Korean War: WI the USSR hadn't been boycotting the UN?

stevep,

You may not get a reply from Grimm as I think you're on his ignore list after previous comments on this thread.

Silly Oh well.

However the accepted view is that S Korea had a very small army,

It certainly had a weak army and one of the oft quoted reasons for that was that Singman Rhee was so agressive and provocative in his efforts to re-unite his homeland that the US thought it would be better not to supply him with tanks as he might invade the North and provoke a war. Delicious irony.

Technically true on the 1st part. However it is strange to compare a huge world war with a limited one against communist aggression. The latter had limited forces available and also limited aims. Hence it was far from likely that either side would moblise massive forces.

Would you describe a supported brigade as a large commitment? I wouldn't and I have already conceeded that it is more than the token presence I suggested although frankly not a lot.

Again would be interesting to know of any facts behind this please?

I would suggest that the Wikipedia article on the Division of Korea paticularly the second para of in the south read with an eye for understatement would be a good place to start.
 
No. France is trying to reassert colonial control over Indo-China. The French Govt. don't really care if the Vietnamese are Communist or not the problem is they are nationalists.

I disagree - ideology is part of the issue here.

In June, 1950, France has already had to put down Communist-inspired strikes in 1947, has joined NATO in 1949, is fighting a Communist insurgency in Indochina since 1945 and is led by a Christian-Democrat government headed by a Conservative personality, Georges Bidault. The very same man who negotiated the UN Charter for France, and the 1947 Franco-British Dunkirk treaty! He actually led an anti-communist policy as a reaction to the Berlin Blockade and the 1948 Communist coup in Prague. Henri Queuille, the man who succeeded Bidault in July, 1950, ratified the NATO treaty and worked to reduce the influence of the Communist Party.

That's definitely not the right background to suddenly say "To Hell with the United Nations, let's join a Soviet-dominated international organization instead".
 
Last edited:
I disagree - ideology is part of the issue here.

In June, 1950, France has already had to put down Communist-inspired strikes in 1947, has joined NATO in 1949, is fighting a Communist insurgency in Indochina since 1945 and is led by a Christian-Democrat government headed by a Conservative personality, Georges Bidault. The very same man who negotiated the UN Charter for France, and the 1947 Franco-British Dunkirk treaty! He actually led an anti-communist policy as a reaction to the Berlin Blockade and the 1948 Communist coup in Prague. Henri Queuille, the man who succeeded Bidault in July, 1950, ratified the NATO treaty and worked to reduce the influence of the Communist Party.

That's definitely not the right background to suddenly say "To Hell with the United Nations, let's join a Soviet-dominated international organization instead".

That, and the small fact that they were receiving US help, and Ho Chi Ming a lot of Chinese and Soviet help ...
 

DAMIENEVIL

Banned
I could not find the numbers in the link to Wikipedia you sent, may just be me, but I did look up the Canadian Veterans website and it looks like it was about a brigade sized army deployments supported by a few ships and some aircraft. You could argue that this is a little more than the token deployment I discussed in my previous post.



A brigade and support is a tiny pale shadow of Canada's contibution to WWII however.

Look on the right hand side it lists people every allied and commie country involved.

and its imperialist when you invade another nation to spread your power even if it is to reunify your country. The North started the war not the south hence why the UN supported the South and not the north.
 
stevep,



Silly Oh well.



It certainly had a weak army and one of the oft quoted reasons for that was that Singman Rhee was so agressive and provocative in his efforts to re-unite his homeland that the US thought it would be better not to supply him with tanks as he might invade the North and provoke a war. Delicious irony.



Would you describe a supported brigade as a large commitment? I wouldn't and I have already conceeded that it is more than the token presence I suggested although frankly not a lot.



I would suggest that the Wikipedia article on the Division of Korea paticularly the second para of in the south read with an eye for understatement would be a good place to start.


I think the biggest misconception is that we all have on our minds the image of the whako North Korea under Kim Jong Il, and that the North Korea then was more a traditional Stalinist state.

It was only during the 1970s really when the growth acheieved by the command economy stagnated, that instead of undergoing market reforms ala-China, Kim Il Sung instituted the Juche ideology and North Korea really underwent the transformation into the whackjob rogue state we know today.

As for Syngman Rhee, he was a ruthless dictator and there is no way around it. He had ambitions to reconquer the entire Korean peninsula just as Kim-Il Sung did, and had he possessed the larger army he likely would have been the one to invade as soon as the opportunity arose. Yet however a distasteful regime that South Korea ran, they were still a client state of the US and when invaded its well within their rights to defend it. AS for why the US did not adequately prepare the South for invasion, was that Rhee would very well use it against his own people, which in many ways, he did, and by doing so cause them to rise up against Rhee and look to the communists instead.

In many ways, the North Korean invasion of the the South vindicated Rhee, in that the US glossed over his oppression to combat an act of open aggression. Had the North Koreans waited perhaps a few years, South Korea would have fallen into a state of Civil War or developed into a South Vietnam type situation under Diem in the early 60s.

Regardless, the US and Britain probably would have still intervened even if the Soviets had said no to a UN resolution. In those early years, Korea, both North and South, was pretty much a pawn over which the Cold War giants played their global chess match.
 
Top