From: John Grigg (starman2100@lycos.com)
Date: Fri Jan 10 2003 - 10:17:27 MST
Hello Nate,
Due to my fairly young age I did not have a firsthand (or secondhand from news reports and other people who were part of it as it happened) remembrance of those wars, but my father and others did.
There are many excellent books you could get which would illuminate the factors behind these conflicts, but I will give a little input. America (as I think you would probably know) was extremely anxious about communist memes infecting and controlling neutral/friendly nations. So during the "cold" war billions were spent by either side to further their own memes and suppress the other sides.
Before WW2 occurred Korea was taken over by Japan. The Japanese had decided after industrializing and modernizing their military to not help their Asian neighbors (which at times they had considered), but instead do the western thing and make them economic vassals.
After the war Korea became a polarizing point for the new cold war sides. But Russia poured in the weapons to the north while we thought diplomacy alone would be enough to keep violence at bay.
The Korean War found the U.S. initially unprepared (and the South Koreans!) which lead to horrendous initial losses. We had been too quick to disarm after WW2 and did not take the Northern threat seriously enough.
The North swept over the South initially with stunning success. An initial American expeditionary force was in part utterly massacred with many captured prisoners executed by being tied up and then dragged by a noose from a vehicle. Our antitank weapons had been totally ineffective against the new Soviet built armor.
U.S. troop reinforcements and especially air ground support over time turned the tide and the communists began to be steadily pushed back. But it was McArthur's Inchon landing which forced the enemy to go reeling backwards. If only he had been as perceptive at the Yalu river where many Americans died... In the end a bloody deadlock was reached and so both sides saw reason for signing a peace agreement and we see the results of that to this day.
What I find more interesting is the FUTURE of North and South Korea. lol Their pompadoured little dictator does not scare me and I bet he is the one (despite his rantings) who feels his share of fear. A war order from him would initially go well, but eventually would lead to the nation's total defeat and probably his execution by his own officer corps once the writing is on the wall.
An army officer friend of mine told me things would start off with huge North Korean bunkers near the DMZ firing artillery rounds for hours into the South. This would cause massive damage and terror near the border areas.
At this same time Northern commandos would be wreaking havoc (or attempting to) by various acts of sabotage and assassination. And Northern aircraft would probably ATTEMPT bombing runs but he didn't see them getting very far against modern western air defenses.
Next swarms of armor and mechanized infantry would race toward the south to spearhead a Northern invasion. But a combination of massive landmine fields, land overhangs wired to be blown up and block traversable terrain, heavy artillery attacks, satellite tracking and Southern/American air power would work to hammer and greatly weaken their forces even before they got to deeply penetrate the South.
And this is taking into account the idea they would have enough fuel to resupply their vehicles! lol And even if they could, our airpower would in time cut their supply lines to ribbons.
The North would no doubt wreak horrible damage to the South and take many lives (including U.S. ones), but in the end one thing is just about guaranteed, the North would suffer an utterly humiliating defeat.
Their armored vehicles would run out of fuel and have to be abandoned. The food, medicine and ammo the infantry would need would run dry, too. One of the hugest routes in history would happen as the Northern invasion force was forced to (on foot) turn tail and try to make it back home alive.
I would hope their dictator would be assassinated by his own men for engaging in such a reckless and avoidable war, but maybe they would not do it for various reasons. Then I would wonder if the South and U.S. would have the fortitude to invade the North and fully topple the regime. But Northern troops might fight much harder on their own land and we are not talking Iraqi's here! lol
Ironically, without western aid it would probably just be a matter of time before things came totally apart inside North Korea. But a desperate dictator can inspire alot of terror to make a desperate bid to stay in power. We might see something like what happened in Romania when they deposed their dictator, but on an even costlier scale.
Viet Nam found us at first wanting to simply teach and fund our allies in South Viet Nam instead of fighting the war ourselves. But things escalated as our advisors were killed and the Southern troops proved (due to bad leadership and morale) to be generally (but not always) ineffective.
We had prevailed in WW2 and Korea so would we not in this case? lol Viet Nam taught American generals two key points which are often heard in the halls of the Pentagon, "we do deserts, forests, even mountains, but NOT jungles" and "have a clear end goal in mind before entering into armed conflict."
In Korea the south was squarely behind us when compared to the southern Vietnamese. I have talked to vets who said while their were definite exceptions to the rule, in general you could tell where the enemy was by knowing all you had to do was go in the opposite direction from where the South Vietnamese troops were running!
To show loyalty (and also I believe to get some debts forgiven) South Korea sent troops to help us fight in 'Nam. One group of these (the Tiger division I believe) in particular made the Viet Cong experience real fear because of their effectiveness in combat and lack of mercy.
They did not always obey the Geneva Convention (but neither did the communists). A friend of mine who was in artillery related a story to me about driving around in his jeep and hearing screams from a South Korean base camp. He was allowed in to view the festivities which happened to be watching a Viet Cong prisoner be burned at the stake to the cheers of his captors.
I knew a 'Nam vet who was convinced we could have won that war had politicians not "tied one hand behind our back." This very large biker was not someone to be close to when saying "I'm sure it was unwinnable." lol He believed the unrestricted bombing and mining of the North followed by an Inchon style invasion would have given the communists the knockout blow which was so badly yearned for.
I would always bring up (nicely!) China and Russia being infuriated and sending in ground forces or even nuking us tactically, but he did not see either happening. I think we would have seen a repeat of the Korean debacle where another powerful nation suddenly intervened and temporarily put us on the run.
Korea was a war which was very rough on us but we were able to persevere in part because as time progressed gains were noticeably made(favorable terrain really does help) and the native people were on our side. Viet Nam was something which seemed to just go on and on(despite some victories) with no clearcut end in sight and a native people who were generally lukewarm about supporting us(sometimes for good reason). Also the American and global populace in the latter war had changed their attitudes about simply going along and being unquestionably patriotic.
Anyway, I hope you find what you are looking for somewhere. The book "Korea: The Forgotten War" would be a good start. My father is a Korean War vet and he once told me (on a personal note) more than anything else he hated the cold and wind there. The U.S. Army was sadly not prepared with the warm clothing they should have had for their troops.
best wishes,
John
-- On Tue, 07 Jan 2003 00:04:14 Nathanael Allison wrote: > >I have heard hundreds of opinions on vietnam but almost none on korea. I am >hoping to find intellectual opinions on the korean conflict. I have recently >talked with a friend who claims to be an historian but he didn't really >offer much information. Basically, what was really going on? Also what >relation did korea have if any to Vietnam? What relation did korea have to >WW2? > >Any info or new ideas would be helpful, thanks Nate _____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB, POP3, Spam Filtering with LYCOS MAIL PLUS for $19.95/year. http://login.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus&ref=lmtplus
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:35:51 MST