signs that people want this war to end. Signs ribbons hung here. But there are other signs that all is not well. Because the Korean war technically never came to an end. These countries are officially still at war with each other, but they have developed very, very differently. On the one hand, South Korea is a thriving, rich democracy. The capital, soldiers 30 some kilometers that way is a major tourist destination, and the whole country is a commercial and technological powerhouse. But North Korea, just beyond these battlements here, went the other way. It is a strict police state, increasingly isolated, still under the strict regime of the Kim dynasty. People there are desperately poor, and the regime is very, very paranoid and has built up huge stockpiles of weapons, many with nuclear capability.

So that brings us to the modern day. This is Kim Jong UN. He's been the supreme leader of North Korea since 2011. When he first came to power, some thought he would take a more liberal tact. But instead, the first few years of his rule saw massive increases in North Korea's nuclear program. And tests like these, rocket man is.

On a suicide mission for himself.

This led to a significant flare up between Kim and the combative U. S. President Donald Trump, who reportedly genuinely considered launching a preemptive strike.

At one point, they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.

But after a few months of back and forth fighting, talk, and threats, all that changed.

Kim and Trump suddenly agreed to meet.

It was the first meeting between leaders of the United States and North Korea ever. And closer to home, relations between north.

And south were as good as they'd.

Been at any time since Kim Jong.

UN came to power.

South Korean president at the time, Moon Jaein, had been in office since 2017. He promoted dialog between the two states and had a reputation for maintaining better relations with the north. The countries even agreed a military deal, calling for a ceasefire of hostile acts and removing landmines and guard posts in the DMZ.

North Korea managed to get through talks with President Trump, talks with President Moon in 2018 and 2019, and really not change its quest to become a nuclear armed state. In fact, it's only accelerated.

It fast forward to 2023, and things look very different.

In 2022, South Korea elected a new leader, this man, Yoon Sukyol. President Yoon has taken a much harder line attitude towards the north and has adopted a tit for tat approach to military aggression, basically meaning that whenever the north shows off their power, so will the south, sometimes with the help of the United States.

We're on a beach in the southeast of South Korea, and we have witnessed these large scale joint military drills that are going on between the South Koreans and the Americans. What we've seen is this big wave of amphibious vehicles come up from the sea, land on the beach, and then groups of Korean artillery and infantry have come off of those vehicles, and they have run up through this beach in waves and then into this forest here. We could just show you the positions that they've taken up here. Now, what they are simulating is the scenario of a contested beach, and it's very clear who or what power might be the intended potential enemy in a simulated scenario like this.

And of course, it is North Korea. South Korea and the US resumed drills like this after a few years of scaling them down. North and South Korea have two of the biggest militaries in the world. North Korea has around 1.28 million active personnel with a range of nuclear weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs. Those are the ones capable of hitting targets across the other side of the world. South Korea has a smaller military with around 555,000 active personnel, but they are much better equipped and have a massive military reserve and a number of US troops stationed there too.

A new military conflict between north and South Korea would likely be quite devastating, especially on civilian populations.

Seoul is well within range of many of North Korea's missiles, meaning the capital would likely be destroyed in any future war.

We know that it's quite likely as well that north Korea would target early on in a conflict key communication systems, airports, seaports, critical national infrastructure in south Korea in order to try and get on top of a conflict and also prevent any further military support from the US. And other allies of south Korea coming in to support that effort. North Korea's ability to defend against some of the more advanced South Korean and US systems would also mean that it's quite likely that North Korea's own population and own country would be in receipt of quite significant damage.

Any conflict on the Korean peninsula. The big question remains what will happen in terms of nuclear usage? Kim Jong UN knows that any nuclear usage by North Korea on another state will mean the obliteration of his regime. But how high is the threshold for his usage of nuclear weapons?

The North Koreans also claim that some of their nuclear weapons have the capability to hit the US and the UK. The Kwasong 17, for example, has a potential range of 15,000 km. While this is unlikely, it's possible. There are also concerns that Kim Jong UN could soon have access to better technological know how. He's been getting closer to Russia's Vladimir Putin, and it's believed he might sell weapons in exchange for insight and equipment to build things like spy satellites and nuclear capable submarines.

Kim Jong UN is not satisfied with the current state of North Korea's conventional and unconventional capabilities. He wants money. The North Korean economy is in decline, and he's willing to provide ammunition artillery to his former Cold War patron. In return, Putin will offer advice know how, but also sophisticated technology.

War on the Korean peninsula could be horrific. People here still live with the scars of the last war, and the development in military capabilities, not to mention nuclear weapons, means that this time it could be much worse. But the implications would reach far beyond just these two countries.

The situation is actually not dissimilar to what it was in the 1950s. If war broke out, North Korea would look to China and Russia for support, much like the south would look to the US. In the 1950s, both China and America sent men to the peninsula to fight. How likely that is today is debatable.

Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes.

In Ukraine, after Russia's invasion, the US has sent no direct troops, but a lot of financial, military and political support. This could well have set a precedent for modern day proxy wars between superpowers. But there is a bigger geopolitical standoff developing between the US and China over what direction the world is taking the two superpowers vying for supremacy. Any conflict in Korea would be viewed by both as an important front in this standoff. At the very least, neither will want to see the other's interests prevail there.

To our Ironclad Alliance.

But will it actually happen? To some extent. We've been here before. There have been regular flare ups between north and south, most recently in 2017, as we mentioned.

And while Yoon is a much more assertive leader than his predecessor Moon was towards the north, us President Joe Biden is much less unpredictable than his predecessor, Donald Trump.

We know this is one of your favorite songs. American Pie.

American pie guy.

Something touched me deep inside the day the music died.

Despite the drills and the tension here, there is no talk of fire and fury yet anyway.

I think it's very unlikely that in the short term, current tensions between north and South Korea will escalate into war. We don't have many off ramps at the moment to de escalate or to manage risk, military risk and risk of escalation and miscalculation. So it is likely that with that risk, we will see more skirmishes. But I think it's still very unlikely that those smaller, shorter events will escalate into full confrontation.

North Korea over the years has learnt to take advantage and to exploit wider geopolitical circumstances and further tensions to its own advantage. This cycle of provocations, perhaps negotiations, then provocations, is likely to continue in the next few years.

It's really difficult to see what's going to break that cycle.

Since 1953, a dangerous game has been played by all sides of this complex, sprawling conflict. And 70 years on, the potential for the fighting to rest start still feels like a real possibility.