Question about N Koreas past

[GeoffM]

I'm aiming this at those with actual political knowledge, or a decent idea of what happened.

From my research, it seems the Korean war was a war by proxy.
We were essentially at war with Russia and China, and used Korea as a place to do it.
Somewhat like Vietnam and Afghanistan(I have done ZERO research into either of those).

Anyways, we joined the battle, and pushed NK waaaay north.
China and Russia supplemented more troops (even though they said they wouldn't), and pushed us back.
We pushed harder, and set the line where it is today, gaining slightly more territory on the East side of the DMZ.

There the line stood.
Here is my concern (not really a question form): We left the line there, because of China and Russia, correct?
With somewhat of a Cold war mentality that we didn't want to eradicate NK because it would eliminate another communistic state, which would anger those two nuclear super powers.

Correct so far, yes?

If that's the case, then now there is nothing anything like that standing behind them.
Russia, while not as poor as they were after the collapse, won't go to war with us.
China won't, because our economies are too closely intertwined, and they're upset with NK.

So; if the two countries that stopped the Korea war in a truce are no longer a factor, then eradication of NK and a unification of the Korea's isn't that far fetched, yes?

(In answering the question above, please only consider political factors. Leave military might out of it, unless it plays a significant role. I.e. NK
has Russian surplus jets, and will dominate our fighters like they did at first)

[Ralphie]

Yes, that is correct.

It wasn't really a proxy war, and it wasn't a jumping off point for us.

Japan controlled the Korean peninsula, when Japan fell, and the North and South were unable to negotiate terms, the North invaded the South.

We only entered because we wanted to keep an eye on Japan, and could not do so directly so we realized that having SK as an ally would allow us to be buddies with Japan.




As far as your question, I don't see any reason why China or Russia would get involved, especially if NK attacked anything US operated or owned. And also highly doubtful if we stepped in to soley defend SK, as we did 50 years ago.

The only thing that's constantly in the back of my mind, however, is that China and Russia to this day infiltrate the US to gain intelligence.

So in my mind, I don't trust either of them as far as I can throw them.

With China, it's mostly internet bs.

Russia had those half dozen or so spies out of NYC caught what ? 3 years ago or so.

So its very suspicious.

[GeoffM]

Yes, that is correct.

It wasn't really a proxy war, and it wasn't a jumping off point for us.

Japan controlled the Korean peninsula, when Japan fell, and the North and South were unable to negotiate terms, the North invaded the South.

We only entered because we wanted to keep an eye on Japan, and could not do so directly so we realized that having SK as an ally would allow us to be buddies with Japan.

From what I read, there was a little bit of a gap before that happened. The Russians stopped at that river, and waited for us. We came in, established SK, and then didn't give a shit for a few years till NK invaded. Even then, we didn't send people over because of Cold war escalation issues, until SK was almost wiped out.

I just realized I assumed Japan was our buddy immediately following WW2. Fallout makes me think that probably wasn't the case. I know we did move troops over from there to help out SK.

At what point did they become our buddy again?

As far as your question, I don't see any reason why China or Russia would get involved, especially if NK attacked anything US operated or owned. And also highly doubtful if we stepped in to soley defend SK, as we did 50 years ago.

The only thing that's constantly in the back of my mind, however, is that China and Russia to this day infiltrate the US to gain intelligence.

So in my mind, I don't trust either of them as far as I can throw them.

With China, it's mostly internet bs.

Russia had those half dozen or so spies out of NYC caught what ? 3 years ago or so.

So its very suspicious.

Also from what I read;
It wasn't solely us, but mostly us. And we were mostly dressed in UN gear.

I think if those Russian spies were to be caught sabotaging our defenses at crucial times, then we would have BIG BIG issues.
Especially if they took out a patriot defense system (Ground to air defense. I think that's that name) just in time for a NK missile to get through.

[toycar]

Yes and no.



The Korean war was bloody and lots of people died. We lost 36,000 troops, compared to 7,000 or so from the afghanistan and iraq wars combined.


Ralphie has most of the history in his post in a quick paraphrase sort of sense.


The way I remember it was that China didn't agree with the force we were using, and that was why they got involved. Once N Korea had reinforcements, we lost our momentum and decided to "agree to disagree" with them. Russia has always looked for a reason to fuck with us. My opinion anyways.


We really didn't win the Korean war. If anything, the North stood their ground, while retreating their allies got their back and then we decided to walk away.

[GeoffM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

I actually spent roughly 8 hours at work reading about it.
Due to the nature of wikipedia, I started by reading about battleships.

The one I was reading about has (did not at the time) the ability to fire a 16 (18?) inch projectile that weighs 2700 lbs over 27 miles away.

[toycar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

I actually spent roughly 8 hours at work reading about it.
Due to the nature of wikipedia, I started by reading about battleships.

The one I was reading about has (did not at the time) the ability to fire a 16 (18?) inch projectile that weighs 2700 lbs over 27 miles away.

Read your wiki link and this part says it all

Chinese intervention forced the Southern-allied forces to retreat behind the 38th Parallel. While not directly committing forces to the conflict, the Soviet Union provided material aid to both the North Korean and Chinese armies

Basically we got in there and pushed N korea almost off the peninsula. Then, the Chinese thought we were taking it too far and so they got involved and helped the North push us back. Russia didn't exactly fight us, but they offered up supplies and resources to the Chinese and North to help fend us off. Basically looking for a reason to fuck with us.

Once they pushed us passed the 38th parallel, we fought back and fourth for a while and eventually just "agreed to disagree" and everyone just stopped. Nobody really 'Won' the fight.


The point of "nobody really won the fight" is very clear. The US did not win that fight. Everyone else in the region who was involved in the war can piss off. Its all irrelevant.

We didn't dominate/win that fight. We were forced to walk away.


Probably because we didn't want to Nuke someone else at the time, so, we opted to leave well enough alone. I don't think we wanted to be nuked either, and the Russians were supplying munitions to keep the Northern alliance fighting. The Russians at that point had equal or better nuclear weapons than we did.

[Ralphie]

I'd say if we had pressed on, we would have clearly won.

Just look at the casualties....

I believe the Chinese pulled out because their guys were starving to death and had only rifles left lol, no tanks, aircraft or food.

Yea Soviets just supplied shit but we kept hitting their supply chains and basically they were doing no good.

We stepped away because we had the foresight to see that there wasn't much point to dragging it out, since it was an issue between the N and S, and not us really.

[toycar]

I'd say if we had pressed on, we would have clearly won.

Just look at the casualties....

I believe the Chinese pulled out because their guys were starving to death and had only rifles left lol, no tanks, aircraft or food.

Yea Soviets just supplied shit but we kept hitting their supply chains and basically they were doing no good.

We stepped away because we had the foresight to see that there wasn't much point to dragging it out, since it was an issue between the N and S, and not us really.

Well I see it more as a continuation of WW2 and the prequel to the cold war era. Shit with Russia got real after the Korean war, and they were trying to manipulate China/N Korea to fight the fight for them and it was working. We had pushed the North damn near off the peninsula before China got involved. They pushed us back hundreds of miles.


If we were winning/would've won, why did we get pushed all the way back past the 38th parallel? Its not like N Korea ever did anything we wanted them to do as a result of the conflict. We drew a big ass line and said,"Ok, you stay on your side and we will stay on ours"

Basically agreeing to disagree. We didn't win that fight, and the people supporting the enemy took direct aim at us after the Korean war. We sided with USSR during the Suez Crisis and asked Israel to step down-in my opinion to avoid more conflict with Russia. Israel has long been an ally, and the french and british plotted to take the canal for trade reasons after it was nationalized by egypt. Egypt reached out to the USSR, and then we had a choice to make between our allies and our enemy.

We backed the USSR and put pressure on Israel to leave the canal/egypt as a result.

This was in 1956. Right after the Korean war.

Then there was a period of spy vs spy stuff, and then the cuban missile shit happend when Russia put nukes 50 miles away from Florida Pointing straight at America.


My point, the shit in Korea was not a dominate performance by the US and the years that followed were not years of positive images and super power status. I really don't know why people think the Korean war was anything else.


We lost 5 times as many soldiers in 1/4 the time as both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.


Those are real statistics, and they illustrate a pretty grim situation

[Ralphie]

Oh ya, Im not saying we were fucking storming Norman over there.

Shit was bad. I just think we came out much better then the enemy forces. I think we felt like there were better things to be doing and since it stalled out, and both sides agreed to stop fighting, we just bowed out.

If it had kept up, there would no doubt be more losses, but im pretty confident that we would not be having this discussion now because we would have eventually wiped them out and let S Korea do what they wanted, meaning a unified Democratic Korea.

Couldn't say how long it would have went on, but it would have definitely affected the Cold war etc...

Bay of sourdough piggies etc LOL

And it is unfair to compare the Korean war casualities with those of OIF/OEF.

Seperated by 50 years, everything on our end has changed.

Our fighting tactics, our equipment, our intelligence. All of it.

And the tactics used by the NK and the rebels in remote villages in Iraq/Afghanistan is also worlds apart.

Our improved training/equipment and the difference of mission and brass at the top, clearly roll downhill and are reflected in the death tolls of both conflicts.

You can see that if you even just compare the Gulf war and OIF/OEF and that was seperated only by 10 or so years?