It’s easy to forget that South Korea lives under the constant threat of a heavily armed, totalitarian neighbour to the north.
If you walk around the capital Seoul, that threat – the thousands of artillery pieces and rocket launchers trained on a metro area of 26 million people – quickly recedes behind the busy routines of one of Asia’s most modern democracies.
Most South Koreans are simply worried about work, school and bills.
The tension with North Korea is real and ever-present in the news, but it has become something abstract, removed from the pressures of daily life.
For visitors accustomed to wild headlines about Kim Jong-un, the normalisation of the threat is a touch surreal; especially when the in-flight map for planes touching down in Seoul shows the border with North Korea just 23 kilometres away.
That surreal feeling is only heightened with a visit to Imjingak Park, a tourist town that serves as a gateway to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), complete with packed tour buses and a small amusement park.
From there, buses continue into the DMZ, where South Korean farmers work tax-free under military oversight, producing “DMZ rice” and other goods marketed for their proximity to the border.
At Dora Observatory you can look out at a North Korean propaganda village, where a towering 160-metre flagpole was built to outdo a nearby 100-metre South Korean one.
On a clear enough day, you can actually see North Koreans working in the fields through binoculars, though the village is thought to be a tightly-managed showcase rather than a normal community.
The dominant feeling for South Korean visitors to the DMZ is “sadness”, a Seoul resident said, sharpened by the irony that North Korea – where people often face food shortages and rolling blackouts – still portrays South Korea in its propaganda as the poorer and more deprived of the two.
Time to ‘double down on alliances’ – general
The DMZ is quieter than it used to be, with both sides having agreed to stop loudspeaker broadcasts and balloon leaflet drops.
But the security architecture remains in place.
Australia has been involved in the border’s security for more than seven decades, in a role that remains little known to the general public.
There are a few different command structures that keep the DMZ safe, largely invisible to tourists moving through sites like Imjingak.
The Republic of Korea Armed Forces are in charge of defending South Korea day to day, co-ordinating with US forces headquartered at Pyeongtaek.
Sitting above them is the United Nations Command (UNC), the legal framework that upholds the 1953 Armistice Agreement on the international side.
The UNC has existed ever since it was established in 1950, when communist, Soviet-backed North Korea invaded capitalist, US-backed South Korea.
The Korean War ended with an armistice – a ceasefire agreement – rather than a final peace treaty.
The two countries are technically still at war, but the fighting in the early 1950s, including a crucial contribution from 17,000 Aussie Diggers, prevented the total conquest of South Korea and paved the way for its rise as a global economic powerhouse.
The UNC receives little attention outside South Korea and military circles, but its deputy commander, an Australian, says the multinational force is more important than ever.
“I think the strategic environment is absolutely more challenging than it has been any time since the Second World War,” Lieutenant General Scott Winter said.
“We are seeing the global norms being challenged almost on a daily basis.
“The world can ill-afford another regional conflict. And therefore we need to double down on frameworks like this which have a proven deterrent effect.”
Since taking up his role in January, Lieutenant General Winter’s duties have included meeting with NATO representatives and Chiefs of Army from Commonwealth countries to help them understand the security situation on the peninsula.
Last week he shook hands with UN veterans – including Australians – who were visiting South Korea under the government’s Revisit Korea program, which brings former Korean War personnel back to the country in a gesture of recognition.
Ceremonies and tributes were held for the veterans against a backdrop of global uncertainty, including the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East — not to mention flare-ups closer to home.
This year, North Korea has maintained an aggressive posture, testing ballistic missiles, accusing South Korea of drone incursions and labelling its neighbour the “most hostile enemy state”.
Lieutenant General Winter said now was the time to “double down on alliances”.
He argued that the UNC had an important place alongside South Korean and US forces because it acted as a further restraint against North Korean attacks.
“We know that potential adversaries don’t like multilateralism. They don’t like many flags coming together,” he said.
“These flags have been together for over 75 years, and that’s a powerful message in this region.”
A “growing nexus between North Korea and Russia” was an example of how regional threats were becoming more global, he said.
North Korea and Russia have grown much closer since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Pyongyang sending 14,000 troops to Kursk and funnelling billions of dollars in munitions to aid in the Russian war effort.
“You cannot look at any part of the region through a straw. So that interconnectedness means we need to be more joined up than ever,” he explained, adding that the UNC represents 18 countries including Australia and New Zealand.
“(The UNC) as a counter to that globalisation of the threat is extremely important, and probably hasn’t been as important any time since it first came together in 1950,” he said.
For tourists peering through binoculars at the Dora Observatory, the DMZ might feel like a strange relic of the Cold War.
But for Lieutenant General Winter and the forces stationed there, maintaining the uneasy peace on the border is as urgent today as it was in 1950.
