The Korean War is in many respects the war that never ended. This year marks 70 years since the signing of the Armistice Agreement which ended the three-year conflict in which 339 Australians lost their lives serving as part of a United Nations force which defended South Korea from an invasion from the Communist North. The conflict was the first clear flare up of the Cold War in the Asia-Pacific and the first to which the Menzies Government committed Australian ground troops. While the armistice served as an acknowledgement of a hard-fought stalemate in which the border between the two Koreas ended up in virtually the same place it had been at the outbreak of hostilities, the respective sides have never signed a full peace treaty, and tensions between North Korea and the West remain high to this day. In many respects the conflict is a lesson that history never ends, and that the maintenance of international peace and security is a constant work in progress.

In this week’s episode of the Afternoon Light podcast, Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer talks to Keith Wolahan MP, Australian Army veteran and the Member for Menzies, about the Korean War and its contemporary legacy.