The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 7 Oct 2025Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, arrives in Korea to see the war for himself. At the same time, UN forces launch new offensives — Operation Touchdown at Heartbreak Ridge and Operation Commando to the west. Both promise heavy fighting, but can they finally break the stalemate?
#KoreanWar #HeartbreakRidge #OperationCommando #OmarBradley
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:54 Recap
01:16 Bradley and Bohlen
02:17 Operation Touchdown
05:07 Heartbreak Ridge
08:44 Operation Commando
11:20 The Cavalry Attacks
14:49 The Commonwealth Division
16:03 Summary
16:18 Conclusion
(more…)
October 8, 2025
The Korean War Week 68: Aussies Take the Lead In Operation Commando – October 7, 1951
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October 1, 2025
The Korean War Week 67: Ridgway Questions Truman’s Resolve – September 30, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 30 Sep 2025There’s worry and chaos in Washington when UN Commander Matt Ridgway indicates that there is one order that if given from above, he will not obey. That order concerns the possible resumption of peace talks with the Communists at Kaesong. Meanwhile in the field, the bloody Battle of Heartbreak Ridge continues, though US 2nd Division has a new commander who has new plans for how to bring about victory.
Chapters
00:00 Hook
00:53 Recap
01:07 Heartbreak Ridge
04:04 Replacement Troops
06:30 Operation Commando
09:25 Ridgway Refuses
12:52 Summary
13:11 Conclusion
(more…)
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September 27, 2025
Canada’s supply management cartels benefit “an affluent few, burdening the poorest, and creating needless friction with allies and trading partners”
In Reason, J.D. Tuccille explains to an American audience why Donald Trump has been playing hardball with Canada on trade issues:
President Donald Trump justifies his enthusiasm for prohibitively high tariffs by insisting the U.S. is being “ripped off” by other countries. It’s a strange argument, since people only trade with one another if they see benefit in the deal. But the president is right to complain that other governments impose trade barriers of their own that are often every bit as burdensome as the high taxes Americans pay on imports. If foreign officials honestly wish to restore something like free trade, they should emphasize dropping their own barriers in return for lower U.S. levies. Case in point: Canada, which sends three-quarters of its exports across its southern border but imposes damaging restrictions on imports.
In a February proclamation of trade war on the world, Trump announced, “the United States will no longer tolerate being ripped off” and complained that “our trading partners keep their markets closed to U.S. exports”. The first part of that claim is silly. But the second part has a kernel of truth.
A glimpse at that truth came in June when Trump angrily posted that Canada “has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies” and, as a result, “we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada”.
The threat had the desired impact. Canada rescinded the tax immediately before it was supposed to take effect. While nominally targeted at all large tech companies, in practice that meant American companies and everybody knew it, since U.S. firms dominate the industry.
But that was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Canada’s trade barriers. Also in June, international trade attorney Lawrence Herman, a senior fellow at Canada’s C.D. Howe Institute, bemoaned proposed legislation in the Canadian parliament that he characterized as “yet another regrettable effort to enshrine Canada’s Soviet-style supply management system in the statute books.”
He added, “the bill would prohibit any increase in imports of supply-managed goods – dairy products, eggs and poultry – under current or future trade agreements”.
The legislation about which Herman complained has since become law.
[…]
More skeptically, Fraser Institute senior fellow Fred McMahon notes, “supply management is uniquely Canadian. No other country has such a system. And for good reason. It’s odious policy, favouring an affluent few, burdening the poorest, and creating needless friction with allies and trading partners.”
McMahon elaborates that the supply management process is controlled by agricultural management boards which “employ a variety of tools, including quotas and tariffs, and a large bureaucracy to block international and interprovincial trade and deprive Canadians of choice in dairy, eggs and poultry”.
But as we’ve seen so many times over the years, it disproportionally benefits Quebec, and the Liberals desperately need those Quebec votes to stay in power, so the government would rather destroy the national economy rather than give up on our Stalinist supply management cartels.
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September 24, 2025
The Korean War Week 66: The Hell of Heartbreak Ridge – September 23, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 23 Sep 2025The Korean War reaches one of its bloodiest battles as UN forces clash with North Korean defenders on Heartbreak Ridge. The US 2nd Division suffers heavy losses, with entire companies wiped out to the last man. At the same time, the Marines introduce a revolutionary new tactic in modern warfare — transporting troops via helicopter right to the front lines during battle. Meanwhile, UN Commander Matt Ridgway refuses to resume peace talks in Kaesong, sparking further tension with the Communist side. As the battle rages, the question remains: can there be peace in Korea, or only more heartbreak?
Chapters
00:00 Hook
00:43 Recap
01:14 Heartbreak Ridge
04:02 To The Last Man
06:06 What Ridgway Wants
08:00 Effects of the Treaty
10:13 New Strategy
11:29 Supply by Helicopter
12:31 Summary
12:45 Conclusion
15:34 Call to Action
(more…)
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September 18, 2025
QotD: Americans, poker, and chess
The game of chess has never been held in great esteem by the North Americans. Their culture is steeped in deeply anti-intellectual tendencies. They pride themselves in having created the game of poker. It is their national game, springing from a tradition of westward expansion, of gun-slinging skirt chasers who slept with cows and horses. They distrust chess as a game of Central European immigrants with a homesick longing for clandestine conspiracies in quiet coffee houses. Their deepest conviction is that bluff and escalation will achieve more than scheming and patience (witness their foreign policy).
J.H. Donner, “The King: Chess Pieces”, New In Chess, 2008.
September 17, 2025
The Korean War Week 65: Another Bloody Ridge Begins? – September 16, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 16 Sep 2025Bloody Ridge is barely over, but orders have come for the UN forces to already attack the next ridge to the north, and UN planes violating the Kaesong neutral zone sabotage Matt Ridgway’s plans for conquest.
Chapters
00:00 Hook
00:49 Recap
01:27 Van Fleet’s Planning
08:44 The War and the Conference
14:28 Summary
14:46 Conclusion
15:20 Call to Action
(more…)
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September 10, 2025
The Korean War Week 64: Inexperienced UN Recruits Face Disaster – September 9, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 9 Sep 2025The Battle of Bloody Ridge comes to its end, having very much earned its name. One issue the UN is really having though, is with replacement troops. They don’t have the training or experience that the war requires. And yet, a new offensive to test them further is just around the corner.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:53 Recap
01:22 Problems With New Troops
04:36 Company C Attacks
06:09 Operation Talons
07:32 Operation Minden
08:19 Flying Aces
08:57 San Francisco Conference
14:13 Summary
14:28 Conclusion
(more…)
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September 2, 2025
2 September, 1945 marked the formal end to the Second World War
On The Conservative Woman, Henry Getley notes the 80th anniversary of the formal surrender of Japan to the United Nations forces represented by Douglas MacArthur on board the battleship USS Missouri:
Representatives of the Japanese government on the deck of USS Missouri before signing the surrender documents, 2 September 1945.
Naval Historical Center Photo # USA C-2719 via Wikimedia Commons
ON September 2, 1945 – 80 years ago today – General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, accepted Japan’s formal surrender in a ceremony aboard the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Then with the words “These proceedings are closed”, he brought the Second World War to an end.
That final sentence, broadcast worldwide by radio, came five years and 364 days after the global conflict started. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, but Britain – followed by France – did not declare war on Germany until September 3.
Six years later, on his enforced retirement, MacArthur told the US Congress: “I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads which proclaimed most proudly that ‘old soldiers never die, they just fade away'”.
Now, with the 80th anniversary of the war’s end, Britain’s old soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen have indeed faded away. At the war’s peak, 3.5 million men served in the Army, 1.2 million in the RAF and almost one million in the Royal Navy. Today, fewer than 8,000 veterans of those fighting forces are thought to be left. Most will be 98 or older.
It’s a striking thought for those of us who were brought up in the immediate post-war years. As I recalled in an earlier TCW blog, back in those days almost everyone’s father, uncle or brother had served in the military in some capacity.
The men we kids saw going to work in the offices, shops and factories of Civvy Street were the unsung heroes of the River Plate, Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic, the Arctic Convoys, the Western Desert, Italy, Normandy, Arnhem, the Rhine, Imphal, Kohima, the jungles of Malaya and Burma and many other battles large and small.
Being interested in military history, I was lucky enough to have become friends with several veterans of the Second World War, all sadly no longer with us. They were without exception the finest of men – modest, generous, good-humoured, gentlemanly. All had been at the sharp end in battle, but the last thing any of them would have called himself was a hero. They shared their memories with me reluctantly, anxious not to be thought they were “shooting a line” – that is, exaggerating or boasting. I was honoured and humbled to have known them.
Their passing reminded me that while the war was obviously seared into the very being of those who had experienced it, we of the first post-war generation inherited a lot of what you might call its folk memories and thus it loomed large in our perceptions.
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QotD: “Fixers” and “minders” for foreign visitors
Ted Campbell, “A new front in Cold War 2.0”, Ted Campbell’s Point of View, 2020-06-26.
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August 27, 2025
The Korean War Week 62: Chinese Break Off Peace Talks! But Whose Fault Is It? – August 26, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 26 Aug 2025The Chinese claim that American bombers have attacked the Kaesong conference area and break off the peace talks. The UN delegation smells a set up. Meanwhile, the Battle of Bloody Ridge is in full swing and earning its name, as the casualties mount on both sides.
Chapters
00:41 Recap
01:11 A ROK Success
01:47 Bloody Ridge
06:17 Soviet Reinforcements
07:08 Operation Strangle
11:06 Summary
11:45 Conclusion
13:37 Call to Action
(more…)
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August 20, 2025
The Korean War Week 61: The South Koreans Strike as Ceasefire Talks Stall – August 19, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 19 Aug 2025After two months of inactivity, 8th Army begins new offensive operations this week, and it is the South Korean forces doing the fighting. Meanwhile, the Kaesong peace talks are ever more threatened by continuing neutral zone violations.
Chapters
00:00 Hook
00:48 Recap
01:13 Neutral Zone Violations
02:17 The UN Defense System
06:59 The ROK Attacks
10:38 Summer Diseases
12:48 Summary
13:33 Conclusion
15:20 Call to Action
(more…)
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August 18, 2025
How One Treaty Split The World In Two – W2W 40
TimeGhost History
Published 17 Aug 2025After WWII, Britain and France face the decline of their empires and the looming Soviet threat. Desperate for security, they forge the Dunkirk and Brussels Pacts, but quickly realize they need American support. As old alliances shatter and Germany becomes the front line, the world divides into two camps with the formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Secret deals, rearmament, and the fear of communist tanks rolling across Europe set the stage for decades of Cold War rivalry.
(more…)
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August 13, 2025
The Korean War Week 60: Neutral Zone Violations and the 38th Parallel Standoff – August 12, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 12 Aug 2025UN Commander Matt Ridgway is extremely frustrated by the Communist delegation’s unyielding stance on the 38th Parallel at the Kaesong peace talks. Chinese violations of the neutral zone highlight the fact that the war still goes on, though, as do the preparations for a UN offensive soon to be launched, to really reignite the active war in a big way.
Chapters
00:00 Hook
00:50 Recap
01:15 Ridgway’s Frustration
05:01 Neutral Zone Violations
08:57 Van Fleet’s Plans
12:28 Conclusion
13:50 Call to Action
(more…)
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August 12, 2025
German-Soviet Invasion of Poland 1939
Real Time History
Published 8 Aug 2025Germany and the Soviet Union both regarded the Polish state as a creation of the post-WW1 system, and both had claims on Polish territory. In the summer of 1939, Adolf Hitler decided to invade Poland in a fait acompli against the Allies. In a secret agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union they agreed on dividing up the Polish state and Eastern Europe.
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August 8, 2025
China’s short- to medium-term reaction to Trump’s tariffs
In Reason, Liz Wolfe outlines some of the reasons China has not been suffering under the tariffs President Trump has levied on them over the last few months (unlike, say, Canada):
President Donald Trump and PRC President Xi Jinping at the G20 Japan Summit in Osaka, 29 June, 2019.
Cropped from an official White House photo by Shealah Craighead via Wikimedia Commons.
Total Chinese exports surged in July … but not to us. Compared to July 2024, Chinese exports were up 7.2 percent last month. “Its exports to Southeast Asia and Africa, key regions for reshipment to the United States, rose more than twice as fast as its overall exports”, per The New York Times‘ reading of the data. “China’s exports to the European Union, its main alternative to the American market, were also up very strongly.”
Specifically, “data released Thursday by the customs authorities showed the pickup was driven by strong growth in shipments to the European Union, Southeast Asia, Australia, Hong Kong and other markets, which more than made up for the fourth month of double-digit declines in US purchases”, reports Bloomberg.
Predictably, even the threat of tariffs has been enough to dampen trade. Remember, Washington and Beijing are still operating under a 90-day truce — set to expire on August 12, though it could be extended if a new agreement is reached — that holds off the imposition of higher tariff levels, namely, the tit-for-tat tariff increases that both countries had threatened. The truce also staves off export controls on certain critical rare-earth minerals and items that fall into the technology category. But still, current tariff levels mean a baseline 30 percent tariff on Chinese imports, which has been enough to depress trade.
For those in the Trump administration who are worried about trade deficits in particular, I suppose the good news is that we’ve made progress there: “For the last several decades, China has been selling as much as $4 worth of goods to the United States for each $1 of American goods that it buys”, reports The New York Times. Following China’s admission into the World Trade Organization, the trade deficit rose. Now, “tariffs have begun to reduce the imbalance. The United States announced on Tuesday that its overall trade deficit had narrowed in June to $60.2 billion, the smallest in nearly two years.”
It’s not clear why Trump administration officials, and the president himself, are so worried about trade deficits as something to eliminate for their own sake. We are dependent on Chinese goods to a rather substantial degree, which would pose a problem in the event of war with China (which is why the previous administration focused on improving our semiconductor manufacturing capabilities back in 2022). But you can just as easily make the case that it’s the vast volume of trade between the two countries — the deeply intertwined economies so reliant on each other (despite China’s claims of autarky and, more amusingly, communism) — that are incentivizing continued decent relations.
A few factors are at play that might help to explain why you likely haven’t felt a drastic increase in prices just yet. First, since there’s been a long lead-up to this trade war, many larger importers have stockpiled product over the last few months, so shortages haven’t been felt yet — they’ve just been selling off product they’ve been storing. Second, China has already managed to divert some stages of manufacturing to other countries—namely Vietnam — and some larger companies already have factories up and running in other Southeast Asian countries to avoid the “made in China” or “shipped from China” labeling. Expect more transshipping and manufacturing-locale creativity as a means of throwing customs officials off the scent.
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