Quotulatiousness

January 23, 2024

The Korean War: The First Year

Filed under: Asia, China, History, Japan, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Army University Press
Published Jan 22, 2024

Created for the Department of Command and Leadership and the Department of Military History at the US Army Command and General Staff College, The Korean War: The First Year is a short documentary focused on the major events of the Forgotten War. Designed to address the complex strategic and operational actions from June 1950 – June 1951, the film answers seven key questions that can be found in the timestamps below. Major events such as the initial North Korean invasion, the defense of the Pusan Perimeter, the Inchon landing, and the Chinese intervention are discussed.

Timestamps:

1. Why are there Two Koreas? – 00:25
2. Why did North Korea Attack South Korea? – 02:39
3. How did the UN stop the Communist invasion? – 06:30
4. Why did MacArthur attack at Inchon? – 10:24
5. Why did the UN attack into North Korea? – 14:27
6. Why did China enter the Korean War? – 18:51
7. How did the UN stop the Communist invasion … again? – 21:44

August 5, 2023

Tempting Armageddon: Soviet vs. NATO Nuclear Strategy

Real Time History
Published 4 Aug 2023

Since the inception of the nuclear bomb, military strategists have tried to figure out how to use them best. During the Cold War, this led to two very different doctrines but on both sides of the Iron Curtain the military wasn’t sure if you could actually win Nuclear War.
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March 11, 2023

Why Japan Surrendered in WW2: Stalin or the Bomb?

Real Time History
Published 10 Mar 2023
It’s common wisdom that the nuclear bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused the Japanese surrender at the end of the 2nd World War. However, there has been a fierce historical debate if this narrative omits the role of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 — or if this invasion was actually the main cause for the surrender.
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December 6, 2022

The coming of the Korean War

Filed under: Asia, China, History, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

In Quillette, Niranjan Shankar outlines the world situation that led to the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950:

Initial phase of the Korean War, 25 June through 5 August, 1950.
Map from the West Point Military Atlashttps://www.westpoint.edu/academics/academic-departments/history/korean-war

The Korean War was among the deadliest of the Cold War’s battlegrounds. Yet despite yielding millions of civilian deaths, over 40,000 US casualties, and destruction that left scars which persist on the peninsula today, the conflict has never received the attention (aside from being featured in the sitcom M*A*S*H) devoted to World War II, Vietnam, and other 20th-century clashes.

But like other neglected Cold War front-lines, the “Forgotten War” has fallen victim to several politicized and one-sided “anti-imperialist” narratives that focus almost exclusively on the atrocities of the United States and its allies. The most recent example of this tendency was a Jacobin column by James Greig, who omits the brutal conduct of North Korean and Chinese forces, misrepresents the underlying cause of the war, justifies North Korea’s belligerence as an “anti-colonial” enterprise, and even praises the regime’s “revolutionary” initiatives. Greig’s article was preceded by several others, which also framed the war as an instance of US imperialism and North Korea’s anti-Americanism as a rational response to Washington’s prosecution of the war. Left-wing foreign-policy thinker Daniel Bessner also alluded to the Korean War as one of many “American-led fiascos” in his essay for Harper’s magazine earlier this summer. Even (somewhat) more balanced assessments of the war, such as those by Owen Miller, tend to overemphasize American and South Korean transgressions, and don’t do justice to the long-term consequences of Washington’s decision to send troops to the peninsula in the summer of 1950. By giving short shrift to — or simply failing to mention — the communist powers’ leading role in instigating the conflict, and the violence and suffering they unleashed throughout it, these depictions of the Korean tragedy distort its legacy and do a disservice to the millions who suffered, and continue to suffer, under the North Korean regime.

Determining “who started” a military confrontation, especially an “internal” conflict that became entangled in great-power politics, can be a herculean task. Nevertheless, post-revisionist scholarship (such as John Lewis Gaddis’s The Cold War: A New History) that draws upon Soviet archives declassified in 1991 has made it clear that the communist leaders, principally Joseph Stalin and North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, were primarily to blame for the outbreak of the war.

After Korea, a Japanese imperial holding, was jointly occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1945, Washington and Moscow agreed to divide the peninsula at the 38th parallel. In the North, the Soviets worked with the Korean communist and former Red Army officer Kim Il-Sung to form a provisional “People’s Committee”, while the Americans turned to the well-known Korean nationalist and independence activist Syngman Rhee to establish a military government in the South. Neither the US nor the USSR intended the division to be permanent, and until 1947, both experimented with proposals for a united Korean government under an international trusteeship. But Kim and Rhee’s mutual rejection of any plan that didn’t leave the entire peninsula under their control hindered these efforts. When Rhee declared the Republic of Korea (ROK) in 1948, and Kim declared the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) later that year, the division was cemented. Each nation threatened to invade the other and began preparing to do so.

What initially prevented a full-scale attack by either side was Washington’s and Moscow’s refusal to provide their respective partners with support for the military reunification of the peninsula. Both superpowers had withdrawn their troops by 1949 to avoid being dragged into an unnecessary war, and the Americans deliberately withheld weapons from the ROK that could be used to launch an invasion.

However, Stalin began to have other ideas. Emboldened by Mao Zedong’s victory in the Chinese Civil War and frustrated by strategic setbacks in Europe, the Soviet premier saw an opportunity to open a “second-front” for communist expansion in East Asia with Beijing’s help. Convinced that Washington was unlikely to respond, Stalin gave Kim Il-Sung his long-sought “green-light” to reunify the Korean peninsula under communist rule in April 1950, provided that Mao agreed to support the operation. After Mao convinced his advisers (despite some initial difficulty) of the need to back their Korean counterparts, Red Army military advisers began working extensively with the Korean People’s Army (KPA) to prepare for an attack on the South. When Kim’s forces invaded on June 25th, 1950, the US and the international community were caught completely off-guard.

Commentators like Greig, who contest the communists’ culpability in starting the war, often rely on the work of revisionist historian Bruce Cumings, who highlights the perpetual state of conflict between the two Korean states before 1950. It is certainly true that there were several border skirmishes over the 38th parallel after the Soviet and American occupation governments were established in 1945. But this in no way absolves Kim and his foreign patrons for their role in unleashing an all-out assault on the South. Firstly, despite Rhee’s threats and aggressive posturing, the North clearly had the upper hand militarily, and was much better positioned than the South to launch an invasion. Whereas Washington stripped Rhee’s forces of much of their offensive capabilities, Moscow was more than happy to arm its Korean partners with heavy tanks, artillery, and aircraft. Many KPA soldiers also had prior military experience from fighting alongside the Chinese communists during the Chinese Civil War.

Moreover, as scholar William Stueck eloquently maintains, the “civil” aspect of the Korean War fails to obviate the conflict’s underlying international dimensions. Of course, Rhee’s and Kim’s stubborn desire to see the country fully “liberated” thwarted numerous efforts to establish a unified Korean government, and played a role in prolonging the war after it started. It is unlikely that Stalin would have agreed to support Pyongyang’s campaign to reunify Korea had it not been for Kim’s persistent requests and repeated assurances that the war would be won quickly. Nevertheless, the extensive economic and military assistance provided to the North Koreans by the Soviets and Chinese (the latter of which later entered the war directly), the subsequent expansion of Sino-Soviet cooperation, the Stalinist nature of the regime in Pyongyang, Kim’s role in both the CCP and the Red Army, and the close relationship between the Chinese and Korean communists all strongly suggest that without the blessing of his ideological inspirators and military supporters, Kim could not have embarked on his crusade to “liberate” the South.

Likewise, Rhee’s education in the US and desire to emulate the American capitalist model in Korea were important international components of the conflict. More to the point, all the participants saw the war as a confrontation between communism and its opponents worldwide, which led to the intensification of the Cold War in other theaters as well. The broader, global context of the buildup to the war, along with the UN’s authorization for military action, legitimized America’s intervention as a struggle against international communist expansionism, rather than an unwelcome intrusion into a civil dispute among Koreans.

November 24, 2021

The Marshall Plan

Filed under: Economics, Europe, History, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Cold War
Published 6 Jul 2019

Our series on the history of the Cold War period continues with a documentary on the Marshall Plan and how the USA was able to help in the rebuild of the post-War World and gained valuable allies while doing it

Consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thecoldwar

July 3, 2020

“Nuclear Attack” – Atomic Bombings – Sabaton History 074 [Official]

Sabaton History
Published 2 Jul 2020

At 0815 on 6 August 1945, the first atomic bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy”, was dropped out of the B-29 Enola Gay and descended towards the Japanese city of Hiroshima. 43 seconds later, the city was engulfed in a flashing bright light and a shockwave of unimaginable heat and deadly pressure. From the hypocenter of the resulting mushroom-cloud, a blue-green fireball burned and blinded the city and its inhabitants with unprecedented power. 140,000 people were killed in the first few moments. Tens of thousands would die from wounds and radiation. The age of atomic warfare had begun.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Listen to “Nuclear Attack” on the album Attero Dominatus
CD: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusStore
Spotify: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusSpotify
Apple Music: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusAppleMusic
iTunes: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusiTunes
Amazon: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusAmzn
Google Play: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusGooglePlay

Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShop

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Community Manager: Maria Kyhle
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski
Maps by: Eastory – https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory

Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.

Colorizations:
– Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/

Sources:
– U.S. Department of Energy
– Bomb icon by P Thanga Vignesh from the Noun Project
– bockelsound from freesound.org
– Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

From the comments:

Sabaton History
2 days ago

August 6, 1945. On this fateful Monday morning our world changed forever.

Nuclear weapons were now a reality, destruction on a whole new level a possibility. International power dynamics, foreign politics and conflict handling would never be the same once this new kind of weapon of mass destruction had entered the scene. The threat of potentially world-ending nuclear war, the fear that the men in power would push “the red button”, would hang over people like a dark cloud from this day on. The Nuclear Age had begun.

If you’re interested in how politics developed during The Nuclear Age, you can explore that in the day-by-day coverage of The Cuban Missile Crisis over on TimeGhost History. The first introduction, “USA Starts the Atomic Arms Race”, is already up and you can watch it right here: https://youtu.be/zEXjoBe5ZdI

May 14, 2020

1948: The Dutch vs. the USA – 2nd Police Actions | The Indonesian War of Independence Part 4

TimeGhost History
Published 13 May 2020

The international community forces the Dutch to end their first colonial offensive with the Renville Agreement. However, as the Dutch, the Indonesian Republicans and the multiple other groups continue fighting, an impasse devolops.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel and Isabel Wilson
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek Kamiński

Colorizations:
Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/
Carlos Ortega Pereira (BlauColorizations – https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…
Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man?

Research Sources: https://bit.ly/IndoSources

Visual Sources:
Nationaal Archief
National Archives NARA
Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures

Icons from the Noun Project by Wonmo Kang, Creative Mania & Claudia Revalina

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

Music:
“Other Sides of Glory” – Fabien Tell
“Remembrance” – Fabien Tell
“Sailing for Gold” – Howard Harper-Barnes
“Last Point of Safe Return” – Fabien Tell
“It’s Not a Game” – Philip Ayers
“Moving to Disturbia” – Experia
“March Of The Brave 10” – Rannar Sillard
“March Of The Brave 9” – Rannar Sillard

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

September 23, 2019

QotD: Harry Truman’s second thoughts about the CIA

Filed under: Government, History, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… it got out of hand. The fella … the one that was in the White House after me never paid any attention to it, and it got out of hand. Why, they’ve got an organization over there in Virginia now that is practically the equal of the Pentagon in many ways. And I think I’ve told you, one Pentagon is one too many.

Now, as nearly as I can make out, those fellows in the CIA don’t just report on wars and the like, they go out and make their own, and there’s nobody to keep track of what they’re up to. They spend billions of dollars on stirring up trouble so they’ll have something to report on. They’ve become … it’s become a government all of its own and all secret. They don’t have to account to anybody.

That’s a very dangerous thing in a democratic society, and it’s got to be put a stop to. The people have got a right to know what those birds are up to. And if I was back in the White House, people would know. You see, the way a free government works, there’s got to be a housecleaning every now and again, and I don’t care what branch of the government is involved. Somebody has to keep an eye on things.

And when you can’t do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damn secret, why, then we’re on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn’t have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix. And if what happened at the Bay of Pigs doesn’t prove that, I don’t know what does. You have got to keep an eye on the military at all times, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the birds in the Pentagon or the birds in the CIA.

Harry S. Truman, quoted by Jeff Deist, “Truman Was Right About the CIA”, Mises Wire, 2017-03-08.

December 9, 2017

Berlin Airlift: The Cold War Begins – Extra History

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 7 Dec 2017

Tension between the Soviet Union and their former World War 2 Allies escalated into a hostile blockade of Berlin. All sides wanted to avoid another war, but the United States, Great Britain, and France refused to bend to Stalin’s pressure. They came up with a daring plan to supply Berlin by air.

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