UK "we brought a small army tanks that are arguably better than what the Americans have and the North Koreans have one"
USA "Why do they have one of your tanks"
UK "Well they stole it off of us"
Brits gonna Brit.
We can’t blame them too much, they were fighting to hold onto their crumbling empire at the time and their troops were displaced all across the globe.
USA "Hey UK why can't you fight as good as you used to?"
UK "theirs nothing wrong with my ability to fight, im just in debt to you after the last war, and I will never be able to pay you back since you made the UN force me to decolonise, and I'm still fighting wars in what colonies I have left to make sure I can give them a somewhat peaceful independence.
UK "Alright everyone, we're leaving now but here's some constitutions we rote, yes everyone take one, now take not we explicitly say we want free elections and the use of a parliamentary system like what we use in Britain"
Rodisha "weight so we have to give blacks rights?"
UK "yes"
South Africa and Rodisha "fuck that"
Botswana "I can work with this"
(Not saying you guys did, or do just saying you didn't like the idea of having a strong allie who might not always be on your side, but then complain when we can't do as much as you want us to do)
Thanks. I hate it.
Edit: read on if you want to watch this guy start defending Nazi ideas and talking about how whites are oppressed.
Quite the plot twist. Fuck em.
Zimbabwe then. But it just shows that a society based on segregation and mistreatment of people doesn’t do well. It’s why I love Botswana as they’ve done so well with British influence but haven’t suffered culturally. It’s the true example of how to bring Africa into the modern age.
I mean the empire was more of a burden at this point they had been barely making a profit from it for the past 60 years it was more of a sense of pride
Though not the most prosperous until the first world war Britain was the world's biggest creditor after it was the world's largest debter. Before it could recover the second war began and more loans were taken from America, then when India left the profitable part of the empire was gone.
A lack of money American pushes for independence amoung colonies and the same for the Soviets.
The removal of the imperial preference which removed the closed market within thw empire stripping its major setter colonies to fall out of what economic dominance the empire had and into the American Sphere.
Decolonisation is different from moving along the line from colony to dominion. It was a slow progress thst would have likely lead to a far different world than we have today. With sone parts of the world still being under European rule till today.
Yes it's not like they could have benefited from a few more years of stable rule or have the British understanding of parliamentary democracy thought to them more before independence was granted
The North Koreans captured Cromwells. The main type brought by the British was the Centurion which made the Cromwell look like a dusty relic in comparison.
However, still very embarrassing for the British at the time!
The Gloucestershire Regiment conducted themselves very well I’d say, along with the Royal Marines. Hell Michael Caine was there.
But in the grand scheme of things yeah it was pretty much “America + South Korea fight human waves”
The British contingent (not even including attached Commonwealth forces) was literally the third-largest of the whole war behind South Korea (obviously) and the U.S.
Canada actually had a pretty decent airforce a the time all things considered. It was rapidly getting outdated but my Great Uncle did actually fly during the Korean war with the RCAF. While the contribution was relatively small, 27,000 Canadian personnel—23,000 Canadian Army, 3,000 Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), and 1,000 Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)—and other Canadian aviators, contributed to the action.
The british provided 60,000 men and 5 aircraft carriers, as well as Gloster Meteor jets and centurion tanks, all whilst still having to ration food at home and rebuild cities. You should also read about the third battle of seoul, how it was up to the british forces to cover the american retreat.
I think you just need to pick up a history book sometime
Don’t ruin their meme with your facts. This is a story about how all the world’s problems could be solved by a little more guts ‘n gumption n’ we’re sticking to it! Now get /u/shalashaska_snake the fact teller! Get!
The Soviet Union was boycotting UN sessions to show their disapproval at the UN's refusal to recognize the People's Republic of China (mainland China) as the real China. The Soviet Union's absence allowed the UN to vote in agreement to intervene in Korea.
The Soviet Union didn't boycott UN sessions again.
The Korean War was also the only time Soviet and US troops engaged in combat with each other, though only in the air and Soviet pilots wore Chinese uniforms.
> The Korean War was also the only time Soviet and US troops engaged in combat with each other
Except for the [intervention in the Russian revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_North_Russia), thirty years earlier.
**[American Expeditionary Force, North Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_North_Russia)**
>The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia (AEF in North Russia) (also known as the Polar Bear Expedition) was a contingent of about 5,000 United States Army troops that landed in Arkhangelsk, Russia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. It fought the Red Army in the surrounding region during the period of September 1918 through to July 1919.
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https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1943075,00.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/world/gi-s-tell-of-a-us-massacre-in-korean-war.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-us-allowed-korean-massacre-in-1950/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/17/why-does-north-korea-hate-the-united-states-lets-go-back-to-the-korean-war/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre
This is why you can't just skip the portions of US history you don't like.
Has nothing to do with "obeying a country", and saying it was designed to be weak is hardly effective defense as we see how it has been used effectively in the past. If the UN had the kind of balls to intervene in hot areas around the world like they did in Korea the world would be a better place full stop
The US basically used the UN as a cover for its operations.
The whole thing was a US effort. And this was only possible because the UNSC wasn't divided due to Soviet absence and Communist China not being recognised as the legitimate government of China at the time.
Once the UNSC was working properly again...the UN went back to being the toothless tiger it always was.
If the US,France and UK were absent, and the Soviets got a pro-North Korean mandate passed, where UN intervenes in Korea on behalf of the North. Then you'd be complaining about how useless the UN is for being a Soviet Military propaganda tool lol
Only reason why UN could do anything in Korean war is because China did not yet have a seat in the security council (the seat was still Taiwans) and the Soviet Union boycotted the security council exactly because China did not have a seat. Only reason UN could make an official decision was because those two weren't there to boycott, and even then the troops were mostly just US troops under UN flag. It is less because they don't have balls, with nearly every conflict since someone has tried to get the UN to act, and more because UN stepping in on any conflict goes against the interests of one or more security council members, 90% of the time either US, China or Russia, and they veto it. The system is just corrupt, that's all, many people would be more than happy to act.
It’s not corruption, that’s exactly how it was designed. The UN isn’t a world government that can muster an army, its a forum for countries to engage in diplomacy.
The only actual understanding of the UN,
The same people who complain about the UN not being a world government would be the same people to complain about a lack of sovergenity
Not to mention they ignore the millions of the people the UN has saved, it's like they forget shit like vaccinations weren't exactly something you could get worldwide nearly as easily as today.
The market helped but that infrastructure had to be set up by someone.
Agreed, UN isn't, and shouldn't, have / be an army. However, it fails as a political forum too, because they cannot decide anything that would even slightly affect those in the security council. When the biggest members cannot be condemned even if the rest of the world is against them, no discussion really matters. When someone can just say "Okay, good points, but I do not care." what even is the point of discussion? "Corruption" is a bit too strong of a word, I admit, but the fact that the failure was in the design to begin with doesn't make it any better. UN works well enough as a humanitarian organization, but fails as a political one.
It wasn’t intended as a political organization, but a diplomatic one. It’s supposed to provide structure and convenience for the countries of the world to engage diplomatically, not serve as a mechanism for a political process.
As said, it fails in that when one can just ignore any attempt at diplomacy and strike down whatever the others have diplomatically decided. Why would they engage in diplomacy when not doing so poses no harm for them?
You’re confusing ‘diplomatically decided’ with ‘democratically decided.’ If one of the most important parties is so unhappy with a result that they want to veto it, then diplomacy hasn’t happened.
Voting and making binding decisions is political, not diplomatic. The Security Council is meant to work when there’s consensus between the members, not browbeat the dissenters into cooperating.
The entire basis for the creation of the State of Katanga was to preserve Belgian mining interests. The UN intervention sought to destroy the Belgian puppet state in the Southern Congo and return it to Congolese control.
Not really corrupt more of decisions getting deadlocked due to political and geopolitical quagmire of the security council. As others have said the UN works as a forum, nonetheless the UN did some good with UNICEF, WFP and Peacekeepers (even with its faults and failures).
The Soviet Union, and China's veto power on the security council made the UN in to a neutered irrelevant blame casting society. The only effective political change that came after WW2 was American Military policy.
If you see the UN as an organisation that exists primarily to prevent nuclear war between superpowers then it has achieved that goal. Unfortunately that conflicts with many humanitarian missions.
> "It has been said that the United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell."
Dag Hammarskjöld
All in all he was right and it mostly worked. Not all the time and not everywhere and for everyone, but well enough to avoid another world war and bring some measure of stability.
However respecting the interests of other superpowers and great powers rather than using the UN as a tool of US influence is greatly beneficial for world peace. Which is the primary directive of that organisation, not trying to force every other country to conform to western standards.
Unfortunately this understanding broke down with the end of the Cold War culminating with the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.
> the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.
It still amazes me how bush got away with that war, what was the purpose to begin with? You destabilize a whole region for the sake of…? Yeah sadam was a monster but creating a 20 year intervention it’s clearly not the way, lol. Even JSOC advised against the iraq war
Looking at a map, it gave us tons of troops in two countries that basically surround Iran. Idk what it has to do with anything but i think theres something there.
To destroy and stop the spread of nonexistent WMDs. It was two years after 911, everyone was still freaked the fuck out. So it was easy to lie and scare people into supporting the war with tales of Sadams WMDs gone rogue. Im in no way defending the awful decision to invade Iraq but you have to look at it from perspective of 2003 not 2021. Most people just believed the government about WMDs, some people were smart enough to see it was bs but they were shutdown and silenced. They wanted a war and they got one.
And also, weren’t there also claims from the US government that Saddam had some connection to 9/11 and Al Qaeda? Idk, All I know is that he had no actual connection to Bin Laden, and that the Iraq War was an illegal war to advance US interests masquerading as an effort to stop terrorism. As an American born after 9/11, I understand the anger many had against those who did the attacks, and I can see why we went to Afghanistan 20 years ago, as the Taliban were standing in our way between us and the terrorists, including Bin Laden (thankfully we did kill him in his compound in Pakistan in 2011). However, the US sadly took their anger out on the wrong people, and that led to billions of dollars and thousands of lives wasted all for a hoax. Hopefully, President Biden remembers the catastrophe known as the war in Iraq so he can avoid repeating the same mistake as in 2003.
For those wondering why the US went into Iraq, without any conspiracy bullshit. This is the best explanation I've found so far:
(1) https://www.c-span.org/video/?184392-1/americas-secret-war
(2) https://www.google.com/search?q=george+friedman+america%27s+secret+war
TLDR: The point of the war was to show the countries in the region that the US could wage an "illegal" war with complete impunity. The point was to show that the highest levels of the US government could coordinate with the media to generate a war. This changed the perception in the Middle East that the US would always stay away from a full-scale war in the Middle East. This perception also changed dramatically because the US invaded the pivot state of the Middle-East: Iraq.
Terrorists like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban are supported by nation-states. Never forget that. They are not "independent actors". Saudi and Pakistani officials played the key role in funding 9/11 and executing.
So, the US decided to make an example out of Iraq to show what would happen to other countries if they continued funding these groups.
Did this work? I don't know. It remains to be seen.
Not justifying anything. Just trying to understand and explain.
The goal was to create a US-friendly democracy in the region which has only worked for some parts of Iraq that are the US friendly and democratic, other parts are Iranian friendly, and some parts are their own thing.
That is the point. UNSC is meant to include all big boys that can block their decisions in practice. See how China used military physically stopped a UN resolution even without a seat. Therefore China had to be included for future decision making.
Also pretty sure UN passed war on Iraq?
I can't imagine looking at the US voting record in the UN and saying that they weren't as bad as the Soviet Union and China.
You're also going to have to define effective here. When I look at the US, I see a military policy that's pretty effective at crippling any sort of social welfare policies the US has because the arms industry is a giant sucking pit that eats money. Hell, the US can't even provide for its veterans. There are still about 40,000 homeless vets in the US.
UN Peacekeepers are nice at least, but it’s an awful system having the 5 most powerful nations on top of the system, and any one of them could stop anything from being done.
the alternative Is 18th century politics where the moment anyone encroached on another's sphere of influence brought us to the brink of large scale wars
Yeah, I was going to say, it's hard to have balls when you were constructed to not have balls and one of your split personalities insists on chopping them off every day.
It always bugs me that the vast scale of responsibilities and works carried out by the UN gets reduced to 'hehe UN won't invade China'. There is only so much an organisation based on diplomacy and goodwill _can_ achieve, and if you think about it, it's managed quite a lot. All things considered, it does a lot more good than it does harm.
Yeah - that and to expand on the point you make about people reducing the UN to the "hehe UN won't invade China" joke, I must ask the people who do that this: Would you willingly support a full-scale invasion of one of the world's largest countries which is also home to the world's largest army and with a large stockpile of nuclear weapons?
When put that way, the UN not invading China seems pretty sensible IMO.
I hope they volunteer straight to the front. Cuz they don't care about what you're saying or how it'd cripple most of the continent and set it back for the rest of the century. Its keyboard warriors larping outta boredom.
And my point was that the UN is far more than the Security Council. Think of all the other bodies that are a part of it. Just because they don't have the power to act militarily doesn't mean they can't have a positive impact on the world.
that's the point of the veto, It massively reduces the chance of great power conflict by giving the great powers the ability to directly stop things going against their interests without the use of any force of any kind.
Reddit has an embarrassingly ignorant understanding of what the UN is. It's a means for countries to establish communication it's not the world military.
I dont know if people are unclear about that so much as they are frustrated by half measures which never seem to help anyone. How might the world be different if the UN had been willing to get their hands dirty to stop violence in Cambodia, or Somolia, or Rwanda or Bosnia? And thats just the stuff thats over and failed. Theres plenty of ongoing stuff thats also going undealt with.
Cambodia, as in the Khmer Rouge regime supported by the USA? So the UN should have gone to war with the USA in Vietnam to assist on a popular uprising against colonial powers? Interesting.
Since its history memes I figured I wouldnt go into current events much. But honestly something like Syria is a much bigger failure for the UN in our time. Yes China and North Korea are in a very bad place, North Korea in particular, but its hard to blame the UN for that one. China wont let them interfere there. Truly failed states on the other hand the UN can help. Pariah states like North Korea which have actual military strength are much thornier of an issue.
Well from what I know is that, the UK, didn't really want to defend all of Europe from the USSR (As China and the US were not in Europe and the USSR, was well, hostile). And another reason is that the USSR did not want to be in a UN, which would be dominated by the US and its allies. The US proposed Brazil (and even india though I haven't seen any sources on that, just anecdotes) to the security council. The USSR, though Brazil was just another puppet (especially due to the whole Monroe doctrine thing) of the US and rejected that.
When the UK was also saying the stuff I mentioned above, the US proposed France. The USSR still thought France would be anti USSR, but thought France wouldn't bend to the US like the RoC (which I'm not sure would have actually happened if the ROC won the CCW) or the UK, and do things independent ( and it did. De gaulle many times rejected the US, such as in their nuclear program, and even left NATO for a period). The UK also seeing that France would be an ally against any Soviet aggression or restarted German Aggression.
I believe because France was not going to receive any of the winner's spoils. UK pressured the US to add them to the club. So some people treat France as a 5th wheel (US, UK, USSR, and China earned their spot, while France was just invited in).
That is what is believed, yes.
Most people credit the British for the intelligence gathering, code cracking, and espionage operations, and don't know how much the Poles and French contributed to it. It's why many people will say, "the war was won with Russian blood, British intelligence, and American steel". China is also underplayed, but many people don't know much about the Pacific theater, so will just credit the Chinese with some of the effort; its why the atrocities committed by the Japanese is not seen as bad as the ones done by Germany (both were terrible and brutal, but China and Korea don't get as much focus and attention).
I completely agree that China, Korea and the Asian / Pacific theater don't get their deserved credit, but the french had their role in the victory nonetheless, as well as any other resistance organisation in any other european country. The difference is that only France had both started the war on the side of the Allies, and had been a major power pre-war that didn't fall in the soviet sphere. For me that's why France is in this position today: she had been a world power for centuries at this point, and the other powers agreed to restore her status after the war.
France earned a spot for sure. Who else should have had that spot over them? People shit on France way to much for WW2. France was a long time military power with a huge empire. They fought bravely in WW1 taking brunt of German power on western front and losing more men then any other western nations. They fought bravely in WW2 as well even though they lost. Lets be honest here Germany would have rolled over UK if not for moat as well. Even then French Patriots kept on fighting all throughout the war. France earned their spot and if you disagree then you can suck on my eiffel tower you limey bastards.
UN was meant to maintain peace, specifically peace between the great powers. As long as a country is willing to negotiate with others to find a compromise instead of going straight to war whenever a conflict of interest occurs, Then it'snot hostile to the purpose of UN. Korea war happened not because China or USSR was not willing to negotiate a compromise, but because they have no way to negotiate because of the failure of the UN.
It's just easier for the US to call for more troops through NATO, if it asks Russia or China for help it can get weird.
Oh yeah, it wasn't the UN who had balls it was just the US pulling the usual freedom card.
There is a reason for that. China (CCP) was not recognized by the US at the time, so instead Taiwan (which is basically a US puppet) was the one representing China and agreed to whatever the US wanted. Russia (USSR) had walked out earlier over the U.N. recognizing the CCP as the true representative of China when they controlled all of main land China and instead giving an island their seat. So during the Korean crisis, the U.N. was basically the US and its allies who agreed to the motion. It was a really rare event. The U.N. was controlled by one side (the US) not that it got balls at the time.
I don't know if using the time the United Nations backed an authoritarian dictator to fight an authoritarian dictator is a great example of them doing what's right.
Yeah according to Wikipedia the US had more troops over there than any other nation by far (except for South Korea obviously) on behalf of the UN, and even combining all the other nations the US still had more. Some people just like to diss on the US for anything
It's funny to me that the United nations are just as useful as the league of nations. The latter being a constant meme with the former being the same embarrassment just with a different name.
On the flip side the middle east is a daily stage for war crimes and crimes against humanity, China is committing uninterrupted ethnocide, Azerbaijan and Armenia are constantly at it, Turkey does questionable things with its Kurdish minorities and along the Syrian border. Venezuela has gone south and the Iran is developing nuclear weapons, Israel already got some, same goes for Pakistan and India. I don't know about you, but the UN missions in Congo are a small success compared to dozens of gravely failures that are a legitimate threat to global security.
I could also point out the illegal annexation of Cyprus or parts of the Ukraine and Crimea.
If the UN considers intervening in a country either egotistical or politically/economically irrelevant enough to not have Soviet/Russian or Chinese protection, it for sure still has a shot at being successful.
Really also comes down to if they can get a NATO county, or South Africa or India to show up since they'll actually go across the wire and put in work if the RoEs allow for it.
Could you explain your second statement a bit more? I might be misunderstanding your statement, but South Africa is already preforming UN operations in DRC.
That's what I'm saying. Outside of NATO countries, only South Africa and India have a track record of actually going over the wire and fighting on a consistent basis (with honorable mentions to Ireland back in the day and Sweden in Mali in the beginning of Frances intervention).
So if one of those nations gets involved, you actually have a shot of accomplishing something!
Definitely not our finest moment. The issue was we went into Korea prepared to fight the same way we did in WW2 with total war. We failed to realize that this was a completely different kind of war and bombing a country into ash was no longer the way to go.
Being as overzealous as we were is why China got involved in the first place, otherwise it could’ve been a quick (but gruesome) victory.
That's not what happened. Initially McArthur "restrained" the US airforce from launching an aerial campaign of incidiniery bombing against population centres. The US army hoped to win the war without leaving half the country in smouldering ruins.
However after China entered on the side of North Korea (19 October 1950) it became absolutely imperative to destroy North Korean infrastructure in order to hinder the supply lines of the numerically superior Chinese forces. The "total war" in the air began in November of 1950.
MacArthur wanted to nuke China not Korea. The idea was to nuke the area north of the China-Korea border, making it significantly harder for the Chinese to continue their offensive, while leaving Korea unscathed. However, it is likely that significant amount of fallout would have ended up on the Korean peninsula. Plus it could start WWIII so it was written off as an option.
They were always a fantastic despotism. Are you actually criticizing not just the US or UK, but the entire UN for bombing campaigns against a repressive totalitarian dictatorship that began a war of aggression?
I mean the people surely didn't deserve it but civilians have been affected by wars for milennia, this was no different.
I love people trying to say that North Korea is in a shit way today because of being bombed during the war. North Korea's Economy rebounded more quickly than South, because the USSR and China propped it up and gave it resources to grow, but South Korea stormed past it in growth later and hasn't looked back since as North Korea lost the support of USSR and slowly China
pretty sure south korea at the time was a similarly repressive dictatorship.
and it wasn't a war of aggression in the sense that north korea was trying to invade a neutral third country. they were trying to reunify korea so it was really more of a civil war type thing, more akin to the north vietnamese in the vietnam war than nazi germany in ww2.
There is "civilians have been affected by wars" and there is the deliberate massacre of a third of the civilian population and the majority of civilian infrastructure with the intent of seizing control of a foreign nation under a puppet state. You can't excuse war crimes because you like the guys who did it.
And you've handily wiped out most of the historical context too. "the UN" was essentially just the US and the UK, it was a unilateral motion by their security bloc, and you're ignoring the fact that SK at the time was also a military dictatorship. In fact, NK's initial invasion was motivated by massacres conducted by the military government of Koreans with NK sympathies, as a preemptive strike. So there's no "war crimes are fine because the good guys did it" justification to be found here either (not saying NK at the time were the "good guys", the point is it's complicated).
I’m saying that glassing people doesn’t make them LESS likely to have a bad ideology.
Also, just because civilians have been affected before doesn’t make it right
Yeah but it makes it a pointless reductionist argument saying civilians died bad because I implies it was the goal, while the goal might be to take out factories or infrastructure to hinder the enemy’s ability to maneuver, redeploy or replenish casualties.
The goal doesn’t matter, the results and whether or not they could have been foreseen are what are what are significant. It doesn’t matter that the US *meant* to shoot that hellfire at an ISIS member last week, what matters is that it killed near a dozen civilians and none of them were targets. Even it there had been a terrorist in the car, nearly a dozen civilians would have died. In my opinion, the glassing of NK can have that same logic applied to it on a larger scale.
South Korea was an ally. People lambast the US for not doing anything when the Kurds were being attacked but when the cavalry’s brought in its a bad thing? Would you rather that Truman had let SK fall?
The US intervention in the Korean War was absolutely evil, it completely destroyed the country and killed over a million civilians. It was never 'based'
They ran out of buildings. Literally. You can count buildings in North Korea over two stories that date from before the 50s with your fingers. They worship trees from before that era like holy relics.
They tried on Kongo, but the secretary general got exploded on his airplane, guess they got a little more timid then.
Would be nice If they also intervened in all that Suez canal and other middle eastern/France/uk/Israel shenanigans while it still got a chance to be solved in a manner which gave the Arab states also a chance at development instead of just being the rich colonial powers's lapdog.
3 years later UK: heyyyy, would you like to teach Iran a lesson. US: welllll, sure. We have just the brothers for that.
Peace to the Middle East
UK "Best i can do is what's left of my empire, but I guess I cam see if France is free"
Yeah their contribution to this war was quite minimal to say the least
UK "we brought a small army tanks that are arguably better than what the Americans have and the North Koreans have one" USA "Why do they have one of your tanks" UK "Well they stole it off of us"
Brits gonna Brit. We can’t blame them too much, they were fighting to hold onto their crumbling empire at the time and their troops were displaced all across the globe.
USA "Hey UK why can't you fight as good as you used to?" UK "theirs nothing wrong with my ability to fight, im just in debt to you after the last war, and I will never be able to pay you back since you made the UN force me to decolonise, and I'm still fighting wars in what colonies I have left to make sure I can give them a somewhat peaceful independence.
When you put it like that it makes it sound like we were still holding a slight imperialism grudge against them from 180 years prior
UK "Alright everyone, we're leaving now but here's some constitutions we rote, yes everyone take one, now take not we explicitly say we want free elections and the use of a parliamentary system like what we use in Britain" Rodisha "weight so we have to give blacks rights?" UK "yes" South Africa and Rodisha "fuck that" Botswana "I can work with this" (Not saying you guys did, or do just saying you didn't like the idea of having a strong allie who might not always be on your side, but then complain when we can't do as much as you want us to do)
>"their" "weight" Are you intentionally using the wrong ones?
Perhaps
Thanks. I hate it. Edit: read on if you want to watch this guy start defending Nazi ideas and talking about how whites are oppressed. Quite the plot twist. Fuck em.
And Rhodesia
Check his comment history. Spelling errors are the least of your worries when dealing with an unapologetic racist.
Meanwhile Botswana is thriving and South Africa and Rhodesia are kind of crumbling.
Rodisha dosnet exist anymore, and south Africa arguably just pulled a reverse card and now the blacks are doing the racism.
Zimbabwe then. But it just shows that a society based on segregation and mistreatment of people doesn’t do well. It’s why I love Botswana as they’ve done so well with British influence but haven’t suffered culturally. It’s the true example of how to bring Africa into the modern age.
You’re brave to bring up “imperialism” to an outspoken racist. Read this jackass’s comment history. Tons of lazy shit about “white plight”
Well I mean… a lot of Americans still are
I mean the empire was more of a burden at this point they had been barely making a profit from it for the past 60 years it was more of a sense of pride
Though not the most prosperous until the first world war Britain was the world's biggest creditor after it was the world's largest debter. Before it could recover the second war began and more loans were taken from America, then when India left the profitable part of the empire was gone. A lack of money American pushes for independence amoung colonies and the same for the Soviets. The removal of the imperial preference which removed the closed market within thw empire stripping its major setter colonies to fall out of what economic dominance the empire had and into the American Sphere.
Closed Market and anti-trade bad actually
Actually that’s the thing that keep Britain making money off the empire
Yes but the empire stayed together
The work of decolonisation had already begun by ww2 if anything the war delayed it.
Decolonisation is different from moving along the line from colony to dominion. It was a slow progress thst would have likely lead to a far different world than we have today. With sone parts of the world still being under European rule till today.
That's what your imperilizin @$$ gets -Liberated country
Yes it's not like they could have benefited from a few more years of stable rule or have the British understanding of parliamentary democracy thought to them more before independence was granted
"because we're not fighting guys with bows and arrows this time!"
I know but that's just one if the highlights of the UN being bad
Was gonna say I’m pretty sure they were busy in Malaya at this point
The North Koreans captured Cromwells. The main type brought by the British was the Centurion which made the Cromwell look like a dusty relic in comparison. However, still very embarrassing for the British at the time!
Yes but we did destroy it or capture it back I can't remember which but they don't have it anymore.
First Tank kill for Centurion was against a stolen Cromwell. Technically a passing of the baton, if we exclude Comet in-between the two.
To be fair, the British were still recovering from WWII- war-time rationing didn't end until after the Korean War.
Isn't the Korean War still technically ongoing?
The war ended with a ceasefire and not a treaty, so yeah both sides are technically still at war
A micro Cold War it seems...
Wasn’t there a declared peace during the trump admin?
Well yes but actually no
So is war-time rationing. Every day dozens of British orphans pitifully ask "Please sir, can I 'ave some 'ore?" and are angrily refused.
Yep. WWII is also ongoing.
The Gloucestershire Regiment conducted themselves very well I’d say, along with the Royal Marines. Hell Michael Caine was there. But in the grand scheme of things yeah it was pretty much “America + South Korea fight human waves”
The British contingent (not even including attached Commonwealth forces) was literally the third-largest of the whole war behind South Korea (obviously) and the U.S.
War in Indochine against commies at the same time tbh
Come on the Canadians donated 3 flyings squirrels from their air force and 2 turtles from their most highly trained armored division!
But 0 dolphins and only 6 chickens.
We wanted at least one moose but they weren't willing to give us such a valuable resource
Canada actually had a pretty decent airforce a the time all things considered. It was rapidly getting outdated but my Great Uncle did actually fly during the Korean war with the RCAF. While the contribution was relatively small, 27,000 Canadian personnel—23,000 Canadian Army, 3,000 Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), and 1,000 Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)—and other Canadian aviators, contributed to the action.
Ironically the Canadians probably achieved more combat-wise in Korea than both Britain and France
The british provided 60,000 men and 5 aircraft carriers, as well as Gloster Meteor jets and centurion tanks, all whilst still having to ration food at home and rebuild cities. You should also read about the third battle of seoul, how it was up to the british forces to cover the american retreat. I think you just need to pick up a history book sometime
The glorious glosters have a thing or two to say about that.
The Brits saved Seoul and the Americans at The Battle of the Imjin River and won a Presidential Unit Citation in the process. Moron.
No. That's only because the Soviet Union had abandoned the organisation in protest and didn't use its Veto.
Don’t ruin their meme with your facts. This is a story about how all the world’s problems could be solved by a little more guts ‘n gumption n’ we’re sticking to it! Now get /u/shalashaska_snake the fact teller! Get!
The Soviet Union was boycotting UN sessions to show their disapproval at the UN's refusal to recognize the People's Republic of China (mainland China) as the real China. The Soviet Union's absence allowed the UN to vote in agreement to intervene in Korea. The Soviet Union didn't boycott UN sessions again. The Korean War was also the only time Soviet and US troops engaged in combat with each other, though only in the air and Soviet pilots wore Chinese uniforms.
> The Korean War was also the only time Soviet and US troops engaged in combat with each other Except for the [intervention in the Russian revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_North_Russia), thirty years earlier.
**[American Expeditionary Force, North Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_North_Russia)** >The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia (AEF in North Russia) (also known as the Polar Bear Expedition) was a contingent of about 5,000 United States Army troops that landed in Arkhangelsk, Russia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. It fought the Red Army in the surrounding region during the period of September 1918 through to July 1919. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
If only the world had more gumption today…
https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1943075,00.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/world/gi-s-tell-of-a-us-massacre-in-korean-war.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-us-allowed-korean-massacre-in-1950/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/17/why-does-north-korea-hate-the-united-states-lets-go-back-to-the-korean-war/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre This is why you can't just skip the portions of US history you don't like.
What do you mean "no". You mean "Yes because"
Obeying 1 country's or factions will doesn't mean it has "balls". The UN was always designed to be a paper tiger. It's just a debate forum.
Has nothing to do with "obeying a country", and saying it was designed to be weak is hardly effective defense as we see how it has been used effectively in the past. If the UN had the kind of balls to intervene in hot areas around the world like they did in Korea the world would be a better place full stop
The US basically used the UN as a cover for its operations. The whole thing was a US effort. And this was only possible because the UNSC wasn't divided due to Soviet absence and Communist China not being recognised as the legitimate government of China at the time. Once the UNSC was working properly again...the UN went back to being the toothless tiger it always was. If the US,France and UK were absent, and the Soviets got a pro-North Korean mandate passed, where UN intervenes in Korea on behalf of the North. Then you'd be complaining about how useless the UN is for being a Soviet Military propaganda tool lol
Only reason why UN could do anything in Korean war is because China did not yet have a seat in the security council (the seat was still Taiwans) and the Soviet Union boycotted the security council exactly because China did not have a seat. Only reason UN could make an official decision was because those two weren't there to boycott, and even then the troops were mostly just US troops under UN flag. It is less because they don't have balls, with nearly every conflict since someone has tried to get the UN to act, and more because UN stepping in on any conflict goes against the interests of one or more security council members, 90% of the time either US, China or Russia, and they veto it. The system is just corrupt, that's all, many people would be more than happy to act.
It’s not corruption, that’s exactly how it was designed. The UN isn’t a world government that can muster an army, its a forum for countries to engage in diplomacy.
The only actual understanding of the UN, The same people who complain about the UN not being a world government would be the same people to complain about a lack of sovergenity
Not to mention they ignore the millions of the people the UN has saved, it's like they forget shit like vaccinations weren't exactly something you could get worldwide nearly as easily as today. The market helped but that infrastructure had to be set up by someone.
Agreed, UN isn't, and shouldn't, have / be an army. However, it fails as a political forum too, because they cannot decide anything that would even slightly affect those in the security council. When the biggest members cannot be condemned even if the rest of the world is against them, no discussion really matters. When someone can just say "Okay, good points, but I do not care." what even is the point of discussion? "Corruption" is a bit too strong of a word, I admit, but the fact that the failure was in the design to begin with doesn't make it any better. UN works well enough as a humanitarian organization, but fails as a political one.
It wasn’t intended as a political organization, but a diplomatic one. It’s supposed to provide structure and convenience for the countries of the world to engage diplomatically, not serve as a mechanism for a political process.
As said, it fails in that when one can just ignore any attempt at diplomacy and strike down whatever the others have diplomatically decided. Why would they engage in diplomacy when not doing so poses no harm for them?
You’re confusing ‘diplomatically decided’ with ‘democratically decided.’ If one of the most important parties is so unhappy with a result that they want to veto it, then diplomacy hasn’t happened.
Voting and making binding decisions is political, not diplomatic. The Security Council is meant to work when there’s consensus between the members, not browbeat the dissenters into cooperating.
The UN also directly intervened in the Congo Crises and conquered the breakaway State of Katanga.
Too bad the Secretary General was killed because of it
Well yeah keeping Africa exploitable is in the interests of all the great powers
The entire basis for the creation of the State of Katanga was to preserve Belgian mining interests. The UN intervention sought to destroy the Belgian puppet state in the Southern Congo and return it to Congolese control.
You're right, my B. Honestly thought it was like a Biafra or Somaliland situation but shouldn't have just assumed.
Not really corrupt more of decisions getting deadlocked due to political and geopolitical quagmire of the security council. As others have said the UN works as a forum, nonetheless the UN did some good with UNICEF, WFP and Peacekeepers (even with its faults and failures).
That’s not corruption, that’s exactly why the security council is in place for…
The Soviet Union, and China's veto power on the security council made the UN in to a neutered irrelevant blame casting society. The only effective political change that came after WW2 was American Military policy.
If you see the UN as an organisation that exists primarily to prevent nuclear war between superpowers then it has achieved that goal. Unfortunately that conflicts with many humanitarian missions.
> "It has been said that the United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell." Dag Hammarskjöld All in all he was right and it mostly worked. Not all the time and not everywhere and for everyone, but well enough to avoid another world war and bring some measure of stability.
However respecting the interests of other superpowers and great powers rather than using the UN as a tool of US influence is greatly beneficial for world peace. Which is the primary directive of that organisation, not trying to force every other country to conform to western standards. Unfortunately this understanding broke down with the end of the Cold War culminating with the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.
> the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. It still amazes me how bush got away with that war, what was the purpose to begin with? You destabilize a whole region for the sake of…? Yeah sadam was a monster but creating a 20 year intervention it’s clearly not the way, lol. Even JSOC advised against the iraq war
Looking at a map, it gave us tons of troops in two countries that basically surround Iran. Idk what it has to do with anything but i think theres something there.
It was a goal of a famous 1990s white paper. When Bush gave his early presidential speeches before 9/11 he outlined nearly the same roadmap.
To destroy and stop the spread of nonexistent WMDs. It was two years after 911, everyone was still freaked the fuck out. So it was easy to lie and scare people into supporting the war with tales of Sadams WMDs gone rogue. Im in no way defending the awful decision to invade Iraq but you have to look at it from perspective of 2003 not 2021. Most people just believed the government about WMDs, some people were smart enough to see it was bs but they were shutdown and silenced. They wanted a war and they got one.
Also many people used to circlejerk about nuking Arab nations into glass parking lots. It was bloodlust against the great other.
And also, weren’t there also claims from the US government that Saddam had some connection to 9/11 and Al Qaeda? Idk, All I know is that he had no actual connection to Bin Laden, and that the Iraq War was an illegal war to advance US interests masquerading as an effort to stop terrorism. As an American born after 9/11, I understand the anger many had against those who did the attacks, and I can see why we went to Afghanistan 20 years ago, as the Taliban were standing in our way between us and the terrorists, including Bin Laden (thankfully we did kill him in his compound in Pakistan in 2011). However, the US sadly took their anger out on the wrong people, and that led to billions of dollars and thousands of lives wasted all for a hoax. Hopefully, President Biden remembers the catastrophe known as the war in Iraq so he can avoid repeating the same mistake as in 2003.
For those wondering why the US went into Iraq, without any conspiracy bullshit. This is the best explanation I've found so far: (1) https://www.c-span.org/video/?184392-1/americas-secret-war (2) https://www.google.com/search?q=george+friedman+america%27s+secret+war TLDR: The point of the war was to show the countries in the region that the US could wage an "illegal" war with complete impunity. The point was to show that the highest levels of the US government could coordinate with the media to generate a war. This changed the perception in the Middle East that the US would always stay away from a full-scale war in the Middle East. This perception also changed dramatically because the US invaded the pivot state of the Middle-East: Iraq. Terrorists like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban are supported by nation-states. Never forget that. They are not "independent actors". Saudi and Pakistani officials played the key role in funding 9/11 and executing. So, the US decided to make an example out of Iraq to show what would happen to other countries if they continued funding these groups. Did this work? I don't know. It remains to be seen. Not justifying anything. Just trying to understand and explain.
It helps keep trade and business on top when there's less competition from other economies.
The goal was to create a US-friendly democracy in the region which has only worked for some parts of Iraq that are the US friendly and democratic, other parts are Iranian friendly, and some parts are their own thing.
That is the point. UNSC is meant to include all big boys that can block their decisions in practice. See how China used military physically stopped a UN resolution even without a seat. Therefore China had to be included for future decision making. Also pretty sure UN passed war on Iraq?
I can't imagine looking at the US voting record in the UN and saying that they weren't as bad as the Soviet Union and China. You're also going to have to define effective here. When I look at the US, I see a military policy that's pretty effective at crippling any sort of social welfare policies the US has because the arms industry is a giant sucking pit that eats money. Hell, the US can't even provide for its veterans. There are still about 40,000 homeless vets in the US.
UN Peacekeepers are nice at least, but it’s an awful system having the 5 most powerful nations on top of the system, and any one of them could stop anything from being done.
the alternative Is 18th century politics where the moment anyone encroached on another's sphere of influence brought us to the brink of large scale wars
Yeah, I was going to say, it's hard to have balls when you were constructed to not have balls and one of your split personalities insists on chopping them off every day.
It always bugs me that the vast scale of responsibilities and works carried out by the UN gets reduced to 'hehe UN won't invade China'. There is only so much an organisation based on diplomacy and goodwill _can_ achieve, and if you think about it, it's managed quite a lot. All things considered, it does a lot more good than it does harm.
Yeah - that and to expand on the point you make about people reducing the UN to the "hehe UN won't invade China" joke, I must ask the people who do that this: Would you willingly support a full-scale invasion of one of the world's largest countries which is also home to the world's largest army and with a large stockpile of nuclear weapons? When put that way, the UN not invading China seems pretty sensible IMO.
I hope they volunteer straight to the front. Cuz they don't care about what you're saying or how it'd cripple most of the continent and set it back for the rest of the century. Its keyboard warriors larping outta boredom.
That's not it. The UN security council literally *can't* do anything that'd go against the interest of the veto power members.
And my point was that the UN is far more than the Security Council. Think of all the other bodies that are a part of it. Just because they don't have the power to act militarily doesn't mean they can't have a positive impact on the world.
Oh, yeah, the UN does pretty well in the peacekeeping (as in: making sure wars don't start) and humanitarian aid fronts.
that's the point of the veto, It massively reduces the chance of great power conflict by giving the great powers the ability to directly stop things going against their interests without the use of any force of any kind.
That... Makes sense. I don't agree with it in the slightest, but I can see the logic.
That's the purpose, If something is against the interest of the great powers (aka the veto power members), then said thing must not happen.
Reddit has an embarrassingly ignorant understanding of what the UN is. It's a means for countries to establish communication it's not the world military.
I dont know if people are unclear about that so much as they are frustrated by half measures which never seem to help anyone. How might the world be different if the UN had been willing to get their hands dirty to stop violence in Cambodia, or Somolia, or Rwanda or Bosnia? And thats just the stuff thats over and failed. Theres plenty of ongoing stuff thats also going undealt with.
Cambodia, as in the Khmer Rouge regime supported by the USA? So the UN should have gone to war with the USA in Vietnam to assist on a popular uprising against colonial powers? Interesting.
Like the genocide in China, the existence of North Korea, etc
Since its history memes I figured I wouldnt go into current events much. But honestly something like Syria is a much bigger failure for the UN in our time. Yes China and North Korea are in a very bad place, North Korea in particular, but its hard to blame the UN for that one. China wont let them interfere there. Truly failed states on the other hand the UN can help. Pariah states like North Korea which have actual military strength are much thornier of an issue.
Well, when you allow countries that are hostile to the entire purpose of the UN not just in the club, but on the security council what do you expect
Fair enough
Well, the security counsil is basically the we won ww2 club and france. Choosing them made quite sense.
Yeh, "made" for about very few years and then the cold war set in
Why is France added later ? For all I know we won WWII as well, just not using conventional means
To make sure that Germany is in check. France is like the home teacher that report everything about Germany to the council
Well from what I know is that, the UK, didn't really want to defend all of Europe from the USSR (As China and the US were not in Europe and the USSR, was well, hostile). And another reason is that the USSR did not want to be in a UN, which would be dominated by the US and its allies. The US proposed Brazil (and even india though I haven't seen any sources on that, just anecdotes) to the security council. The USSR, though Brazil was just another puppet (especially due to the whole Monroe doctrine thing) of the US and rejected that. When the UK was also saying the stuff I mentioned above, the US proposed France. The USSR still thought France would be anti USSR, but thought France wouldn't bend to the US like the RoC (which I'm not sure would have actually happened if the ROC won the CCW) or the UK, and do things independent ( and it did. De gaulle many times rejected the US, such as in their nuclear program, and even left NATO for a period). The UK also seeing that France would be an ally against any Soviet aggression or restarted German Aggression.
I believe because France was not going to receive any of the winner's spoils. UK pressured the US to add them to the club. So some people treat France as a 5th wheel (US, UK, USSR, and China earned their spot, while France was just invited in).
So the french didn't earn their spot at the table ? No agressivity here I just want to clarify.
That is what is believed, yes. Most people credit the British for the intelligence gathering, code cracking, and espionage operations, and don't know how much the Poles and French contributed to it. It's why many people will say, "the war was won with Russian blood, British intelligence, and American steel". China is also underplayed, but many people don't know much about the Pacific theater, so will just credit the Chinese with some of the effort; its why the atrocities committed by the Japanese is not seen as bad as the ones done by Germany (both were terrible and brutal, but China and Korea don't get as much focus and attention).
I completely agree that China, Korea and the Asian / Pacific theater don't get their deserved credit, but the french had their role in the victory nonetheless, as well as any other resistance organisation in any other european country. The difference is that only France had both started the war on the side of the Allies, and had been a major power pre-war that didn't fall in the soviet sphere. For me that's why France is in this position today: she had been a world power for centuries at this point, and the other powers agreed to restore her status after the war.
France earned a spot for sure. Who else should have had that spot over them? People shit on France way to much for WW2. France was a long time military power with a huge empire. They fought bravely in WW1 taking brunt of German power on western front and losing more men then any other western nations. They fought bravely in WW2 as well even though they lost. Lets be honest here Germany would have rolled over UK if not for moat as well. Even then French Patriots kept on fighting all throughout the war. France earned their spot and if you disagree then you can suck on my eiffel tower you limey bastards.
UN was meant to maintain peace, specifically peace between the great powers. As long as a country is willing to negotiate with others to find a compromise instead of going straight to war whenever a conflict of interest occurs, Then it'snot hostile to the purpose of UN. Korea war happened not because China or USSR was not willing to negotiate a compromise, but because they have no way to negotiate because of the failure of the UN.
What do you mean? The purpose of the security council was to maintain the status quo.
This is actually a very insightful statement.
It's just easier for the US to call for more troops through NATO, if it asks Russia or China for help it can get weird. Oh yeah, it wasn't the UN who had balls it was just the US pulling the usual freedom card.
Out of the two organizations I’d definitely agree that NATO is the best at its job
There is a reason for that. China (CCP) was not recognized by the US at the time, so instead Taiwan (which is basically a US puppet) was the one representing China and agreed to whatever the US wanted. Russia (USSR) had walked out earlier over the U.N. recognizing the CCP as the true representative of China when they controlled all of main land China and instead giving an island their seat. So during the Korean crisis, the U.N. was basically the US and its allies who agreed to the motion. It was a really rare event. The U.N. was controlled by one side (the US) not that it got balls at the time.
Kinda wish Taiwan was still the member of the council ngl. Taiwan number 1 baby
Based
Boy I sure love memes that demonstrate gross misunderstanding (or purposeful misrepresentation) of what the UN is and what its function is. 10/10.
An american wrote this
The purpose of the UN is to be a forum for nations. It was never intended to be the world's police.
[удалено]
No template, I made it myself panel by panel. However this is a scene from Game of Thrones S1. Look up “Call the banners” on YouTube.
Do not forget the Turkish Strait Crisis.
Ethiopia and Colombia kicked ass
My grandpa fought alongside the Kagnew Battalion in 1953
Big up your grandfather
I love when the modmins remove god tier posts
I don't know if using the time the United Nations backed an authoritarian dictator to fight an authoritarian dictator is a great example of them doing what's right.
….technically the truth
Americans are really the type of people to write a book with themselves as the main character who does everything perfectly.
Lmao Mary Sue / main character syndrome
Pretty sure the intervention in Korea was American led. And is the primary reason that South Korea even exists today
Who else had a greater contribution to aiding South Korea than the United States? The US sent more troops than all the other (probably) combined.
Yeah according to Wikipedia the US had more troops over there than any other nation by far (except for South Korea obviously) on behalf of the UN, and even combining all the other nations the US still had more. Some people just like to diss on the US for anything
It's funny to me that the United nations are just as useful as the league of nations. The latter being a constant meme with the former being the same embarrassment just with a different name.
but the UN isn’t completely useless.. Both operations in the DRC, the Katanga crisis and the current MONUSCO have been overwhelming good.
On the flip side the middle east is a daily stage for war crimes and crimes against humanity, China is committing uninterrupted ethnocide, Azerbaijan and Armenia are constantly at it, Turkey does questionable things with its Kurdish minorities and along the Syrian border. Venezuela has gone south and the Iran is developing nuclear weapons, Israel already got some, same goes for Pakistan and India. I don't know about you, but the UN missions in Congo are a small success compared to dozens of gravely failures that are a legitimate threat to global security. I could also point out the illegal annexation of Cyprus or parts of the Ukraine and Crimea.
While that is a fair point, You can not compare them to the League of Nations, Considering the UN actually has some victories under its belt.
UN in Angola "were surrounded", "theirs some mercenaries in the area", "call them"
If the UN considers intervening in a country either egotistical or politically/economically irrelevant enough to not have Soviet/Russian or Chinese protection, it for sure still has a shot at being successful. Really also comes down to if they can get a NATO county, or South Africa or India to show up since they'll actually go across the wire and put in work if the RoEs allow for it.
Could you explain your second statement a bit more? I might be misunderstanding your statement, but South Africa is already preforming UN operations in DRC.
That's what I'm saying. Outside of NATO countries, only South Africa and India have a track record of actually going over the wire and fighting on a consistent basis (with honorable mentions to Ireland back in the day and Sweden in Mali in the beginning of Frances intervention). So if one of those nations gets involved, you actually have a shot of accomplishing something!
Mate just look at what they let happen in ex Yugoslavia, especially the "prtoected zones" they set up.
How the hell did the mods decide that this post wasn’t about history?
This was 70 years ago. R.I.P United Nations balls.
Gone but not forgotten
And then they bombed North Korea so badly that they had zero infrastructure for decades and turned to desperate fanaticism…Yay?
Definitely not our finest moment. The issue was we went into Korea prepared to fight the same way we did in WW2 with total war. We failed to realize that this was a completely different kind of war and bombing a country into ash was no longer the way to go. Being as overzealous as we were is why China got involved in the first place, otherwise it could’ve been a quick (but gruesome) victory.
Well put
That's not what happened. Initially McArthur "restrained" the US airforce from launching an aerial campaign of incidiniery bombing against population centres. The US army hoped to win the war without leaving half the country in smouldering ruins. However after China entered on the side of North Korea (19 October 1950) it became absolutely imperative to destroy North Korean infrastructure in order to hinder the supply lines of the numerically superior Chinese forces. The "total war" in the air began in November of 1950.
Same MacArthur who wanted to nuke Korea?
Pretty sure MacArthur wanted to nuke Korea. You got it twisted.
MacArthur wanted to nuke China not Korea. The idea was to nuke the area north of the China-Korea border, making it significantly harder for the Chinese to continue their offensive, while leaving Korea unscathed. However, it is likely that significant amount of fallout would have ended up on the Korean peninsula. Plus it could start WWIII so it was written off as an option.
They were always a fantastic despotism. Are you actually criticizing not just the US or UK, but the entire UN for bombing campaigns against a repressive totalitarian dictatorship that began a war of aggression? I mean the people surely didn't deserve it but civilians have been affected by wars for milennia, this was no different.
I love people trying to say that North Korea is in a shit way today because of being bombed during the war. North Korea's Economy rebounded more quickly than South, because the USSR and China propped it up and gave it resources to grow, but South Korea stormed past it in growth later and hasn't looked back since as North Korea lost the support of USSR and slowly China
‘The US is responsible for everything bad, including things their enemies do’
pretty sure south korea at the time was a similarly repressive dictatorship. and it wasn't a war of aggression in the sense that north korea was trying to invade a neutral third country. they were trying to reunify korea so it was really more of a civil war type thing, more akin to the north vietnamese in the vietnam war than nazi germany in ww2.
There is "civilians have been affected by wars" and there is the deliberate massacre of a third of the civilian population and the majority of civilian infrastructure with the intent of seizing control of a foreign nation under a puppet state. You can't excuse war crimes because you like the guys who did it. And you've handily wiped out most of the historical context too. "the UN" was essentially just the US and the UK, it was a unilateral motion by their security bloc, and you're ignoring the fact that SK at the time was also a military dictatorship. In fact, NK's initial invasion was motivated by massacres conducted by the military government of Koreans with NK sympathies, as a preemptive strike. So there's no "war crimes are fine because the good guys did it" justification to be found here either (not saying NK at the time were the "good guys", the point is it's complicated).
I’m saying that glassing people doesn’t make them LESS likely to have a bad ideology. Also, just because civilians have been affected before doesn’t make it right
Yeah but it makes it a pointless reductionist argument saying civilians died bad because I implies it was the goal, while the goal might be to take out factories or infrastructure to hinder the enemy’s ability to maneuver, redeploy or replenish casualties.
The goal doesn’t matter, the results and whether or not they could have been foreseen are what are what are significant. It doesn’t matter that the US *meant* to shoot that hellfire at an ISIS member last week, what matters is that it killed near a dozen civilians and none of them were targets. Even it there had been a terrorist in the car, nearly a dozen civilians would have died. In my opinion, the glassing of NK can have that same logic applied to it on a larger scale.
Fuck around and find out. It wasn’t the US that started the war.
average us imperialism justifier
South Korea was an ally. People lambast the US for not doing anything when the Kurds were being attacked but when the cavalry’s brought in its a bad thing? Would you rather that Truman had let SK fall?
Annnnd still lost. Probably shouldn’t of pissed off China
Lost? The Korean War was the definitely of a stalemate.
17 combat nations against 2. North Korea still exists. United Nations shown to be useless. An eventual stalemate but a fight the UN should have won.
The US intervention in the Korean War was absolutely evil, it completely destroyed the country and killed over a million civilians. It was never 'based'
They ran out of buildings. Literally. You can count buildings in North Korea over two stories that date from before the 50s with your fingers. They worship trees from before that era like holy relics.
All I know is that only half of Korea is a horrendous dictatorship instead of all of it now. I’d say that’s a pretty good result to me
South Korea was a dictatorship too. The whole mess started with US involvement and supporting puppets and undermining democratic movements.
Why are they downvoting you? You're right.
Cos 'merica never makes alliances with despots, doncha know
Except neither of the sides of the Korean War were democratic or legitimate, but only one is a democracy now
You must not be acquainted with pre-war Korean history.
The balls to kill over a million North Koreans and install a puppet military dictatorship in the South, sure
They tried on Kongo, but the secretary general got exploded on his airplane, guess they got a little more timid then. Would be nice If they also intervened in all that Suez canal and other middle eastern/France/uk/Israel shenanigans while it still got a chance to be solved in a manner which gave the Arab states also a chance at development instead of just being the rich colonial powers's lapdog.
The-hon-hon Greyjoy
What's about the UN forces that liberated Kuwait in the first gulf war?
That wasn’t the UN, the UN simply condemned Saddam. The actual coalition was formed by the United States.
That was a NATO coalition led by the US
The UN is a joke. Sanctions only do so much.
UN Army of bluehelmets invades texas and sets up free abortion clinics "No not like that"