If I can make a suggestion, I think you should also also write an article about how many wars capitalist countries had against each other afther WWII and how many wars socialist countries had against each other in the same timeframe. Just to debunk the marxist mythology about "MUH...capitalism cause wars!!!111"
Saying that South Korea's wealth and freedom is a "success" of the American Empire seems like a bit of a stretch. There is perhaps some truth to it, but not as much as you suggest. I say that because for decades after the Korean War the South was neither democratic nor wealthy in the way it is today. Syngman Rhee's leadership was brutal, repressive, and resulted in the poverty of millions. South Korea did not elect a leader until 1987, 34 years after the war. While today things are obviously different it is not at all clear what role the American Empire played in that success (at least from your article) considering how South Korea was closely allied with the US throughout the Cold War yet remained oppressed and impoverished throughout much of that time.
Most of the article is a valid criticism of the North. But who needs reminding that North Korea is run by a reprehensible and despotic regime?
If the Americans hadn't invaded Libya after they gave up their nuclear weapons, it could have set a president for more dictators to give up nuclear weapons. But you guys keep insisting that Arabs should live in a Republic even they are wholly unworthy to being citizens.
> I’ve sort of conflated two questions here, which are whether the US has historically been a force for good on the Korean peninsula, and whether it is a force for good today. In theory, each of these questions might have a different answer, but in practical terms virtually everyone either answers yes to both or no to both.
US intervention in Korea bears a lot of resemblance to US intervention in Vietnam. But the former is far more popular than the latter.
> Yet, considering that the North Koreans have always said they want reunification while never again invading their neighbor
The actions in the second part of that are much more important than the words in the first part.
> Things might be fine without the US, but pulling back now would be crazy given what could realistically happen.
Not that crazy. It doesn't at all remove the option of the US returning should that seem necessary in the future.
How did the norm of refusing to ever talk to the “bad guys” get established?
My guess would be that WW2 and the idea of unconditional surrender did a lot of the work. Especially with an alliance as unwieldy as Anglos + Soviets, and the knowledge that WW1 ended in an unhappy armistice, no one wanted to make the other allies question their commitment. Plus the way Japan continued to engage in diplomacy even as the strike on Pearl Harbor was imminent.
So the generation that established the framework for the Cold War probably held diplomacy with the bad guys in lower regard than a generation or two earlier.
Conrad Black's biography of Richard Nixon really does a lot to support the second point of talking to evil regimes but in the context of Cold War politiking between the US, China, the Soviet Union, and everyone else in between.
Another example in the same vain of successful US foreign policy include the US alliances with Japan and Taiwan. Otherwise, specifically, Taiwan would not be a thriving democracy.
"No one knows what would have happened if the US had withdrawn from Korea in say 1985. Perhaps Kim Il Sung had mellowed in his old age, and there would have been negotiations that led to reunification, or at least peace and prosperity for both nations. Alternatively, the regime might’ve continued on the path it was on and surprised the world one morning by nuking Seoul. Of course, the South Koreans would not have stood still under those circumstances and may have tried to get nukes of their own. All of this could’ve ended in a strike by whichever side got to the bomb first, or a Cold War-like scenario of Mutually Assured Destruction that continued and made permanent the frozen peace we see today. "
North Korea didn't get nukes until 2006; South Korea tried getting them under Park Chung-Hee until the US made him stop. The US had tactical nuclear weapons in Korea until Bush Sr. and probably should've kept them as it removed its ground forces in the following years.
100%. The GOP used to understand the importance of wielding hard and soft power but it's been taken over by isolationists (again) and liberals are too soft to get it.
The concern I have is this. The correlation of forces during the Korean war were much better for the US then that today and yet all we could get was a draw. In repeat today, the US would surely lose.
SImilarly, if China *really* wants to take Taiwan, there is nothing the US can do to stop them. The US can make it expensive though, so expensive that they won't try. But if China really wants Taiwan, it seems to me they would like to enlist allies in the effort. Such allies would function to drain US resources away from the Taiwan theater. For example America is already fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine that Ukraine is slowly losing. Back in late 2022 I floated an idea for how to achieve a win-win outcome with some friends who took a dim view of it. Later I tried it out on BingAI, which had just become a thing. BingAI argued strongly against it, getting what seemed like increasingly testy and then refusing to talk about it again, which really surprised be since it is a computer program. I still don't see why it was such a bad idea. See link to an April article in which I inserted mu argument.
My idea was that the EU is more than strong enough to counter Russia in Europe, and the expenditure of US power there was a waste, so we should pull out and reposition elsewhere.
With the US involved in Europe and now in the Middle East, should North Korea launch a full-scale invasion of the South at the same time that China launches an assault on Taiwan, how would the US respond?
My thinking here is China cannot really effectively employ the full power of her land forces on Taiwan because it is an island so there is an important naval component. But if China used her land power to intervene in a new Korean war as she did in the first one, America would have to make a choice, do we save South Korea or Taiwan? It seems to me that the US should not allow situations like this to arise.
The US cannot remain sprawled all over the globe like the British Empire and not expect to be taken apart as they were.
The fundamental problem with US foreign policy and interventionism is that the true costs are sneakily hidden from the voters. There is no war tax to fund these wars, there's rarely any draft to demand personal sacrifice from citizens and PRs. The obvious reason is that many of these wars would then be unpopular and voted down because they are not essential.
Maybe you’re right but it’s hard to view the US involvement in Korea as a success story when it murdered 20% of the North Korean population and destroyed 85% of the buildings. NK is a horrible place to be but it’s not clear to me that’s solely the communists’ fault.
I am not a US person. Tucker Carlson with Lex Friedman disrespecting all US war outcomes:
- so the US invaded all these countries, but where did we get a positive outcome?
- there's the Marshall plan, but 80 years down the road, look at the EU, look at Japan is it better?
- there's South Korea but look at their fertility rate vs N Korea, I am all against a regime like NK, but wouldn't it be strange if 50 years from now, SK was depopulated and NK had a much larger population?
After reading The Proud Tower, it dawned on me that the US created industrial arms race in 1880 that led to the two world wars and communism in Russia (https://polsci.substack.com/p/the-strategic-importance-of-maritime). In The Menace of the Herd, Procuste at Large, Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn made the point that democracy leads to Ochlocracy, and that this whole Wilsonian push for parliamentarian democracy in nationalistic states was unstable and meant less freedom and more coercion (https://polsci.substack.com/p/ochlocracy).
But you have to allow other actors some agency it's not just the US, it's a balance of forces and actions.
It is hard to do counter-factual history. It is a fact that the interventions were followed by a period of well-being in Europe and Japan, and in Korea. After that, the track record of the US has changed for the worst. Since 91, the US foreign policy has turned out even bellicose, self-interested in bad faith, twisted by domestic issues and captured by special interests.
We hear Cold War policymakers criticize the change. Former ambassador Jack Matlock, who says the US implemented the Brezhnev doctrine of economic coercion and military action. The leaders are voicing self-aggrandizing propaganda like being the indispensable nation at the end of history: "But if we must use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand and we see further into the future than other countries, and we see the danger which lies in wait for us all."
-- Madeleine Albright
Kagan's explained in paradise and power that the US should only abide by the "rules of the Jungle" and implement "double standards". The Federal govt started to spy and monitor its own citizens and enforce unprecedented financial sanctions against its allies from the increase in federal power it got from the backlash of 9/11.
Given the track record in Iraq and Libya, it would appear rational for all States to develop nukes and significant anti-air capability. Going through the charade of weapons inspection always leads to sanctions, a no-fly zone, and eventually bombardment.
Not talking to hostile countries is the stupidest policy I've ever heard about in foreign policy. This leaves entirely too much power in the hands of the unelected who may have any number of incentives to keep their dealings secret. It's not as if I believe the CIA or other players don't speak through back channels. Why would we give up the power to understand exactly what they want to achieve and to psychologically understand them better? It's dumb.
I'm half-Korean and my father was stationed in the country twice as a US Army officer, and I must say Korea actually is evidence against US Empire's success. The number of US forces there is a fraction of what it once was, and they aren't there to "prevent a new invasion from the North." They're a token force there so that the Army doesn't feel left out of the Indo-Pacific as it tries to justify its budget. The only thing the ROK Army is short on is attack helicopters. The US presence should be restricted to the Air Force, and the US should provide a nuclear deterrent. Otherwise, the ROKs should be given command of combined operations as they requested because their conventional capabilities far surpass the DPRK's.
Secondly, South Korea wanted to keep fighting in 1953 until it captured the entire peninsula just as the North did. However, the US and China wanted an end, so the US secretly agreed to let the PLA attack ROK forces to force a ceasefire. So much for standing with allies and muh credibility.
Thirdly, South Korea was almost as repressive as North Korea for decades. Look up Yushin constitution. It was benign in the sense that it used industrial policy to rapidly modernize the economy, but it's inaccurate to portray it as necessarily more morally acceptable than its counterpart until the 1980s.
Fourth, according to Pew Research a majority of South Koreans and Japanese see the US as a threat to their country despite being allies. The reason is probably the worry that a hawk like Trump will provoke North Korea. This would unleash not a second Korean war but a Northeast Asian war because Japan would immediately be targeted for hosting the bulk of US forces. South Korea under Democratic administrations has tended to take a softer line on inter-Korean relations, and most Koreans think the US approach is too hardline.
Finally, South Korea's prosperity is due in part to its intervention in Vietnam. The US gave a lot of money to the ROK for helping to defend South Vietnam, but Washington eventually pulled the plug on the latter. Was it wrong for America to backstab South Vietnam? Most people say no, which seems inconsistent with supporting South Korea for most of the Cold War
If I can make a suggestion, I think you should also also write an article about how many wars capitalist countries had against each other afther WWII and how many wars socialist countries had against each other in the same timeframe. Just to debunk the marxist mythology about "MUH...capitalism cause wars!!!111"
Saying that South Korea's wealth and freedom is a "success" of the American Empire seems like a bit of a stretch. There is perhaps some truth to it, but not as much as you suggest. I say that because for decades after the Korean War the South was neither democratic nor wealthy in the way it is today. Syngman Rhee's leadership was brutal, repressive, and resulted in the poverty of millions. South Korea did not elect a leader until 1987, 34 years after the war. While today things are obviously different it is not at all clear what role the American Empire played in that success (at least from your article) considering how South Korea was closely allied with the US throughout the Cold War yet remained oppressed and impoverished throughout much of that time.
Most of the article is a valid criticism of the North. But who needs reminding that North Korea is run by a reprehensible and despotic regime?
If the Americans hadn't invaded Libya after they gave up their nuclear weapons, it could have set a president for more dictators to give up nuclear weapons. But you guys keep insisting that Arabs should live in a Republic even they are wholly unworthy to being citizens.
> I’ve sort of conflated two questions here, which are whether the US has historically been a force for good on the Korean peninsula, and whether it is a force for good today. In theory, each of these questions might have a different answer, but in practical terms virtually everyone either answers yes to both or no to both.
US intervention in Korea bears a lot of resemblance to US intervention in Vietnam. But the former is far more popular than the latter.
> Yet, considering that the North Koreans have always said they want reunification while never again invading their neighbor
The actions in the second part of that are much more important than the words in the first part.
> Things might be fine without the US, but pulling back now would be crazy given what could realistically happen.
Not that crazy. It doesn't at all remove the option of the US returning should that seem necessary in the future.
How did the norm of refusing to ever talk to the “bad guys” get established?
My guess would be that WW2 and the idea of unconditional surrender did a lot of the work. Especially with an alliance as unwieldy as Anglos + Soviets, and the knowledge that WW1 ended in an unhappy armistice, no one wanted to make the other allies question their commitment. Plus the way Japan continued to engage in diplomacy even as the strike on Pearl Harbor was imminent.
So the generation that established the framework for the Cold War probably held diplomacy with the bad guys in lower regard than a generation or two earlier.
Conrad Black's biography of Richard Nixon really does a lot to support the second point of talking to evil regimes but in the context of Cold War politiking between the US, China, the Soviet Union, and everyone else in between.
Another example in the same vain of successful US foreign policy include the US alliances with Japan and Taiwan. Otherwise, specifically, Taiwan would not be a thriving democracy.
"No one knows what would have happened if the US had withdrawn from Korea in say 1985. Perhaps Kim Il Sung had mellowed in his old age, and there would have been negotiations that led to reunification, or at least peace and prosperity for both nations. Alternatively, the regime might’ve continued on the path it was on and surprised the world one morning by nuking Seoul. Of course, the South Koreans would not have stood still under those circumstances and may have tried to get nukes of their own. All of this could’ve ended in a strike by whichever side got to the bomb first, or a Cold War-like scenario of Mutually Assured Destruction that continued and made permanent the frozen peace we see today. "
North Korea didn't get nukes until 2006; South Korea tried getting them under Park Chung-Hee until the US made him stop. The US had tactical nuclear weapons in Korea until Bush Sr. and probably should've kept them as it removed its ground forces in the following years.
100%. The GOP used to understand the importance of wielding hard and soft power but it's been taken over by isolationists (again) and liberals are too soft to get it.
South Korea isn't the larger country.
The concern I have is this. The correlation of forces during the Korean war were much better for the US then that today and yet all we could get was a draw. In repeat today, the US would surely lose.
SImilarly, if China *really* wants to take Taiwan, there is nothing the US can do to stop them. The US can make it expensive though, so expensive that they won't try. But if China really wants Taiwan, it seems to me they would like to enlist allies in the effort. Such allies would function to drain US resources away from the Taiwan theater. For example America is already fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine that Ukraine is slowly losing. Back in late 2022 I floated an idea for how to achieve a win-win outcome with some friends who took a dim view of it. Later I tried it out on BingAI, which had just become a thing. BingAI argued strongly against it, getting what seemed like increasingly testy and then refusing to talk about it again, which really surprised be since it is a computer program. I still don't see why it was such a bad idea. See link to an April article in which I inserted mu argument.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/will-hegemonic-war-end-the-american#:~:text=It%20may%20be%20possible%20for%20the%20US%20to%20obtain%20a%20Ukraine%20settlement%20favorable%20to%20both%20Russia%20and%20Ukraine.
My idea was that the EU is more than strong enough to counter Russia in Europe, and the expenditure of US power there was a waste, so we should pull out and reposition elsewhere.
With the US involved in Europe and now in the Middle East, should North Korea launch a full-scale invasion of the South at the same time that China launches an assault on Taiwan, how would the US respond?
My thinking here is China cannot really effectively employ the full power of her land forces on Taiwan because it is an island so there is an important naval component. But if China used her land power to intervene in a new Korean war as she did in the first one, America would have to make a choice, do we save South Korea or Taiwan? It seems to me that the US should not allow situations like this to arise.
The US cannot remain sprawled all over the globe like the British Empire and not expect to be taken apart as they were.
The fundamental problem with US foreign policy and interventionism is that the true costs are sneakily hidden from the voters. There is no war tax to fund these wars, there's rarely any draft to demand personal sacrifice from citizens and PRs. The obvious reason is that many of these wars would then be unpopular and voted down because they are not essential.
Maybe you’re right but it’s hard to view the US involvement in Korea as a success story when it murdered 20% of the North Korean population and destroyed 85% of the buildings. NK is a horrible place to be but it’s not clear to me that’s solely the communists’ fault.
I am not a US person. Tucker Carlson with Lex Friedman disrespecting all US war outcomes:
- so the US invaded all these countries, but where did we get a positive outcome?
- there's the Marshall plan, but 80 years down the road, look at the EU, look at Japan is it better?
- there's South Korea but look at their fertility rate vs N Korea, I am all against a regime like NK, but wouldn't it be strange if 50 years from now, SK was depopulated and NK had a much larger population?
After reading The Proud Tower, it dawned on me that the US created industrial arms race in 1880 that led to the two world wars and communism in Russia (https://polsci.substack.com/p/the-strategic-importance-of-maritime). In The Menace of the Herd, Procuste at Large, Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn made the point that democracy leads to Ochlocracy, and that this whole Wilsonian push for parliamentarian democracy in nationalistic states was unstable and meant less freedom and more coercion (https://polsci.substack.com/p/ochlocracy).
But you have to allow other actors some agency it's not just the US, it's a balance of forces and actions.
It is hard to do counter-factual history. It is a fact that the interventions were followed by a period of well-being in Europe and Japan, and in Korea. After that, the track record of the US has changed for the worst. Since 91, the US foreign policy has turned out even bellicose, self-interested in bad faith, twisted by domestic issues and captured by special interests.
We hear Cold War policymakers criticize the change. Former ambassador Jack Matlock, who says the US implemented the Brezhnev doctrine of economic coercion and military action. The leaders are voicing self-aggrandizing propaganda like being the indispensable nation at the end of history: "But if we must use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand and we see further into the future than other countries, and we see the danger which lies in wait for us all."
-- Madeleine Albright
Kagan's explained in paradise and power that the US should only abide by the "rules of the Jungle" and implement "double standards". The Federal govt started to spy and monitor its own citizens and enforce unprecedented financial sanctions against its allies from the increase in federal power it got from the backlash of 9/11.
Given the track record in Iraq and Libya, it would appear rational for all States to develop nukes and significant anti-air capability. Going through the charade of weapons inspection always leads to sanctions, a no-fly zone, and eventually bombardment.
Not talking to hostile countries is the stupidest policy I've ever heard about in foreign policy. This leaves entirely too much power in the hands of the unelected who may have any number of incentives to keep their dealings secret. It's not as if I believe the CIA or other players don't speak through back channels. Why would we give up the power to understand exactly what they want to achieve and to psychologically understand them better? It's dumb.
I'm half-Korean and my father was stationed in the country twice as a US Army officer, and I must say Korea actually is evidence against US Empire's success. The number of US forces there is a fraction of what it once was, and they aren't there to "prevent a new invasion from the North." They're a token force there so that the Army doesn't feel left out of the Indo-Pacific as it tries to justify its budget. The only thing the ROK Army is short on is attack helicopters. The US presence should be restricted to the Air Force, and the US should provide a nuclear deterrent. Otherwise, the ROKs should be given command of combined operations as they requested because their conventional capabilities far surpass the DPRK's.
Secondly, South Korea wanted to keep fighting in 1953 until it captured the entire peninsula just as the North did. However, the US and China wanted an end, so the US secretly agreed to let the PLA attack ROK forces to force a ceasefire. So much for standing with allies and muh credibility.
Thirdly, South Korea was almost as repressive as North Korea for decades. Look up Yushin constitution. It was benign in the sense that it used industrial policy to rapidly modernize the economy, but it's inaccurate to portray it as necessarily more morally acceptable than its counterpart until the 1980s.
Fourth, according to Pew Research a majority of South Koreans and Japanese see the US as a threat to their country despite being allies. The reason is probably the worry that a hawk like Trump will provoke North Korea. This would unleash not a second Korean war but a Northeast Asian war because Japan would immediately be targeted for hosting the bulk of US forces. South Korea under Democratic administrations has tended to take a softer line on inter-Korean relations, and most Koreans think the US approach is too hardline.
Finally, South Korea's prosperity is due in part to its intervention in Vietnam. The US gave a lot of money to the ROK for helping to defend South Vietnam, but Washington eventually pulled the plug on the latter. Was it wrong for America to backstab South Vietnam? Most people say no, which seems inconsistent with supporting South Korea for most of the Cold War