North Korea: The Path to War?

into war almost by accident?

In South Korea, the US

Air Force is practising

for war with the North.

President Trump is now threatening

to erase North Korea from the map.

We will have no choice

but to totally destroy North Korea.

Kim Jong-un is responding with ever

bigger and more powerful missiles

and nuclear tests.

The US is moving ships

and aircraft to the Korean

peninsula in ever greater

shows of military might.

Are we now on the road to war

or is President Trump in

danger of starting

a war he doesn't want?

Are we now on the road to war

or is President Trump in

danger of starting

a war he doesn't want?

This could go bad very very quickly.

And it could go very

bad very, very quickly.

OK, we've just been told

to put our goggles on.

The plane is descending fast.

I think that's the signal

we are about to go

on board.

This is the scary bit.

OK, that's the signal.

And we're down.

Off the coast of South Korea, three

giant American super carriers are

sailing together.

This is an extremely rare sight.

They've been ordered

here by President Trump in

the biggest show of naval might

in this region for over a decade.

The last time anything like this was

seen in the Western Pacific was ten

years ago.

Here of the Korean

peninsula no one can really

remember.

This is a raw expression

of America's military muscle.

And for President Trump

it is a message

being sent to Pyongyang that if it

doesn't come to the negotiating

table this is potentially

what it faces.

On board these ships are more

than 200 combat aircraft.

So what does it mean

to have three carriers

out here together?

Well, the significance

of our combat power as

an American super carrier is our

striking arm of our carrier air

wing.

And we can sustain 24 hour

operations for extended periods of

time.

However, with more than one carrier,

that length of time goes

out indefinitely, quite frankly,

when we get to three.

In other words, if

called upon to do so,

there is enough firepower

out here to go to war,

and to keep fighting day and night.

This is President Trump's

responds to what has been a

year of dramatic

advances by North Korea.

On the 28th of August, just

after dawn, a long-range ballistic

missile is launched from the runway

of Pyongyang's International

Airport.

Kim Jong-un is there watching

as the missile heads for

space.

It is the fifth missile test

of 2017, but this one is different.

Five minutes later and 1500

kilometres away in northern Japan,

air raid sirens start blaring.

This is not a drill.

The North Korean missile

is passing right overhead.

The loudspeakers order

people to find shelter.

It is the first time this has

happened since World War II.

For months, up and down this coast,

they have been practising for

this.

Now, they're doing it for real.

For a Japanese generation brought up

in peace and security,

it's a big shock.

TRANSLATION:

I want to

protect my kids, but we

don't have a basement,

we have nowhere to hide.

That missile takes only ten minutes

to reach Japan, what

can we do in ten minutes?

TRANSLATION:

The sirens

just scare people.

There's nothing we can do.

So what is the point?

The government needs

to have a real policy.

Five days later,

Kim shocks the world

again.

Deep under a mountain near

the Chinese border, North Korea has

set off a nuclear device.

Pictures show the

North Korean dictator

looking at a new peanut shaped bomb.

The explosion is huge.

20 times bigger than

the bomb dropped on

Hiroshima.

At the UN General Assembly

in New York, President

Trump makes his response.

Rocket man is on a suicide

mission for himself.

And for his regime.

The United States is

ready, willing and able.

But hopefully this

will not be necessary.

The United States has great

strength and patience.

But if it is forced

to defend itself or its

allies, we will have no choice

but to totally destroy North Korea.

Speaking to the BBC,

Republican Senator

Lindsay Graham says this

is

no idle threat.

I am 100% certain that

Kim Jong-un continues to

develop missile technology,

that can hit America,

if diplomacy fails to stop him,

there will be an attack by

the United States

against his weapon systems.

Let me tell you how the war ends,

it ends with his utter

destruction.

Before we get to that point,

it might be worth trying to

understand why Kim Jong-un

seems so determined

to face down America

with

nuclear weapons.

On December 17, 2011,

North Korea's long reigning

dictator, Kim Jong-il,

suddenly dies.

His 30-year-old son is thrust

into the leadership with virtually

no experience.

As he escorts his father's

coughing, Kim Jong-un

is surrounded by powerful old men.

Walking behind him, the most

powerful of all, his uncle, Jang

Song-thaek.

Today, all of these old men

are either dead or in prison.

In 2014, Kim has his

uncle hauled out

of a party meeting accused

of treason and executed by firing

squad.

Kim Jong-un is systematically

eliminating all threats to his

power.

At Kuala Lumpur International

Airport, a rotund North Korean man

is heading for check-in.

Moments later, CCTV

cameras catch the moment

he is attacked by two young women,

who wipe liquid on his face.

Almost immediately

he starts to feel ill

and seeks help.

Minutes later, he's unconscious,

soon he will be dead.

The man is Kim Jong-nam.

Kim Jong-un's older brother.

Just a few metres away

in this cafe, at one of

those tables, four North Korean men

were sitting watching.

All four are now wanted

by Malaysian authorities.

One is reported to be a known

North Korean security agent.

After the attack here

was over they got up and

headed for departures.

Kim Jong-nam has been

poisoned with VX, a rare

and deadly nerve agent.

Almost certainly

supplied by the agents

sent by his younger brother.

Why would Kim Jong-un

want his older brother dead?

In the South Korean capital,

Seoul, I've come to meet a

man who once served

in Kim Jong-un's palace guard.

He describes the regime

obsessed with security and

paranoid about being overthrown.

TRANSLATION:

To the Kim family

everyone is a potential enemy.

The North Korean

military, the General

staff, the entire

North Korean population.

Anyone who opposes Kim is an enemy.

Even blood relatives.

This man says Kim's nuclear quest

is likewise about survival.

And that it intensified

after the overthrow of

Libyan dictator

Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

The reason why the Kim family

is obsessed with developing nuclear

weapons is to protect

and maintain the regime.

If the US attacks the north,

it will use everything to

strike back.

But Kim will not risk losing

the regime by attacking

first.

Kim Jong-un is not stupid.

Nuclear weapons serve

another purpose.

To secure Kim's own

power and legitimacy.

In every recent test he has

been there, personally

supervising, cigarette in hand.

President Trump calls

him little rocket man.

But to his own people Kim is now

the leader who has taken

their country into a

very exclusive club.

It is no small feat.

The question now is

can anything be done

to stop him short of war,

that everyone says they do not want.

For us, in a way, the most important

thing is not whether he's homicidal,

it's whether he's suicidal.

Because whether we go

to war or not, it

might well depend upon whether we

think deterrence works, or whether

we need a preventive war.

Because we can't fall

back to deterrence.

If he's not suicidal,

his just homicidal, then I'm

prepared to argue let's rely

on deterrence.

At Gunsan airbase

in South Korea, the

United States air force is

practising for war with the North.

I'm getting a very rare opportunity

to see what that means.

Flying in the back-seat

of an F-16 fighter.

Up front is Colonel Steve Tittel,

callsign Wolf II.

We're heading out on what they

call here a red flag.

Simulated air to air combat.

We're going to go ahead

and we're going to

engage them.

OK.

Our job will be to play

a North Korean intruder.

Up ahead, two blue team F-16s

are waiting to stop us.

We're going to engage

the one on the right side.

Passing right over the top of us.

Here comes the second one.

Wolf II makes repeated

high G turns as he

tries to get a missile lock

on the defending aircraft.

In the back, it feels

like an elephant is sitting on

my chest.

To stay in the air and keep

fighting, these jets need to be

refuelled once every

hour and a half.

So we're about to go up and top

up our fuel tank, there is a tanker

just up ahead of us here.

We'll get some fuel.

OK, can see the tanker now.

This is not a game,

there is a very serious point.

If there were a conflict,

you'd have a fairly

daunting task.

Any time, but especially this

conflict is one that

you really don't want to see

if you can avoid it, but...

This is deterrence at work.

Wolf two and his fellow

pilots practice every

day so that North Korea knows if it

ever attacked the South it would be

attacking the United States, too.

I want to be ready

because I want to send

the message of deterrence,

and

the message of, leave us alone,

you don't want to mess with us.

But if you make the

mistake of straying

across touchline, may God have mercy

on the Wolf Pack's prey, because we

are ready.

Readiness is our currency

and we have money in the bank.

For over 60 years, this strategy

of being ready to fight tonight has

kept the peace.

But North Korea has never had

the ability to directly

strike the United States.

Until now.

On November 28, North Korea

again shocks the world.

In the middle of the night it

launches a new missile.

This one is huge.

Much more powerful than anything

Pyongyang has launched

before.

Large enough to carry a nuclear

warhead all the way to

Washington, DC.

Two hours later, President

Donald Trump tries to

sound calm as he absorbs the news.

Thank you very much.

As you probably have heard,

and some of you have

reported, a missile was launched

a little while ago from North Korea.

I will only tell

you that we will take

care of it.

We have general matters in the room

with us and we've had a

long discussion on it.

It is a situation

that we will handle.

In the days that

follow, America's most

advanced stealth fighter jets start

landing at bases in South Korea.

It is now perhaps only months before

North Korea will be able to hit

America with a reliable

nuclear tipped missile.

Former State Department

officials like David

Straub say this fundamentally

changes the equation.

Whether we will be

content to continue just

containing North Korea

as we've done when they

can actually hit us

is the

big question.

And it's a very difficult question.

Because there is no way that

American news can know

for sure whether North

Korea will never use

those weapons against

the

United States.

Even if we don't provoke

them in any way that we

regard as provocative,

we can't be absolutely sure

they won't someday attack us.

What would it mean for

America to go to war?

In South Korea, I am

on the road to the

demilitarised zone.

The four kilometre wide

strip of land that

separate South Korea from the North.

This is the most heavily

fortified place on earth.

The South has hundreds

of artillery pieces

pointing north.

The North has thousands

pointing back.

This recent North Korean

propaganda video shows

its massed artillery in action.

For South Koreans

living close to the

demilitarised zone, this makes

for very uncomfortable viewing.

The little town of

Hwacheon is just six

kilometres from the dividing line.

In any new conflict,

people here would have only

minutes to evacuate.

This place was built

about five years ago.

Underneath a mountain.

And it is absolutely vast.

It's 100 metres long,

20 metres wide, and so

big it's got its own echo.

Listen to this.

Hello!

The shelter is designed

to take over 2000 people.

If they can make it in time.

This 86-year-old woman is one

of the few still living here

who remembers the last Korean War.

Are you worried there

could be war again now?

TRANSLATION:

Of course I'm

worried, but what can I do?

It's up to the government.

If they saying I should

die, I'll die.

And leave, then I'll leave.

A much bigger target

for North Korea's artillery

is the South Korean capital, Seoul.

Half the South Korean population

lives in the greater Seoul area.

25 million people.

Andrei Lankov is a long-time

Seoul resident and

professor of North Korean studies.

So 25 million people

is within the shooting range

of the North Korean artillery,

which is located that

direction, roughly, say, 20,

30 kilometres from here.

And if we have a conflict,

the city will be

attacked by the conventional weapons

which will lead to thousands of

casualties in the first few minutes.

Many more in the first few hours.

If it happens, most likely

the South Koreans will strike back

and there is a second Korean War.

A second Korean War

would be bad enough.

But this time it could go nuclear.

That thought brings

horror to the people

of this place.

Hiroshima.

When that happens for you here...

This woman still remembers

vividly the sunny

morning of the 6th of August 1945.

She was eight years old.

Yes, every time I come

here, you know, by the

river, I remember it quite well.

So many people died in the river.

Those like Keiko, who

survived the world's

first atomic attack,

are worried the world has forgotten

the true horror of nuclear war.

We have to avoid, stop,

America will use their power

to attack North Korea,

because not only Korean

people north and south,

and the Chinese, we Japanese,

everybody will be involved.

Even though they don't

use nuclear weapons.

But they will have

a very big casualty.

This year, Kim Jong-un has

repeatedly shocked the world,

taking giant leaps towards his goal

of a full nuclear arsenal.

He is now threatening

to carry out an

atmospheric nuclear test

over the Pacific Ocean.

If he did, President Trump might

feel he has no option

but to order a military strike.

The president is

following his instinct.

And his instinct, if he's

challenged, as he has been by the

North Koreans, is,

as he says sometimes,

he's a counterpuncher,

to

punch back.

This could go bad

very, very quickly.

And it could go very

bad very, very quickly.

And a lot of people can

die very, very quickly.

Winston Churchill once said that

meeting jaw to jaw is better than

war.

But Pyongyang says it will not talk

to America until it accepts

North Korea is a legitimate

nuclear state.

Washington is adamant

that will never happen.

And with each new test,

the pressure on the American

president to act grows stronger.