Blowback

[amadeus]

This chart kind of shows how this played out, but even here one can see that North Korea was keeping up even with the South being propped up at 12 billion plus per from the US from like 1960 onwards...

Curious choice of words here. I think you have the two countries mixed up.

 

[Zardnaar]

As I pointed out, it wasn't "the soviets" so much as the central european countries. The soviets did "relocations" during WW2 but those were eventually reversed. They had their union/federal structure as a way to handle different nationalities within one country. It only broke down when the political system collapsed (NK was a manifestation of Gorbachev's incompetence).
A lot could be said about the subject of nationalities versus polities, and what could be learned from earlier eras or different forms of political organization. It would he off-tooir here though.

Even if Soviets pulled vack to 1939 frontiers I would imagine the Germans would be removed after what happened.

Hence why I'm generally opposed to political extremism. Regardless who cones out on top its probably some sort of authoritarian extremism.

USA is flawed along with UN but pre 1945 we saw the results of not having them.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The korean war was one of those accidental turning points of world history that gets little attention. No Korea war, perhaps no big red scare in the US turning it into a military empire with worldwide tentacles, and producing an imperial caste in washington that changed the US from traditionally isolationist to meddlers-in-chief taking over from the british.
Roosevelt, whom I have long considered the political-strategic genius of the 20th century, put a lot of effort into breaking the British Empire, it could be described imo as the top priority for the US diring the whole of WW2. But his view of american preeminece seems way more diplomatic than what came to pass in the Cold War. The USSR was in reactive mode, trying to rebuild after the devastation of having so much of WW2 fought on its territory. Without a perceived US threat things could have gone very differently.
I think the soviet archives showed that Stalin was loathe to release Kim Il Sung to attempt his reunification of Korea by force, but events in the south were forcing a reaction and holding the koreans back forever would damage the USSR's standing in China. Stalin's second greastest strategic mistake (the first being assuming Hitler was capable of rationally assessing the USSR and what war with it would mean). China drifted apart anyway and the korean war led to the creation of the gargantuan bureaucracy in Washington that used the US's resources and power post-ww2 as a a plaything ever since, wrecking its way with near impunity across the globe seeding the chaos it needs. The USSR got stuck in a war of mutual containment with it instead of developing itself.

Interesting. So it was the impulsive Kim Il Sung who turned the US in an imperialistic powerhouse? I guess without the Korean war, the US would have stayed out of both Korea and Vietnam. Good to know where to place the blame. Kim was a soviet puppet and his KPA was trained and equipped by the soviets to expand their last minute invasion of Korean on Aug 8 1945. Kim was a diehard communist and ambitious to unite Korea under his leadership. By the end of 1950 he had lost the war he started and it was only with massive Chinese help that he survived.

Stalin and his ambitions were not idle post war. Not only did he force communism across all of Eastern Europe there were numerous communist insurgencies all across the world from the 1940s through the 1950s (and beyond). Some were successful and some weren't, but there was a persistent stream of them. Do you need a list? Much of the perceived US threat to the soviets was tied to the ongoing communist insurgencies that were popping up on every continent. Nobody in the post war years had today's hindsight about how things would unfold. The building blocks of the 21st C world were laid down during the Cold War brick by brick by world leaders who had no inkling of what they were actually building. Every step seemed appropriate and reasonable at the time.

Nikita Khrushchev's "we will bury you" speech in 1956 did nothing to ease the situation. The US was the nation who was reactive in the post war years while using the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Stalin was actively trying to overturn the postwar situation into a communist advantage. The US military industrial complex was built on the WW2 foundation in response to the aggressive spread of communist ideology. You do love to present the USSR as an innocent victim of US aggression. The Korean war, started by Kim Il Sung set the US on that path.

 

[amadeus]

I would say two quick things about Stalin: he was more pragmatic than that and he was equally paranoid. Korea wasn’t part of the Soviet plan for world communism, it was to keep an American-Japanese alliance off Soviet borders. He knew the bounds of Soviet power, and tried to push them in some places like Iran, but held back in others like Austria and Finland.

Priority #1 was to defend the Soviet Union, for better or worse.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would say two quick things about Stalin: he was more pragmatic than that and he was equally paranoid. Korea wasn’t part of the Soviet plan for world communism, it was to keep an American-Japanese alliance off Soviet borders. He knew the bounds of Soviet power, and tried to push them in some places like Iran, but held back in others like Austria and Finland.

Priority #1 was to defend the Soviet Union, for better or worse.

Ironically the USSR built all that military for an invasion that was never coming.

 

[Crezth]

Stalin and his ambitions were not idle post war. Not only did he force communism across all of Eastern Europe there were numerous communist insurgencies all across the world from the 1940s through the 1950s (and beyond). Some were successful and some weren't, but there was a persistent stream of them. Do you need a list? Much of the perceived US threat to the soviets was tied to the ongoing communist insurgencies that were popping up on every continent. Nobody in the post war years had today's hindsight about how things would unfold. The building blocks of the 21st C world were laid down during the Cold War brick by brick by world leaders who had no inkling of what they were actually building. Every step seemed appropriate and reasonable at the time.

Nikita Khrushchev's "we will bury you" speech in 1956 did nothing to ease the situation. The US was the nation who was reactive in the post war years while using the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Stalin was actively trying to overturn the postwar situation into a communist advantage. The US military industrial complex was built on the WW2 foundation in response to the aggressive spread of communist ideology. You do love to present the USSR as an innocent victim of US aggression. The Korean war, started by Kim Il Sung set the US on that path.

Without talking about decolonization, this is all naive or dishonest tunnel-vision.

 

[Lexicus]

For what it's worth, I think the roots of Soviet mistrust of the West (and the US, the most powerful Western state inarguably from ca. 1916 on) lie back in the 1920s with the Allied interventions against the Bolsheviks in the Russian civil war. The foundations of the Soviet leaders' siege mentality were laid then, and then cemented by the Nazi invasion. The Kennan telegram advocating containment dates from 1946, years before the war started in Korea.

Regarding Korea, people like @Birdjaguar should google the Korean People's Republic

 

[Birdjaguar]

Without talking about decolonization, this is all naive or dishonest tunnel-vision.

Decolonization was certainly an important element of world politics at the time. I was directing my post to the things inno said and not trying to encompass every trend or issue.

 

[Crezth]

Decolonization was certainly an important element of world politics at the time. I was directing my post to the things inno said and not trying to encompass every trend or issue.

I believe the decolonization movement was also intrinsically linked with the realities and dynamics that guided US-Soviet relations and indeed the relations between the West and the rest of the world, too. That is where we got terms like "First," "Second," and "Third World" from. It is because there was a deep interplay. The relationship between India and the USSR in this period is also highly, highly illustrative of how this dynamic was realized in practice. This also happened in Cuba - what was by all respects a very large sugar plantation that was wracked by slave revolts and revolution, and went from being that to what it is now.

In other words, there were many reasons for revolutions that didn't have much to do with Stalin per se, but which did play off the relationship the Soviet state chose to cultivate with the outside world. They were not and could not have been responsible for all the rebellions and all the communist uprisings. There was a deeper, stronger current underwriting all of it. Vijay Prashad talks about this in his book Red Star Over the Third World in case you're looking for more knowledge.

 

[Birdjaguar]

For what it's worth, I think the roots of Soviet mistrust of the West (and the US, the most powerful Western state inarguably from ca. 1916 on) lie back in the 1920s with the Allied interventions against the Bolsheviks in the Russian civil war. The foundations of the Soviet leaders' siege mentality were laid then, and then cemented by the Nazi invasion. The Kennan telegram advocating containment dates from 1946, years before the war started in Korea.

Regarding Korea, people like @Birdjaguar should google the Korean People's Republic

I did. A transitional struggle between people vying for power. Pretty common whenever change is happening. At some point stability of some sort sets in.

As for the Kennan telegram, a containment strategy is not new, the First Coalition against France in 1792 comes to mind, followed by several more. How much of the Soviet paranoia was just a transfer of Stalin's?

 

[Lexicus]

I did. A transitional struggle between people vying for power. Pretty common whenever change is happening. At some point stability of some sort sets in.

As for the Kennan telegram, a containment strategy is not new, the First Coalition against France in 1792 comes to mind, followed by several more. How much of the Soviet paranoia was just a transfer of Stalin's?

The Korean People's Republic represented the actual aspirations of the Korean people. The superpowers came along and would not have it.

The First Coalition's strategy against France was war, not containment (i don't recall enough of the details but during the times Britain wasn't at war with France you could say Britain's strategy was containment and Napoleon's Continental system was certainly an attempt to contain Britain).

In any event I am not talking about the invention of "containment" per se but specifically the use of containment by the US against the Soviet Union.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Korean People's Republic represented the actual aspirations of the Korean people. The superpowers came along and would not have it.

The First Coalition's strategy against France was war, not containment (i don't recall enough of the details but during the times Britain wasn't at war with France you could say Britain's strategy was containment and Napoleon's Continental system was certainly an attempt to contain Britain).

In any event I am not talking about the invention of "containment" per se but specifically the use of containment by the US against the Soviet Union.

I cannot say what the "actual aspirations of the Korean people" were, but yes, the superpowers frequently step in to drive results they aspire to. It happened all over the world after WW2. WW2 brought such an enormous change everywhere and established the adversarial relationship between the US and the Soviets that reverberated everywhere. The east west polarization was a defining moment in history that both sides wanted and encouraged. With the new atomic weapons readily at hand, paranoia was common. To avoid a "next" hot war of worse consequences that what had just passed, "little wars" of expansion/containment were a preferred strategy. Cuba in 1962 brought the little wars strategy right up to the "bigger" war line. Just like the Napoleonic Wars restructured Europe for the events of the 19th c., WW2 restructured the world for the next 50 years. During such transitions opportunities abound. The powerful try to use them for their own ends. This happens at the very local level as well as the global level and everywhere in between.

 

[Crezth]

Isn't this just "both sidesing" America's actual specific crimes in Korea now?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Isn't this just "both sidesing" America's actual specific crimes in Korea now?

Not at all. I have said nothing about the details of who did what to whom, when and why. Body counts and who was crueler in the past is a losing game and one can find all the examples one wants in just about every political transition that involves violent struggle. Using such mechanisms to condemn some and not others is a failure to recognize our ongoing human efforts to maintain or acquire power by any means at our disposal. It matters today in Gaza because there might be ways to not do it. (But I doubt it.) Holding generational grudges (economic, political, and racial) works against solving problems now. "None" of the perpetrators of the evil deeds in Korea during the 1940s are alive today. The world today is what it is and in places built on the legacy of those deeds. The powers still struggle to maintain and increase their control by whatever means they think they can get away with. Progress comes from trying to make small corners of the world better places people to live.

 

[Crezth]

That's all true, but this is also a thread specifically about blowback to and caused by U.S. propaganda and involvement of the Korean war. Bringing in this very broad and general discussion about this just being what superpowers do, or Korea's fate is eliding the specific point raised by the OP @Estebonrober in bringing up the documentary about what those specific consequences are in the specific context of U.S. diplomacy and politics. And the only reason I'm even mentioning this is because I know you are aware of those points as they engaged you when you were watching the documentary. It seems your position has settled into "well this is just what great powers do and perhaps Korea's fate was inevitable." In any case it may be true, but that doesn't mean we have to believe Emperor Nero is the lightbringer just because he says he is.

 

[Lexicus]

"Look how poor North Korea is" has always struck me as a bit like the mafia gloating about how much richer the guy who paid protection money is than the guy whose store they burnt down bc he wouldn't pay.

 

[Crezth]

"Look how poor North Korea is" has always struck me as a bit like the mafia gloating about how much richer the guy who paid protection money is than the guy whose store they burnt down bc he wouldn't pay.

Really, I couldn't put it better myself.

 

[Birdjaguar]

That's all true, but this is also a thread specifically about blowback to and caused by U.S. propaganda and involvement of the Korean war. Bringing in this very broad and general discussion about this just being what superpowers do, or Korea's fate is eliding the specific point raised by the OP @Estebonrober in bringing up the documentary about what those specific consequences are in the specific context of U.S. diplomacy and politics. And the only reason I'm even mentioning this is because I know you are aware of those points as they engaged you when you were watching the documentary. It seems your position has settled into "well this is just what great powers do and perhaps Korea's fate was inevitable." In any case it may be true, but that doesn't mean we have to believe Emperor Nero is the lightbringer just because he says he is.

As I said, arguing over who did what to whom 75 years ago is just a perpetuation of past bad deeds to feed modern arguments about who is better or worse in the 21st c. The goal of the OP, as I see it, is to enhance the idea that the evil deeds of the US in Korea in the late 1940s has been hidden and Blowback is the bringer of truth. The reason to do that seems less to set the record straight, but to push more anti American hate and offset the bad press NK and its regime gets. Everyone wants "their side" to win. It happens at every level of communication. This thread (like many others) is just a way for Estebonrober to use a tool he likes to move the needle. I do the same. I do not think a multi hour paid subscription is an effective tool, but that is not my call.

My position is that the events of 70 years ago are over and done and they have influenced our present in some ways just like all the other events since than have. The present was not determined in 1946 but all the events of the post war years did drive the future down particular pathways. What the "great nations" do now will set a course for the future too. Similarly we could argue about the "greatness" or "evil" of Napoleon toward some final evaluation of him. That has been going on since 1800. I'd rather look at how he drove the changes that happened in 19th C Europe. The Vietnam war was an unmitigated disaster of cruelty, death and destruction that can be laid at the feet of the US and its foreign policy. At the time there were those that opposed it. They lost. 50 years later we can recognize it for what it was and how it fits into the global activities of the post WW2 world. It was a terrible atrocity that should not be repeated, but it is over and done and patching up the hate has been underway for some time now.

 

[Birdjaguar]

"Look how poor North Korea is" has always struck me as a bit like the mafia gloating about how much richer the guy who paid protection money is than the guy whose store they burnt down bc he wouldn't pay.

To oversimplify; the screws were put to NK by the West and the Kims decided that being in power as dictators is more important than finding ways loosen the screws. In your mafia example the poor guy has no way out; NK has had a multitude of paths to loosen the screws, but most of those meant a loss of power to the Kim family. Power is a drug and folks like it, a lot. Often they would rather die than give it up.

 

[Lexicus]

To oversimplify; the screws were put to NK by the West and the Kims decided that being in power as dictators is more important than finding ways loosen the screws. In your mafia example the poor guy has no way out; NK has had a multitude of paths to loosen the screws, but most of those meant a loss of power to the Kim family. Power is a drug and folks like it, a lot. Often they would rather die than give it up.

I don't deny that is an aspect of the situation. But i am not sure you realize all the horror entailed in "putting the screws" in North Korea. The US officers in charge of bombing the place at one point said they had run out of undestroyed targets. The devastation reallly cannot be overstated, and not only in terms of its physical effects.