Yeah it's pretty well-known that the CCP has deeply infiltrated the Taiwanese military. It's part of why the US is very cautious in sharing information with them.
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No. It would lead to direct soviet intervention, millions of dead and and even worse world order.
Even the Korean war was a mistake. If the communists won Korea would be what China is now. Instead we have a balkanized peninsula with a paranoid regime.
The US didn't start the Korean War- the North invaded the South, where American forces were already posted. So really you're advocating that the US accept defeat in the first month or so of fighting and evacuate Busan rather than reinforce it.
I mean we had just beaten the Nazis and the Empire of Japan a few years prior. It wasn't politically or strategically feasible for the US to immediately fold in the face of an invasion by a minor state.
Doesn´t change the fact it was a mistake and yes it should have accepted defeat or even better - not even BE there. Korea would be like Vietnam now but better.
So we should have let the Soviets occupy the entire peninsula in 1944. Why not throw Japan into the deal while we're at it?
Just a little annecdote from a family friend (who happened to a linguist in some of the Chinese languages): he remembered sitting on a hill in about 1946 watching KMT generals selling the brand new crates of weapons that they had just been supplied by the Americans to the comunists. When you are so corrupt your own generals sell their guns to the enemy there is no possible way for you to win.
That is BS and you KNOW it is BS.
Korea was in chinese sphere of influence for CENTURIES.
US going to Korea is the same as someone putting troops in Mexico. You would be ok with that?
Not my fault if all wars US went after WW2 were, in the end, all stupid ones that were only useful to sell weapons. That includes those in the XXI century as well, my friend.
I'd simply love a citation for the idea that Korea would have magically turned out like Vietnam if the South lost decisively. I mean, bluntly, Kim Il-Sung and his successors were *not* Ho Chi Minh. Glorious Leader Kim Who Becomes The Sun never tolerated the level of pluralistic dissent that even Uncle Ho did. He started his cult of personality straight from the get-go, purged rivals Pak Hon-yong and Choe Chang-ik, and stressed his independent policies with respect to China and the USSR. His propaganda against the imperialists and their running dogs would have been just as effective with or without the ROK, unless you're advocating not only the complete withdrawal from Asia of the US, but the active overthrow of the Japanese and other non-Communist governments in the region. By the time of his death, the Korean government was entirely his creature, and the autocracy would only become more entrenched under his heirs.
I mean, I can see an extreme isolationist arguing that we should have let Syngman Rhee burn. Heck, there were folks in the US military and White House at that time who would have cried no tears at all for him; the US intentionally withheld heavy weaponry from the ROK Army to prevent Syngman from starting any brushfires that might consume the peninsula due to fearing his bellicose nature. Unfortunately, this failed to account for the possibility that the USSR might fail to keep their dogs on a leash as well. Withholding heavy armaments, however, seems to hardly be the act of a nation intent on selling weapons.
I mean, I can see an extreme isolationist arguing that we should have let Syngman Rhee burn. Heck, there were folks in the US military and White House at that time who would have cried no tears at all for him; the US intentionally withheld heavy weaponry from the ROK Army to prevent Syngman from starting any brushfires that might consume the peninsula due to fearing his bellicose nature. Unfortunately, this failed to account for the possibility that the USSR might fail to keep their dogs on a leash as well. Withholding heavy armaments, however, seems to hardly be the act of a nation intent on selling weapons.
The Korean War came out of the Soviets and Americans dividing the Japanese Empire between their own spheres of influence. The Chinese communists had only been in power for a year when they entered the war on the DPRK/Soviet side, and even then they did it without declaring war and by reflagging their troops as "volunteers." At the time it had little, if anything, to do with China's historical interest in the peninsula. Hell, if the KMT had stayed in power a year longer they likely would've joined the war on the South's side, not the North's.
EDIT: To be very clear, there was no Chinese army ready to march in and liberate Korea. There were Soviet armies rolling into Manchuria and there were American armies landing on the Japanese home islands. Nobody was waiting for the KMT, the CCP or any other Chinese force to "restore order in their sphere of influence" while the Japanese were still in a rout.
EDIT2: I neglected to mention this at first, but the KMT government on Taiwan actually offered to send troops to Korea on the US/UN/ROK side, but were turned down because of worries that the ROC joining in would lead to an open declaration of war from the PRC. So, which of the two governments of China representeed the 'true' will and strategic imperatives of the Chinese, and why?
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Oh yeah, accept defeat. Another Munich style betrayal. Except South Korea is even better than Vietnam and if the US did your idea, than we would''ve had South Korea also under Kim Jong Un's rule and so.you would want to sentence South Korea to North Korea's fate, just because it's a mistake? Also have you heard the theory of containment. If Korea was lost, the US would've lost eventually
So you're saying that the price of democracy would be steep. Liberty, Freedom and Democracy don't have a too high price. Then again the US did the same with Czechoslovakia, sentencing us to 40 years of communism instead of threatening the USSR
To be fair 1945-1955 were the most dangerous years humanity has ever faced. Threats of nuclear bombing only pushed Stalin so far and if the result was operation unthinkable the potential loss of life could outweigh the fate of the people's of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland etc. We are not talking mere death here either. Nuclear war on that scale would leave untold generations lost to fallout and starvation on a scale unheard of. Dan Carlin has a fantastic podcast on it if you are interested - http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-of-worlds/
Also China has democracy. A one party democracy with an extremely authoritarian outlook. It is not a dictatorship as the former USSR was.
I am not saying China is better/worse with or without US intervention in their civil war. I am merely stating my opinion on interventionalism/proxy wars.
Speak for yourself. Also it wasn't a nuclear war, if it was started immediately after WWII as the US would've had a monopoly on nukes. Either way, the US didn't even have to wage a war to free Czechoslovakia, the US could've exchanged it for Austria as per the first peace conference, where Czechoslovakia, was supposed to go to the West, while Austria was supposed to go the USSR, but the allies again for the second time betrayed Czechoslovakia and left us to to the commies. In my opinion, until the USSR developed it's own nukes, the US with a nuclear hegemony could've started the war and won it. And I disagree the potential loss of life could outweigh the fate of the people's of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland etc, because it would be soldiers who died and they did sign up for war and fighting, while the people of Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, etc. were mainly civilians and until the USSR had nukes, the allies didn't have to worry about nukes hitting them. Also there's no such thing as "a one party democracy". In a democracy you're supposed to have more than just one party to choose from.W hat choice do the people have? A) This guy from the communist party B) Another guy from the communist party. Now the republic of China has democracy with multi parties. So see the difference between ROC and the PRC. One actually is democratic, the other is a one party democracy.
I am speaking for myself
A war with nukes would be a nuclear war. Ev n if just one side uses them. They would be required considering the Red Army's sheer size.
Potential loss of life would be huge. Way higher then the population in those countries. The soldiers did not sign up they were drafted civilians.
Actually one party democracies exist. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-democracy
A war with nukes would be a nuclear war. Ev n if just one side uses them. They would be required considering the Red Army's sheer size.
Potential loss of life would be huge. Way higher then the population in those countries. The soldiers did not sign up they were drafted civilians.
Actually one party democracies exist. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-democracy
It's semi-democracy, not democracy. Anyway what potential loss of life? The armies?
Who says the Allies wouldn't have bombed Prague if the Red Army was dug in there?
It's not like I don't get that people might have felt betrayed. Saved from the Nazis just to end up with someone who isn't all that much greater. Wouldn't want to know how people felt about being unlucky and being born on the wrong side of the West-East-Germany divide, either.
But nobody knows what a war would have done. It's risky pretending that it definitely would have gone well.
It's not like I don't get that people might have felt betrayed. Saved from the Nazis just to end up with someone who isn't all that much greater. Wouldn't want to know how people felt about being unlucky and being born on the wrong side of the West-East-Germany divide, either.
But nobody knows what a war would have done. It's risky pretending that it definitely would have gone well.
Do you know that the casualty rate on the eastern front was around 4 to 5 times as high for both sides than the western front. A war against the Soviet would likely cost more human lives for UK and USA than ww2, likely KIA in the millions. Most countries tried to avoid war as much as possible and saying the lives of the soldiers don't matter is disgusting and the war these soldiers signed up for was already over (ww2).
A war against the Soviet would be a huge waste of human lives in a similar fashion as ww2 and if anything is "liberated" it will likely been ruins.
A war against the Soviet would be a huge waste of human lives in a similar fashion as ww2 and if anything is "liberated" it will likely been ruins.
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Agree with both of the above and I'd like to mention the massive food shortages being exacerbated. Tens of millions would have died for sure.
Oh and yes, a semi democracy is a form of democracy. Honestly very few perfect democracies exist in the world. The closest is probably Switzerland. Even the US is an indirect democracy in all three of it's branches.
Oh and yes, a semi democracy is a form of democracy. Honestly very few perfect democracies exist in the world. The closest is probably Switzerland. Even the US is an indirect democracy in all three of it's branches.
Should we assume that the definition of democracy has changed between these posts? (It's not a bad thing - hopefully we all learn something and modify our views after reading these forums!) Because I'm struggling to draw a line that includes PR China and Switzerland, and nowhere else.
Getting a good definition is certainly tricky, but how about this: "A system of government in which those who make the laws and those who implement them are primarily chosen following processes in which all mature citizens can freely choose between alternative candidates and choose to stand themselves." I hope that draws the line in the place where you would expect it. Looking at the cases above, it would make clear that the ROC/Taiwan, Switzerland, and the USA are now democracies, but mainland PR China is not.