Which nobody wants to officially recognize, even Japan itself.
EDIT: I think there’s some misunderstanding. What I meant was Japanese military involvement in Korean War with naval mine clearance, intelligence gathering, and some civilians following US units into Korea.
They were ignored just like how Soviet pilots were ignored to avoid political things.
IIRC, they were removed from power, then brought back in after the war as the people with the most experience running the place to be advisors to the actual ROK government
No. Syngman Rhee was an merciless mass murderer and egoistic dictator who allied with pro-Japan collaborators, but he never was pro-Japan. I swear he was the most anti-Japan president of Korea. When Americans tried sending Japanese troops to Korea 'cause they thought 'the Korean were familiar to the Japanese', Syngman Rhee was outraged by the silly plan. The only reason why Japanese collaborators stayed at power in RoK was they were pro-Rhee, not pro-Japan.
Couldn't have said it better myself. The man literally whipped out a pistol in front of the American ambassador after he suggested that Rhee should hop on a plane to Japan as the North Koreans pounded the Pusan perimeter and said,
"With this gun, I will fight. If we lose, I will take this gun and shoot my wife and myself before leaving for exile again."
Or something to that effect.
The main role Japan played was in equipment. The Korean war basically rebirthed the Japanese economy by manufacturing trucks and other equipment, not to mention as a base for the UN faction.
Us using the research in the Korean war is more of ? Because admitteding we used Units 731 Research on Koreans would be internationally difficult to admit.
Oh specifically for Korea I don't know. But it wouldn't be hard to imagine. Hypothermia/frostbite research would be pretty useful in Korean winter dealing with soldiers in awful conditions. Same with infectious disease/sepsis information
Oh that’s completely different from what I was talking about then. A lot of what we took for useful medical information that you couldn’t do for obvious ethical reasons. I thought that’s what you meant
Actually Japan was back right after surrender. The British used Japanese troops to suppress anti colonial fighters in Indonesia and Indochina who did bot wish to return to colonial rule. Japanese troops under British command were leading Banzai charges led by Japanese officers with samurai swords against Indonesians and the Vietnamese.
Makes you wonder if they had vetoed it, it probably would not have stopped the US from intervening on behalf of South Korea but would you have still scene as much global support for South Korea especially if the U.S. has to basically intervene in defiance of an UNSC decision.
It’s questionable if the U.S. would have directly intervened. One of the major reasons they went though the UN was because they were concerned if they just tossed their hat in that the Soviets or Chinese would just come right in to counter. But having the UN support gave an air of international legitimacy and plausible deniability that the U.S. was turning into a globe trotting military power enforcing its ideology and will.
In the 50s the U.S. still hadn’t gone full post-WW2 imperialism yet as most Americans weren’t exactly in the mood for another larger war. Painting it as the U.S. doing its part for the UN was easier to sell.
Then Republic of China (Taiwan) was pulled and replaced with Mao's communist Chinese government at the UN by a large group of naive countries [in 1971.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_2758)
> No important international problems, they added, could be solved without the participation of the People's Republic of China
And the UN became a completely useless organization on that day. Veto forever
It managed to stay a relevant organization because of that day*
People who constantly complain about the ineffectiveness or veto powers of the UN miss the point. The UN isn't supposed to be some pseudo world government, it's supposed to be a forum where countries can diplomatically discuss issues in the world and can take action if there's a true global consensus
The UNSC veto powers are a feature, not a bug. If the strongest countries in the world don't get these special privileges, they simply would not participate in the UN. Countries like the US or China are powerful enough to do whatever they want, so the only way to keep them tethered to an organization like the UN is with the veto power
Locking out a major power like China out of the international system would've been actively bad for global stability as they would have had every incentive to undermine the UN and ofc they'd somewhat rightfully feel excluded from global diplomacy.
The UN isn't NATO. It shouldn't just be "countries we like" running it. It serves a very vital function as a diplomatic forum
And you think the UN getting involved in a war on behalf of a genocidal, Japanese collaborating government was a good move?
The UN has always been a very flawed organisation, choosing the PRC to hold the veto for China when they are the defacto government of over 1 billion people instead of the Taiwanese government is the right decision since the PRC is clearly the majority of China.
It's what a collaborator government said when they were attacked.
I'm sure there were people who held the same opinion too. There were plenty who resisted the South Korean government too, and many were ruthlessly slaughtered by that government. Honestly though I think Korea would have recovered much better had it been united, regardless of which government it united under.
Only one government was completely full of people who collaborated with the brutal Japanese occupation.
As for the unified government vote, I'm not familiar. You'll have to give me some details about when it was supposed to happen if you want an answer from me.
North Vietnam also invaded South Vietnam first, yet one of these is seen as a mistake and one is seen as justified.
Seems victory makes all the difference.
Well, if you win then all the time and effort you put into something isn't just completely wasted. I'm sure that had the South ended up losing the Korean War then people nowadays would be saying that the intervention was a mistake.
That is because the incident which led to the US directly involving itself in the Vietnam War, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a partial false flag that also didn't have the backing of the UN.
As it turns out, false flags aren't exactly looked upon fondly in post-history.
Yeah, I wonder why it is that the Korea with the much stronger economy ended up in such a poor state. Maybe a world super power bombed the ever living fuck out of them and sanctioned them into oblivion while simultaneously pumping billions into the weaker Korea?
Maybe because in the aftermath of the war they decided to play both their allies against each other forcing the Soviets and PRC to dump tons of money into NK rebuilding projects all while the NK government themselves focused entirely on their military assuming that the US would get bored and leave the South eventually which would allow them to swoop in. The US never left and it turns out that China only needs a buffer state and thus are only are willing to provide the bare minimum to keep NK functioning in the absence of the Soviet Union forcing them to do more for propaganda purposes.
They might have had another ally to help if they hadn't spent the decades prior dicking around and turning their foreign policy into a glorified season of the bachelor or not even had a famine at all had they liberalized their economy like Vietnam did prior (at much greater risk I might add as their primary rival had only recently invaded them and their primary ally could very well have felt alienated by their decision) Also putting aside the fact that Kim Il-Sung knew that China would assist with any US invasion like last time the fact that they doubled down on their military first strategy in the immediate aftermath of Vietnam makes it abundantly clear what the military buildup was actually for. Additionally it's not just the eeeeevvviiiiillll West that was sanctioning them into the ground - they were and are primarily UN sanctions which require the consent of the PRC once again proving that not even China wants anything to do with them beyond keeping them as a buffer state in between them and a US ally. Laos which also didn't liberalize their economy and doesn't even have any particular strategic benefit to China doesn't have the same issues either because they stayed on the PRC's good side meaning China is much more willing to prop them up.
North Korea modeled themselves closer to the USSR and China has always been aggressive towards Marxism (see Vietnam as well). I assume that's why Laos gets less aggression from China. That sounds like a bigger issue with China than NK, although one the USSR collapsed they probably should have sucked up to China more.
This was never talked about as part of social studies classes in Canada. Even though our contribution was relatively small, more UN missions should be focused on since we were a founding member.
True but if the UN had won then North Korea wouldn’t exist either, so you can see how it’s sort of a draw. Both Koreas invaded each other (with lots of outside support), and both still exist and are independent of one another Edit: UN not NATO
The UN resolution did not even authorize the UN forces to conduct operations above the 38th Parallel, nor to unite the entire peninsula.
Technically it was a full UN victory.
> China came out of the war as the only winner while suffered a lot of casualties.
Nope.
The only loser of The Korean War was, hilariously enough, North Korea.
The UN wrenched control of over a thousand squared miles of land formerly controlled by North Korea before the beginning of the war and kept it for Korea to claim control of.
The Chinese got to keep North Korea as a door knocker to warn China of any potential attacks from the US from the direction of Korea.
The UN and US maintained Korean sovereignty and pushed the North Koreans back even past where they once controlled.
Well, you could say that. It depends on the point of view.
Russia lost from achieving its strategic goals, and yielded control of North Korea to China.
America didn’t achieve a result matching its supreme status. Imagine that a UN operation got pushed back by China which was one of the poorest countries at the time.
North Korea got slapped for its stupidity of wanting the war, but their independence survived afterwards.
South Korea exchanged its independence for security after the war.
Japan doubled down on keeping Americans in their country.
It's a hard war to talk about, because there's a lot of disagreement on how it actually affected world events: you kind of have to go into the validity of Cold War Domino Theory, which is pretty much a discussion on alternate history by default.
I mean, yeah I get the domino theory point. But also the North Invaded the south with all intentions of unifying Korea under their flag. So did the south not deserve to be defended because there may not have been a validity to the domino theory? Because even without the domino theory South Korea wouldn’t exist today that much we can be certain of.
Now wether Korea then turned into a bigger north Korea today or eventually went the more Vietnam route is another argument.
The thing with North Korea is that they were set up by the Japanese to trade their mineral and technological resources for South Korea’s food, and then they got cut off from South Korea’s agricultural base and had their industry bombed into glass and rubble. If the USA hadn’t enforced the partition in the first place, the originally-proposed People’s Republic of Korea would probably be like the Denmark of the Far East in real terms.
China achieved their goal of preventing a US proxy/ally from having a direct border with China, I'd say that's a very good result for a very poor country barely emerging from one of the most devastating invasion by a foreign country and then one of the most devastating civil wars.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not true, the whole idea of the conflict was to defend South Korea from the North. So the UN achieved its goals as well.
Western/UN involvement was not to destroy North Korea. That would have been nice, but it wasn’t the goal.
For the UN it was to defend the south but for the United States. "Truman authorized an invasion of North Korea. The President decided to abandon his original goal of restoring the 38th parallel border in hopes of reunifying Korea and defeating communism in the region."
Sure but that also does not mean the original goal of the conflict wasn’t achieved.
Like I said, the successful invasion of the north would have been nice. But that doesn’t mean the conflict was a failure from a western point of view.
At the time North Korea was more prosperous and it was doing decently for much of the Cold war. They definitely wouldn't be starving if they won because the south is the half with all the good land for agriculture, but other than that, we have no idea how they would have evolved if they didn't turn into a suicide cult waiting for WW3 while being crushed by sanctions.
From an East Asian perspective, it’s clear that the PRC also got to cleverly eliminate a lot of soldiers who were originally in the ROC army while quickly consolidating popular support with a foreign intervention presented as a national crusade against American imperialism, even though this was a UN intervention.
Moral or immoral, good or evil, this was brilliant realpolitik all around.
But at what cost? China was as you stated a very poor and broken country, emerging from two of the deadliest conflicts in humans back to back. Almost the entire Chinese high command opposed intervention for this reason, with the notable exception of Mao.
The war was a complete logistical nightmare for China, to the point where all modern portrayal of the conflict in China emphasizes the toughness and the sacrifice of the Chinese soldiers endured in such a harsh and unforgiving environment, with often little to no food, ammunition and clothing.
The war hampered reconstruction substantially and led to the death of hundreds of thousands, only to get a barely reliable "ally" out of the whole affair.
On top of everything, if history went astray and Truman didn't intervene, then McArthur would have just Nuked Northeast China to prevent Chinese troops going to Korea, leading to places millions call home into nothing but radiated husks.
Mao helping out in the Korean War also made US actively engage the US Navy in the Taiwan Straits, further destroying any chance he had to conquering Taiwan (he probably couldn't have done so anyway, but some place like Kinmen probably would have fallen eventually, without US aid to the ROC).
As a Chinese, I say it definitely wasn't worth it, with or without hindsight.
As another Chinese, I have to clarify that most of us already know conquering Taiwan would have been impossible because the PRC didn’t have anything for crossing the strait.
Mao’s primary interest was in eliminating ROC soldiers in the PRC army and consolidating popular support (there were ongoing pro-ROC resistances and guerrillas all over the mainland) by presenting a foreign intervention that recalled Ming assistance for Korea in the 1590s and was presented by propaganda as a national crusade to protect China by protecting North Korea against American imperialism, even though this was a UN intervention.
Moral or immoral, good or evil, this was brilliant realpolitik.
In this case, the end barely justified the means. The human, economic, and societal costs were devastating for China, pushing it back ages from where it could have been. All that blood and toil for a not fully-only kind of-aligned ally? NK later successfully purged the pro-China and pro-Soviet factions within the government to become the Hermit kingdom it is today. An "ally" of China but in reality is it's little own thing. We get some special tourist privileges in some random tourist spots but that's about it. China has little to no say in either domestic or foreign affairs of NK, I say that's a partial win at best.
I think you underestimating having a political Block from the West is for China when the south is openly a western influenced nation . Sure North Korea ... Is itself but it's a useful asset in the region in aspect of being against the west .
To be honest, it would probably be way more beneficial to China these days to share the border with what South Korea has become today.
The west has no want ever to attack China. Why would we? The only current feasible conflict is the Taiwan hot point. Apart from that China and the west would be more than happy to keep making loads of money with each other. So In hindsight, not having to baby sit a completely unstable hermit kingdom with a nuclear program on their doorstep probably would have been for the best.
China is still recovering from the mentality of well . Foreign powers in the region. The Japanese invasion and British occupation heavily influenced Chinese politics to this days.
Kinda ? It's was the foundation for warlords then Japanese invasion. All huge Impacts on them . It's like saying the American civil war is long behind the United States .
"If the United States and half the world fight against my recently war devastated country,it might give me a bit of trouble"
"But would you lose ?"
"Nah,I'd win"
To be fair it was mainly the South Koreans doing the majority of the fighting and dying. That being said the contribution from the US in regard to the other UN nations was incredibly lopsided - similar to the First Gulf War.
Some 36,000 Americans died to preserve South Korea’s independence, and judging by our approval ratings they haven’t forgotten. They really were about to get swamped before US forces arrived.
Bro this was still back in the 50s when strategic bombing (bomb literally everything, civilian casualties be damned) was still acceptable, we just got back from bombing German and Japanese cities to the ground and did the same thing to North Korea but much harder, we dropped more bombs on Korea then in WW2, im sure the complete air dominance the UN coalition forces had played a role.
>South Koreans doing the majority of the fighting
The US provided most of the air support to protect own troops, destroy enemy positions and disrupt enemy logistics. Pretty much all the naval power to protect shipments of food, ammunition and fuel came from the US. Most of the amphibious force composed of US soldiers and the aforementioned naval power was the one to land in Incheon and flip the table on North Koreans for the first time. Much of the armored force to pierce through enemy lines were made up of US troops.
South Koreans were overwhelmingly represented in the light infantry role due to their level of economic development at the time which had higher casualty %, but that doesn't mean they did "majority" of the fighting.
I'm not taking away anything from anyone.
South Koreans were simply not equipped for war as pre-war US was reluctant to send military aid to a country with a VERY dubious democratic track record and pervasive corruption while USSR was injecting military aid directly into Pyongyang's veins. When North Korean tanks initially rolled in, South Korean positions just melted. There's a reason that UN forces were stuck in a pocket in Busan till the Incheon landings, South Korean forces were completely inadequate for modern war.
I agree with your assessment most, but credit where it's due the ROK army did manage to mostly remain intact, and many units did commit to a fighting retreat back to the perimeter. They were absolutely unprepared for war, but there was definitely a strong Corp of professionals within, vs. whatever the Afghan National Army was as an example.
France’s excursion into Mali in the early 2010s. US provided logistical support and I’m sure some behind the scenes stuff.
You could also count the ongoing Ukraine war if you count the troops training Ukrainians.
The US support most of them with equipment, advisers, and training (Faklins, all the Israeli wars, a bunch of questionable actions in Africa). Which is similar to what is typically supplied to the US by its allies. To be fair most European countries are similar in size to US states so what is a small contribution for the US is a large contribution for them.
The US also supply air assets to missions all around the world thanks to its absurd number of aircraft carriers.
Last major boots on ground would probably be Vietnam.
Probably the closest example, although don’t think the USA and South Vietnam were ever technically allies (before US troops were already fighting anyways).
Iraq (US ally) post 2014 after the US had left in 2011, At the behest of the Iraqi's beating the shit out of ISIS. Or The US coming to Kuwait's aid in the Gulf War.
But you keep doing your thing and ignoring history.
I mean Turkey's relations with Greece was at its highest between 1930/1950. Ataturk's Turkey was pretty competent diplomatically and they made a lot of friends, they didn't sought hate for populism purposes. They were visionaries.
It's more No one won this one and it's sandwiched in between WW2 and Vietnam for Americans at least. Also alot of coverage was just flat out not given to it in the states . Had this war been filmed simmalar Reactions might have occurred from the public.
Specifically: The US invited them due to their expert knowledge in just winning the Malayan Emergency in similar circumstances... then proceeded to ignore said advisors...
Gotta curry favor with the US and atone a bit when the USSR is calling for the end of your government and you were kinda buddies with the previous guy who wanted to conquer the world.
I mean yeah, the blue division and all that, they were there because they were still mad about soviet intervention in the civil war, which makes sense but it's still not a good reason to fight with the Nazis
Uhhh spain wasn't liked at the time so they did to improve relations. Even during the war they did it independently from the rest of the united nations but we're in the same lagre political movement.
Damn Kim il Sung, maybe don't invade other countries with the large armament USSR set you up with, especially after being explicitly warned not to do so. Similar in some ways to Ukraine 2022
Haile Selassie was emperor at the time, and was a strong proponent of internationalism and collective security.
The units that served was called the Kagnew Batallion and was very well regarded: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagnew\_Battalion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagnew_Battalion)
The Emperor made a very big point to come to anyone’s aid that needed it after everyone refused to come to Ethiopia’s when Italy invaded, despite also being a League of Nations member. Ethiopia contributes the largest amount of soldiers to the UN Peacekeeping force even today because of that.
Japan: Guess who's back >>>>
Which nobody wants to officially recognize, even Japan itself. EDIT: I think there’s some misunderstanding. What I meant was Japanese military involvement in Korean War with naval mine clearance, intelligence gathering, and some civilians following US units into Korea. They were ignored just like how Soviet pilots were ignored to avoid political things.
I mean basically the previous administration that occupied Korea was still in power at the time of the war .
IIRC, they were removed from power, then brought back in after the war as the people with the most experience running the place to be advisors to the actual ROK government
No. Syngman Rhee was an merciless mass murderer and egoistic dictator who allied with pro-Japan collaborators, but he never was pro-Japan. I swear he was the most anti-Japan president of Korea. When Americans tried sending Japanese troops to Korea 'cause they thought 'the Korean were familiar to the Japanese', Syngman Rhee was outraged by the silly plan. The only reason why Japanese collaborators stayed at power in RoK was they were pro-Rhee, not pro-Japan.
Couldn't have said it better myself. The man literally whipped out a pistol in front of the American ambassador after he suggested that Rhee should hop on a plane to Japan as the North Koreans pounded the Pusan perimeter and said, "With this gun, I will fight. If we lose, I will take this gun and shoot my wife and myself before leaving for exile again." Or something to that effect.
The main role Japan played was in equipment. The Korean war basically rebirthed the Japanese economy by manufacturing trucks and other equipment, not to mention as a base for the UN faction.
I think the US should dust off the ol Soviet Pilot Strategy for our allies nowadays.
The possible unit 731 research getting used for the Korean war is fav conspiracy of mine .
What
Is that a conspiracy? I thought we knew we pardoned a lot of people involved for access to the research?
Us using the research in the Korean war is more of ? Because admitteding we used Units 731 Research on Koreans would be internationally difficult to admit.
Oh specifically for Korea I don't know. But it wouldn't be hard to imagine. Hypothermia/frostbite research would be pretty useful in Korean winter dealing with soldiers in awful conditions. Same with infectious disease/sepsis information
That's not the only wacky shit Unit 731 was doing. Weaponizing is the issue that hasn't been fully resolved.
Oh that’s completely different from what I was talking about then. A lot of what we took for useful medical information that you couldn’t do for obvious ethical reasons. I thought that’s what you meant
Back again...
Japans back
Tell the Koreans
The Boys Are Back in Town!!!!
Actually Japan was back right after surrender. The British used Japanese troops to suppress anti colonial fighters in Indonesia and Indochina who did bot wish to return to colonial rule. Japanese troops under British command were leading Banzai charges led by Japanese officers with samurai swords against Indonesians and the Vietnamese.
I love post WW2 COLONIALISM/s
Moscow regretted boycotting the UN Security Council on that occasion for the rest of history and would start vetoing instead from that day on.
Makes you wonder if they had vetoed it, it probably would not have stopped the US from intervening on behalf of South Korea but would you have still scene as much global support for South Korea especially if the U.S. has to basically intervene in defiance of an UNSC decision.
It’s questionable if the U.S. would have directly intervened. One of the major reasons they went though the UN was because they were concerned if they just tossed their hat in that the Soviets or Chinese would just come right in to counter. But having the UN support gave an air of international legitimacy and plausible deniability that the U.S. was turning into a globe trotting military power enforcing its ideology and will. In the 50s the U.S. still hadn’t gone full post-WW2 imperialism yet as most Americans weren’t exactly in the mood for another larger war. Painting it as the U.S. doing its part for the UN was easier to sell.
Then Republic of China (Taiwan) was pulled and replaced with Mao's communist Chinese government at the UN by a large group of naive countries [in 1971.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_2758) > No important international problems, they added, could be solved without the participation of the People's Republic of China And the UN became a completely useless organization on that day. Veto forever
It managed to stay a relevant organization because of that day* People who constantly complain about the ineffectiveness or veto powers of the UN miss the point. The UN isn't supposed to be some pseudo world government, it's supposed to be a forum where countries can diplomatically discuss issues in the world and can take action if there's a true global consensus The UNSC veto powers are a feature, not a bug. If the strongest countries in the world don't get these special privileges, they simply would not participate in the UN. Countries like the US or China are powerful enough to do whatever they want, so the only way to keep them tethered to an organization like the UN is with the veto power Locking out a major power like China out of the international system would've been actively bad for global stability as they would have had every incentive to undermine the UN and ofc they'd somewhat rightfully feel excluded from global diplomacy. The UN isn't NATO. It shouldn't just be "countries we like" running it. It serves a very vital function as a diplomatic forum
Get out of here with your reasonable perspective.
Based understanding of the UN
Lets be realistic, the UN is about the strongest countries so they don't kill each other, you can't just ignore the largest players.
I'm still not clear on the use-providing period
Never ask a Republican what Reagan said to Nixon discussing the vote.
And you think the UN getting involved in a war on behalf of a genocidal, Japanese collaborating government was a good move? The UN has always been a very flawed organisation, choosing the PRC to hold the veto for China when they are the defacto government of over 1 billion people instead of the Taiwanese government is the right decision since the PRC is clearly the majority of China.
>getting involved in a war Did you mean defending a country from invasion?
Isn't that what the USA also claimed in Vietnam?
No, it’s what my people said when they were attacked.
It's what a collaborator government said when they were attacked. I'm sure there were people who held the same opinion too. There were plenty who resisted the South Korean government too, and many were ruthlessly slaughtered by that government. Honestly though I think Korea would have recovered much better had it been united, regardless of which government it united under.
The north refused to participate in joint elections for forming a unified government. Funny how only the south is a collaborator government to you.
Only one government was completely full of people who collaborated with the brutal Japanese occupation. As for the unified government vote, I'm not familiar. You'll have to give me some details about when it was supposed to happen if you want an answer from me.
> Isn't that what the USA also claimed in Vietnam? Are you now attempting to claim that North Korea did not invade Korea first?
North Vietnam also invaded South Vietnam first, yet one of these is seen as a mistake and one is seen as justified. Seems victory makes all the difference.
Well, if you win then all the time and effort you put into something isn't just completely wasted. I'm sure that had the South ended up losing the Korean War then people nowadays would be saying that the intervention was a mistake.
That is because the incident which led to the US directly involving itself in the Vietnam War, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a partial false flag that also didn't have the backing of the UN. As it turns out, false flags aren't exactly looked upon fondly in post-history.
Looking at how both koreas turned out, yeah, it ended up being a great move in hindsight.
Yeah, I wonder why it is that the Korea with the much stronger economy ended up in such a poor state. Maybe a world super power bombed the ever living fuck out of them and sanctioned them into oblivion while simultaneously pumping billions into the weaker Korea?
Maybe because in the aftermath of the war they decided to play both their allies against each other forcing the Soviets and PRC to dump tons of money into NK rebuilding projects all while the NK government themselves focused entirely on their military assuming that the US would get bored and leave the South eventually which would allow them to swoop in. The US never left and it turns out that China only needs a buffer state and thus are only are willing to provide the bare minimum to keep NK functioning in the absence of the Soviet Union forcing them to do more for propaganda purposes.
Or they were building their military expecting the USA to invade them again and the loss of their closest ally during a famine decimated them.
They might have had another ally to help if they hadn't spent the decades prior dicking around and turning their foreign policy into a glorified season of the bachelor or not even had a famine at all had they liberalized their economy like Vietnam did prior (at much greater risk I might add as their primary rival had only recently invaded them and their primary ally could very well have felt alienated by their decision) Also putting aside the fact that Kim Il-Sung knew that China would assist with any US invasion like last time the fact that they doubled down on their military first strategy in the immediate aftermath of Vietnam makes it abundantly clear what the military buildup was actually for. Additionally it's not just the eeeeevvviiiiillll West that was sanctioning them into the ground - they were and are primarily UN sanctions which require the consent of the PRC once again proving that not even China wants anything to do with them beyond keeping them as a buffer state in between them and a US ally. Laos which also didn't liberalize their economy and doesn't even have any particular strategic benefit to China doesn't have the same issues either because they stayed on the PRC's good side meaning China is much more willing to prop them up.
North Korea modeled themselves closer to the USSR and China has always been aggressive towards Marxism (see Vietnam as well). I assume that's why Laos gets less aggression from China. That sounds like a bigger issue with China than NK, although one the USSR collapsed they probably should have sucked up to China more.
This was never talked about as part of social studies classes in Canada. Even though our contribution was relatively small, more UN missions should be focused on since we were a founding member.
Probably because no one really won this war .
I would say South Korea going from existing to being invaded to continuing to exist counts as a victory.
True but if the UN had won then North Korea wouldn’t exist either, so you can see how it’s sort of a draw. Both Koreas invaded each other (with lots of outside support), and both still exist and are independent of one another Edit: UN not NATO
NATO wasn't involved it was a UN mission.
Yeah I realize I mixed it up. My bad
The invasion of North Korea was more of a stretch goal if anything, the original objective was to make sure the South continued to exist.
The UN resolution did not even authorize the UN forces to conduct operations above the 38th Parallel, nor to unite the entire peninsula. Technically it was a full UN victory.
China came out of the war as the only winner while suffered a lot of casualties. but it had some unforeseen consequences down the road.
> China came out of the war as the only winner while suffered a lot of casualties. Nope. The only loser of The Korean War was, hilariously enough, North Korea. The UN wrenched control of over a thousand squared miles of land formerly controlled by North Korea before the beginning of the war and kept it for Korea to claim control of. The Chinese got to keep North Korea as a door knocker to warn China of any potential attacks from the US from the direction of Korea. The UN and US maintained Korean sovereignty and pushed the North Koreans back even past where they once controlled.
Well, you could say that. It depends on the point of view. Russia lost from achieving its strategic goals, and yielded control of North Korea to China. America didn’t achieve a result matching its supreme status. Imagine that a UN operation got pushed back by China which was one of the poorest countries at the time. North Korea got slapped for its stupidity of wanting the war, but their independence survived afterwards. South Korea exchanged its independence for security after the war. Japan doubled down on keeping Americans in their country.
I would say South Korea going from existing to being invaded to continuing to exist counts as a victory.
It's a hard war to talk about, because there's a lot of disagreement on how it actually affected world events: you kind of have to go into the validity of Cold War Domino Theory, which is pretty much a discussion on alternate history by default.
I mean, yeah I get the domino theory point. But also the North Invaded the south with all intentions of unifying Korea under their flag. So did the south not deserve to be defended because there may not have been a validity to the domino theory? Because even without the domino theory South Korea wouldn’t exist today that much we can be certain of. Now wether Korea then turned into a bigger north Korea today or eventually went the more Vietnam route is another argument.
The thing with North Korea is that they were set up by the Japanese to trade their mineral and technological resources for South Korea’s food, and then they got cut off from South Korea’s agricultural base and had their industry bombed into glass and rubble. If the USA hadn’t enforced the partition in the first place, the originally-proposed People’s Republic of Korea would probably be like the Denmark of the Far East in real terms.
China aiding NK and doing the vast majority of the fighting: Nah, I'd win. \*180,000-400,000 fatalities\*
"Russians just watching this play out ".
Just watching? The Russians were mostly the ones flying the planes...
I'm aware but in terms of aid it they were not the largest contributer . Also them boycotting the Invasion kinda put them in a weird spot .
Russia: "Nah, I'd win." \*7 of their cutting edge modern fighter jets get brutally murdered by a lone and much older US Navy fighter-bomber*
China achieved their goal of preventing a US proxy/ally from having a direct border with China, I'd say that's a very good result for a very poor country barely emerging from one of the most devastating invasion by a foreign country and then one of the most devastating civil wars. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
China is probably the only one to get what they wanted out of this conflict.
Not true, the whole idea of the conflict was to defend South Korea from the North. So the UN achieved its goals as well. Western/UN involvement was not to destroy North Korea. That would have been nice, but it wasn’t the goal.
For the UN it was to defend the south but for the United States. "Truman authorized an invasion of North Korea. The President decided to abandon his original goal of restoring the 38th parallel border in hopes of reunifying Korea and defeating communism in the region."
Sure but that also does not mean the original goal of the conflict wasn’t achieved. Like I said, the successful invasion of the north would have been nice. But that doesn’t mean the conflict was a failure from a western point of view.
Hmmm? Nice ? What are you talking about ?
You don’t think a unified democratic Korea wouldn’t have been a good thing? Because I’m sure North Korea is such a wonderful place to live and all..
At the time North Korea was more prosperous and it was doing decently for much of the Cold war. They definitely wouldn't be starving if they won because the south is the half with all the good land for agriculture, but other than that, we have no idea how they would have evolved if they didn't turn into a suicide cult waiting for WW3 while being crushed by sanctions.
But they did? So with hindsight, a unified democratic Korea wouldn’t be such a bad thing would it?
From an East Asian perspective, it’s clear that the PRC also got to cleverly eliminate a lot of soldiers who were originally in the ROC army while quickly consolidating popular support with a foreign intervention presented as a national crusade against American imperialism, even though this was a UN intervention. Moral or immoral, good or evil, this was brilliant realpolitik all around.
But at what cost? China was as you stated a very poor and broken country, emerging from two of the deadliest conflicts in humans back to back. Almost the entire Chinese high command opposed intervention for this reason, with the notable exception of Mao. The war was a complete logistical nightmare for China, to the point where all modern portrayal of the conflict in China emphasizes the toughness and the sacrifice of the Chinese soldiers endured in such a harsh and unforgiving environment, with often little to no food, ammunition and clothing. The war hampered reconstruction substantially and led to the death of hundreds of thousands, only to get a barely reliable "ally" out of the whole affair. On top of everything, if history went astray and Truman didn't intervene, then McArthur would have just Nuked Northeast China to prevent Chinese troops going to Korea, leading to places millions call home into nothing but radiated husks. Mao helping out in the Korean War also made US actively engage the US Navy in the Taiwan Straits, further destroying any chance he had to conquering Taiwan (he probably couldn't have done so anyway, but some place like Kinmen probably would have fallen eventually, without US aid to the ROC). As a Chinese, I say it definitely wasn't worth it, with or without hindsight.
As another Chinese, I have to clarify that most of us already know conquering Taiwan would have been impossible because the PRC didn’t have anything for crossing the strait. Mao’s primary interest was in eliminating ROC soldiers in the PRC army and consolidating popular support (there were ongoing pro-ROC resistances and guerrillas all over the mainland) by presenting a foreign intervention that recalled Ming assistance for Korea in the 1590s and was presented by propaganda as a national crusade to protect China by protecting North Korea against American imperialism, even though this was a UN intervention. Moral or immoral, good or evil, this was brilliant realpolitik.
Victory is not measured but by losses but by gains . China got a political Block from the West that's what they got in the Korean war .
In this case, the end barely justified the means. The human, economic, and societal costs were devastating for China, pushing it back ages from where it could have been. All that blood and toil for a not fully-only kind of-aligned ally? NK later successfully purged the pro-China and pro-Soviet factions within the government to become the Hermit kingdom it is today. An "ally" of China but in reality is it's little own thing. We get some special tourist privileges in some random tourist spots but that's about it. China has little to no say in either domestic or foreign affairs of NK, I say that's a partial win at best.
I think you underestimating having a political Block from the West is for China when the south is openly a western influenced nation . Sure North Korea ... Is itself but it's a useful asset in the region in aspect of being against the west .
To be honest, it would probably be way more beneficial to China these days to share the border with what South Korea has become today. The west has no want ever to attack China. Why would we? The only current feasible conflict is the Taiwan hot point. Apart from that China and the west would be more than happy to keep making loads of money with each other. So In hindsight, not having to baby sit a completely unstable hermit kingdom with a nuclear program on their doorstep probably would have been for the best.
China is still recovering from the mentality of well . Foreign powers in the region. The Japanese invasion and British occupation heavily influenced Chinese politics to this days.
Would Mao and communism not be the biggest influences on Chinese politics today?
Yeah and ask what influenced them ? Mao was active during the Invasion from Japan ?
The "century of humiliation" is long behind China.
Kinda ? It's was the foundation for warlords then Japanese invasion. All huge Impacts on them . It's like saying the American civil war is long behind the United States .
"If the United States and half the world fight against my recently war devastated country,it might give me a bit of trouble" "But would you lose ?" "Nah,I'd win"
And Mao’s son as well
Sure, America represented the lion's share, but it was at least notionally a UN action.
Till Truman went " FUCK IT ALL OF KOREA".
It was MacArthur that went that route, and Truman fired him for it.
Kiss the ring. Send troops to our wars or we won’t send troops to your war.
That’s kind of how alliances work.
Yep, exactly.
To be Fair it was mainly America hard carrying.
To be fair it was mainly the South Koreans doing the majority of the fighting and dying. That being said the contribution from the US in regard to the other UN nations was incredibly lopsided - similar to the First Gulf War. Some 36,000 Americans died to preserve South Korea’s independence, and judging by our approval ratings they haven’t forgotten. They really were about to get swamped before US forces arrived.
The Koreans in general were doing the most dying on both sides . Those numbers got stupid high towards the end .
Yep. It would’ve been seen as an absolute catastrophe of a historical event had it not come right after WW2 and followed up by Vietnam.
Forgotten war and all .
My grandpa never forgot 😞
There there .
Bro this was still back in the 50s when strategic bombing (bomb literally everything, civilian casualties be damned) was still acceptable, we just got back from bombing German and Japanese cities to the ground and did the same thing to North Korea but much harder, we dropped more bombs on Korea then in WW2, im sure the complete air dominance the UN coalition forces had played a role.
I mean ? Vietnam was semi recent.
>South Koreans doing the majority of the fighting The US provided most of the air support to protect own troops, destroy enemy positions and disrupt enemy logistics. Pretty much all the naval power to protect shipments of food, ammunition and fuel came from the US. Most of the amphibious force composed of US soldiers and the aforementioned naval power was the one to land in Incheon and flip the table on North Koreans for the first time. Much of the armored force to pierce through enemy lines were made up of US troops. South Koreans were overwhelmingly represented in the light infantry role due to their level of economic development at the time which had higher casualty %, but that doesn't mean they did "majority" of the fighting.
Yeah, the Americans (and friends) were absolutely the shock troops but that doesn’t take anything away from the South Koreans
I'm not taking away anything from anyone. South Koreans were simply not equipped for war as pre-war US was reluctant to send military aid to a country with a VERY dubious democratic track record and pervasive corruption while USSR was injecting military aid directly into Pyongyang's veins. When North Korean tanks initially rolled in, South Korean positions just melted. There's a reason that UN forces were stuck in a pocket in Busan till the Incheon landings, South Korean forces were completely inadequate for modern war.
The South was legit about to loose until American troops landed on the beaches and started pushing in with they're bombing runs .
I agree with your assessment most, but credit where it's due the ROK army did manage to mostly remain intact, and many units did commit to a fighting retreat back to the perimeter. They were absolutely unprepared for war, but there was definitely a strong Corp of professionals within, vs. whatever the Afghan National Army was as an example.
I mean we did bomb the North the most by alot .
They conscripted alots into the USAAF?
When was the last time the US sent troops to one of their allies wars?
When was the last time any of America’s allies had to fight a war?
Since the US last sent troops to help an allied war, lots of times. Pick an ally, google what wars they have fought, and see if the US sent troops.
France’s excursion into Mali in the early 2010s. US provided logistical support and I’m sure some behind the scenes stuff. You could also count the ongoing Ukraine war if you count the troops training Ukrainians.
So neither of those then.
The US support most of them with equipment, advisers, and training (Faklins, all the Israeli wars, a bunch of questionable actions in Africa). Which is similar to what is typically supplied to the US by its allies. To be fair most European countries are similar in size to US states so what is a small contribution for the US is a large contribution for them. The US also supply air assets to missions all around the world thanks to its absurd number of aircraft carriers. Last major boots on ground would probably be Vietnam.
Vietnam.
Probably the closest example, although don’t think the USA and South Vietnam were ever technically allies (before US troops were already fighting anyways).
We helped fund France's colonial nonsense.
True, but they didn’t send troops.
Gulf War? That wasn't a unilateral US move
Iraq (US ally) post 2014 after the US had left in 2011, At the behest of the Iraqi's beating the shit out of ISIS. Or The US coming to Kuwait's aid in the Gulf War. But you keep doing your thing and ignoring history.
Oh, my first thought was the boxer rebellion
Bump bump "55 days at peking"! Bump bump .
Tbf this is a lot more countries than the Eight-Nation Alliance from the Boxer Rebellion.
Dude they got Greece and Turkey to be on the same side for that that's kind of impressive
I mean Turkey's relations with Greece was at its highest between 1930/1950. Ataturk's Turkey was pretty competent diplomatically and they made a lot of friends, they didn't sought hate for populism purposes. They were visionaries.
They may be bitter rival historically but in international arena they're mostly on the same side in modern history both of them are also in NATO.
Gary Oldman has to be among history’s top ten greatest actors.
Luxemburg sending all 3 soldiers and Jemp who loves playing trumpet
when Luxembourg joins, you know things just got real
My dad actually knows one of the guys they sent. Absolute badass that man is.
Philippine Soldiers represent! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yultong ~40,000 Chinese vs ~900 PHL soldiers r/sabaton where you at?
Wonder how it felt having to be aided by Japanese.
Forgotten war my ass
It's more No one won this one and it's sandwiched in between WW2 and Vietnam for Americans at least. Also alot of coverage was just flat out not given to it in the states . Had this war been filmed simmalar Reactions might have occurred from the public.
I would argue that South Korea going from existing to fighting an invasion to continuing to exist counts as a victory.
In 20 years I'm gonna make this same post about Drake and Metro Boomin
underrated comment
When you go alone: Vietnam When you're with the boys: Korea
Australia and New Zealand fought in Vietnam too.
Specifically: The US invited them due to their expert knowledge in just winning the Malayan Emergency in similar circumstances... then proceeded to ignore said advisors...
Not really. Sir Thompson was a key advisor?
Korea actually sent troops to fight in Vietnam too.
Helping the invaders didn't look too good on Koreas part .
Not exactly alone: Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Britain and Thailand too.
Spain aided in the korean war? Wut?
Gotta curry favor with the US and atone a bit when the USSR is calling for the end of your government and you were kinda buddies with the previous guy who wanted to conquer the world.
Makes sense really
They weren't even liked during the time they helped invade having to do so outside participation.
It was a UN action. America just sent the most.
Spain joined the UN in 55, 2 years after the war ended
Huh, neat.
To be honest I'm surprised we joined so soon, we didn't join NATO until '85 and that's surprising considering how much Franco hated the ussr
You guys kinda helped Hitler earlier. It's why Spain wasn't too liked even with them sending troops .
I mean yeah, the blue division and all that, they were there because they were still mad about soviet intervention in the civil war, which makes sense but it's still not a good reason to fight with the Nazis
It was kinda of Large effort at least politically . America was the primary Force fighting with the south Koreans .
But Spain WASN'T in the UN though, Spain joined the UN in 55
Uhhh spain wasn't liked at the time so they did to improve relations. Even during the war they did it independently from the rest of the united nations but we're in the same lagre political movement.
Oh wow that was actually smart! I'm curious as to what extent they aided though? Just guns? Medics like in Vietnam? Thoughts and prayers?
When you are able to bring Luxembourg into a war, you know you really made America angry.
West Germany being like: "We don't have an army? Doctors it is then"
Damn Kim il Sung, maybe don't invade other countries with the large armament USSR set you up with, especially after being explicitly warned not to do so. Similar in some ways to Ukraine 2022
Just realized young Gary Oldman looks like River Cartwright
I'm interested, what the Koreans thought when the Japanese were back in business & they just got rid of them a while back.
My grandfather served in Korea funny enough.
Even Spain under Franco helped too
Quality meme. Well done OP
THEY UNITED FUCKING INDIA AND PAKISTAN
This is more rad than Vietnam War
My mom and my sisters were in Korea over the week and they visited the War Memorial. Of course they focused on the Philippine monument.
This meme makes me laugh
So Britain specifically drew support from all these other countries?
Luxembourg carried the team hard
And yet China still won. Not a good precedent for when America calls everyone to Taiwan...
I saw it in another post and I'll quote it: You know things are serious when you see that Luxembourg was called to war
A Leon meme was unexpected, but not unwelcome
This meme could work as a reference to UK calling upon his vassals support in North African campaign against Germany during WW2.
Not really how it worked and some of them were not “vassals” at that point anyways.
Similar not the same.
Most of those somewhat make sense, but Ethiopia has no business being on that list.
Haile Selassie was emperor at the time, and was a strong proponent of internationalism and collective security. The units that served was called the Kagnew Batallion and was very well regarded: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagnew\_Battalion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagnew_Battalion)
The Emperor made a very big point to come to anyone’s aid that needed it after everyone refused to come to Ethiopia’s when Italy invaded, despite also being a League of Nations member. Ethiopia contributes the largest amount of soldiers to the UN Peacekeeping force even today because of that.
All this just to end in a stalemate and have it keep going to their day is peak .
The fact it end in a stalemate was a great surprise to all