As the war in Iraq intensifies, some people may be wondering whether the next battlefield will be the Korean peninsula. Given the standoff between the US and North Korea over the latter's nuclear weapons programme, it may look that way.
But the average person in Seoul feels no threat of war. Except for the occasional volatility in the financial markets, life in South Korea is business as usual. There has been no hoarding of food and other necessities. And people calmly watched the television footage of the war as if they were watching a sports match. The only commotion was a large anti-war rally in downtown Seoul at the weekend that briefly hampered traffic.
Outsiders often wonder what makes South Koreans so oblivious to the dangers of war. After all, many went through the Korean war - which left one million people dead.
And more than one million soldiers from South and North Korea confront each other along the Demilitarised Zone, making it the most dangerous area in the world outside the Middle East.
The North's nuclear gamble has raised military tensions on the Korean peninsula. Joint military exercises between South Korean and US soldiers take place sporadically in the South, while the North conducts its own military exercises. But to most South Koreans, these seemingly dangerous developments do not appear that unusual or new. They are insensitive to war threats because they have lived under such menaces for more than 50 years.
From elementary school, South Koreans are brainwashed about their nation's ever-present perils. This was especially so during the dictatorial regimes of the 1970s and 1980s, when military strongmen often played up the threats of the North to rally support for their illegitimate leadership.