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Deteriorata posted:The US didn't intervene, though. The UN did after the Soviets walked out of the SC meeting. A multilateral action supported by the United Kingdom, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Batista-controlled Cuba, Ecuador (led by its former Ambassador to the US), France and Norway. Come on, do you really think the UN of that period would have intervened if it was the South invading the North? It's not really a coincidence that the goals of the war swiftly turned from 'restoring peace' to 'sweep the Communist regime out of North Korea and unify the peninsula under Seoul.' The USSR didn't walk out. This was a period where the Soviets were boycotting the UN due to Communist China not being included. (They had already been absent for six months) Fangz fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 22:38
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I mean, we can't really pretend that the US/South Koreans didn't do like 99% of the lifting during Korea. Sure, it was technically a UN action but only 4% of the troops on the UN side weren't US or South Korean, and most of those were there to wave the flag and little else.
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Nov 26, 2016 22:47
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Spent a lot of yesterday reading, but I've actually hit a bit of a brick wall with Wages of Destruction . I don't think I know enough about WW2 and the pre-war era 'in general' to really understand or appreciate this specifically economic history. The author will often say things along the lines of 'this is so well known I won't discuss this here' - which gives me the feeling I am not the intended audience. I felt similarly when trying to read Shattered Sword What is a good 'broad' history of the Second World War? I think I need to know the basics better before I take another shot at this. Eela6 fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 22:47
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Crazycryodude posted:I mean, we can't really pretend that the US/South Koreans didn't do like 99% of the lifting during Korea. Sure, it was technically a UN action but only 4% of the troops on the UN side weren't US or South Korean, and most of those were there to wave the flag and little else. Hey, come on now, Britain also sent it's conscripts to fight and die in defence of ideology.
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Nov 26, 2016 22:50
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Oh no, not ideology! That's only the reason for like 90 billion percent of all wars ever!
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Nov 26, 2016 22:51
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Crazycryodude posted:I mean, we can't really pretend that the US/South Koreans didn't do like 99% of the lifting during Korea. Sure, it was technically a UN action but only 4% of the troops on the UN side weren't US or South Korean, and most of those were there to wave the flag and little else. Yes, but it's not at all certain how the US would have responded absent the UN sanction. Calling it a "US intervention" is misleading at best.
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Nov 26, 2016 22:51
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Eela6 posted:Spent a lot of yesterday reading, but I've actually hit a bit of a brick wall with Wages of Destruction . I don't think I know enough about WW2 and the prr-war era 'in general' to really understand or appreciate this specifically economic history. I would almost recommend watching The World At War, that documentary series gave me essentially the foundation of my knowledge of WW2 that i then filled out from more specific texts, and its just fantastic.
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Nov 26, 2016 22:51
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Well What Now posted:Oh no, not ideology! That's only the reason for like 90 billion percent of all wars ever! That's pretty much what I've been saying, and the reason I said ideology instead of "in defence of South Korea".
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Nov 26, 2016 22:53
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Deteriorata posted:Yes, but it's not at all certain how the US would have responded absent the UN sanction. Calling it a "US intervention" is misleading at best. Again, it was an UN sanction that was entirely the US's NATO allies and key American client states (RoC, Ecuador, Cuba). It was absolutely about Containment, and the fact that the Soviets weren't around to use their veto made the UN security council at this point really, really little different from Team Anti-Soviet. (UN SC composition at this point: Permanent members China France United Kingdom United States Soviet Union (absent) Non-permanent members Cuba Ecuador Egypt India Norway Yugoslavia) EDIT: I mean yeah, decision making would have been pretty different if say, Taiwan and NATO voted to OK North Korea taking over the south, but we are in serious Gay Black Truman territory here. Fangz fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 22:54
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Well What Now posted:Oh no, not ideology! That's only the reason for like 90 billion percent of all wars ever! Hey, don't forget "wanting the other guy's (sheep/women/oil) for more pragmatic reasons".
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Nov 26, 2016 23:03
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Has anyone read "The face of battle" I was recommended it as a good introductory book to the idea of what it was like to be part of an actual battle.
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Nov 26, 2016 23:03
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It's been years since I read it but I enjoyed it. I don't think it's really going to capture the feel you're looking for or go super in depth; memoirs may be better for that. This is more of a cursory overview since it hits multiple eras and other topics.
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Nov 26, 2016 23:31
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FastestGunAlive posted:It's been years since I read it but I enjoyed it. I don't think it's really going to capture the feel you're looking for or go super in depth; memoirs may be better for that. This is more of a cursory overview since it hits multiple eras and other topics. Sounds like the sort of thing I might want. I am not looking for in depth stuff, more just trying to get a reasonable overview.
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Nov 27, 2016 00:03
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Hey now, the South African commitment in Korea at least inadvertedly stopped the PRC becoming a heireditary dictatorship like the DPRK by napalm'ing Mao's son. 
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Nov 27, 2016 00:18
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:I am so sick of having to read the same crap from people trying to defend the Japanese internment. Why the gently caress is the immediate reaction for these idiots is to wail about POW camps and beheadings as if anybody living in San Francisco was moonlighting in the IJA? As a Japanese American (my father was in Minidoka), I am constantly disappointed by this bullshit. I only hope we have sufficient political power to prevent it happening to anyone else.
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Nov 27, 2016 00:20
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Hi, Military History thread! I was reading this article: Life at Embassy Tokyo After Pearl Harbor And read this bit about American embassy staff in Japan being shipped across the Indian ocean to be exchanged with Japanese embassy staff from the USA: quote:This is perhaps a fit point to repeat a story Chip Bohlen told me years later. He had attended a party in Moscow where the company included several Soviet naval officers. Someone brought up the diplomatic exchanges early in the war, and Bohlen, fluent in Russian, mentioned that he had been on the Asama Maru. One of the former naval officers looked at him and said that he (Bohlen) was lucky to be alive. 1.) A Soviet Sub 2.) On active combat duty in the Indian Ocean 3.) In 1942  Assuming I'm not entirely ignorant, this obviously didn't happen, but I'm baffled as to what the origin of the anecdote could be. According to wikipedia, Chip Boheln was the American ambassador to the Soviet Union in the 1950s. I'm assuming this is a misunderstanding of an overheard anecdote or a goofy lie by a drunk Soviet captain, but it just struck me as really weird.
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Nov 27, 2016 01:13
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This sounds crazy for sure, but the Soviets *did* have a whole Pacific fleet during WWII, with some 80 submarines by the end of the war. German U-boats and raiders did operate in the Indian Ocean, trying to cut off allied supplies. I mean it'd be a wild story, but.... The most plausible explanation is that a pacific fleet submarine on patrol passed close to a ship matching that description. The 'I was gonna shoot but the fog cleared' is then an embellishment. Or maybe it would be sufficient for the boastful captain to just have been in the Indian ocean during roughly that period. Soviet submarines were on patrol in 1942 at quite substantial ranges: http://wio.ru/fleet/subm-n-p.htm lists: "L-16 (lost 11 Oct 1942 sunk by Japanese submarine I-15 near the American coasts. Before hostilities with Japan)" Fangz fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 27, 2016 02:18
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Josef bugman posted:Has anyone read "The face of battle" I was recommended it as a good introductory book to the idea of what it was like to be part of an actual battle. I gave it a good skim-read at a friend's house and really enjoyed it. It covered precisely the sorts of things I always wanted to know but which no one else seems to cover such as, what is it actually like to be at the pointy end of a Napoleonic volley, and what does a medieval melee actually look like- are the guys at the back just sort of standing around, etc. The book covers Agincourt, Waterloo & the Somme, if you're interested in those particular eras.
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Nov 27, 2016 03:44
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Deteriorata posted:Reuniting the peninsula through military conquest was not a precedent the UN was willing to tolerate. It still isn't, which is why Russia's invasion of Crimea is illegitimate. Uh... yeah this is really not an issue the UN has been particularily consistent about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Portuguese_India#Condemnation
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Nov 27, 2016 03:58
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Squalid posted:Uh... yeah this is really not an issue the UN has been particularily consistent about I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The Soviet Union supported India's invasion and vetoed a resolution calling on India to withdraw and resolve the issue diplomatically. The UN was able to pass a resolution in favor of intervention in Korea specifically because the Soviets walked out and did not veto it. They were careful not make that mistake again.
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Nov 27, 2016 04:21
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Seeing as the UN (at least in military matters) is handcuffed to the Security Council and at any given time at least 1/5 of the P5 is actively opposing the interests of the others, it's not particularly surprising that it can be kinda schizophrenic.
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Nov 27, 2016 04:29
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It's also no accident that it's like that. The whole point of the security council is so that if push comes to shove, the UN can never seriously oppose the actions of one of the established powers.
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Nov 27, 2016 05:06
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:It's also no accident that it's like that. The whole point of the security council is so that if push comes to shove, the UN can never seriously oppose the actions of one of the established powers. And also France.
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Nov 27, 2016 05:43
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I'd like to find out more about the development of jet fighters and more specifically, how militaries handled the transition from prop planes to jets. Did jets at the end of WW2 play a major role in any battles by just dominating prop planes in a dog fight? I guess I'm just wondering what kind of effects a big technological development like that had on existing fleets full of piston engine planes? Any good documentaries or books I should check out?
Wifi Toilet fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 27, 2016 06:20
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Did the League of Nations ever do anything useful back in its day? The UN may have issues with being toothless, but it seems worlds beyond its predecessor. And in the days past the UN's conception, there has been a proliferation of international unions, commonwealths, cooperatives, organizations, and councils. One way or another, the world's governments are more connected than they've ever been before.
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Nov 27, 2016 06:28
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Bagarthach posted:I'd like to find out more about the development of jet fighters and more specifically, how militaries handled the transition from prop planes to jets. Did jets at the end of WW2 play a major role in any battles by just dominating prop planes in a dog fight? I guess I'm just wondering what kind of effects a big technological development like that had on existing fleets full of piston engine planes? Any good documentaries or books I should check out? They didn't really play any major role, as their introduction for all sides was too late and too low-key to make any kind of impact on the war efforts of the involved parties. The most prominent example would have been the Me-262 but for the most part Allied pilots would just avoid contact and just catch them while they were on the ground or climbing after takeoff. Once a jet plane was in the air it's speed meant any engagement would have been on their terms. There was a US jet plane that saw limited duty during the war but it was never brought in before '45 as a fighter - the P-80. If anyone has Castles of Steel or similarly-approachable sources on the dawn of the jet age consider me interested.
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Nov 27, 2016 07:44
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Deteriorata posted:I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The Soviet Union supported India's invasion and vetoed a resolution calling on India to withdraw and resolve the issue diplomatically. You claimed that the UN sought to avoid creating a precedent of the use of military force to annex territory. However in many subsequent and even prior cases the UN has proved itself indifferent to the use of military force to annex territory or dissect existing states. See: Cyprus 1974, Goa 1961, Israel-Palestine 1948, Bangladesh 1971, etc. We therefore see clearly that the UN has adopted no consistent policy with regards to circumstances as existed in Korea in 1950, and given the ambiguous legitimacy and authority of governments on either side of the parallel, the great powers had plenty of diplomatic wiggle room to justify whatever action they deemed necessary.
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Nov 27, 2016 08:02
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Bagarthach posted:I'd like to find out more about the development of jet fighters and more specifically, how militaries handled the transition from prop planes to jets. Did jets at the end of WW2 play a major role in any battles by just dominating prop planes in a dog fight? I guess I'm just wondering what kind of effects a big technological development like that had on existing fleets full of piston engine planes? Any good documentaries or books I should check out? Jets were never available in large enough numbers to seriously affect anything. The only major part they played would be in the Defense of the Reich vs Allied Strategic Bombing, but even that's a stretch. The transition between piston to jet didn't have many hiccups as far as I understand it. Trainer aircraft existed, with two-seat Me-262's being an example. Jets were still in their infancy then, so they didn't have a huge impact on existing piston-engine planes, but it was clear that their incredible speed, once refined, would outclass pistons. Not sure about any good documentaries/books though, so seconding that request.
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Nov 27, 2016 12:11
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 Pak 43
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Nov 27, 2016 12:16
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Josef bugman posted:Has anyone read "The face of battle" I was recommended it as a good introductory book to the idea of what it was like to be part of an actual battle. It's not as good as later books at that, but it is very important as one of the first attempts to write a military history that wasn't just endless narratives of divisions marching here and there and treating battles as essentially scientific problems where one side got the solution wrong and showing where they went wrong so the reader could avoid making the same mistake. It was hugely influential in that regard.
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Nov 27, 2016 12:59
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Bagarthach posted:I'd like to find out more about the development of jet fighters and more specifically, how militaries handled the transition from prop planes to jets. Did jets at the end of WW2 play a major role in any battles by just dominating prop planes in a dog fight? I guess I'm just wondering what kind of effects a big technological development like that had on existing fleets full of piston engine planes? Any good documentaries or books I should check out?
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Nov 27, 2016 16:40
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:As a Japanese American (my father was in Minidoka), I am constantly disappointed by this bullshit. I only hope we have sufficient political power to prevent it happening to anyone else. For gently caress's sakes, was there some recent breitbart "expose" on the internment camps or something? Now I'm hearing people try to spin the internment as a well-intentioned attempt to protect Japanese-Americans from mob violence.
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Nov 27, 2016 18:54
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Wow. I was thinking internment apologia meant "well, you have to understand the standards and American psyche of the time before passing judgement," not "actually, they were a good thing!"
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Nov 27, 2016 19:05
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Trump and muslims, that's all you need to start thinking about internment camps
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Nov 27, 2016 19:29
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HEY GAL, would your guys do anything like this? Two French officers drew up a contract saying that every time one of them was within 100 miles of the other, they would fight a duel, unless military obligations prevented them from meeting. It lasted for 19 years and 30 duels, until one of the officers said that he was going to be married soon and wanted to end the matter. As the post notes, this is one of those stories too dashing to be true, but it seems fairly plausible with the stories you've told.
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Nov 27, 2016 20:50
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darthbob88 posted:HEY GAL, would your guys do anything like this? Two French officers drew up a contract saying that every time one of them was within 100 miles of the other, they would fight a duel, unless military obligations prevented them from meeting. It lasted for 19 years and 30 duels, until one of the officers said that he was going to be married soon and wanted to end the matter. As the post notes, this is one of those stories too dashing to be true, but it seems fairly plausible with the stories you've told. Isn't this basically the plot of The Deulist except instead of one guy it's every guy within 100 miles of Harvey Keitel
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Nov 27, 2016 21:20
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MikeCrotch posted:Isn't this basically the plot of The Deulist except instead of one guy it's every guy within 100 miles of Harvey Keitel Close, It inspired the story that film uses.
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Nov 27, 2016 21:25
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If you're fighting 30 duels against the same guy you're very bad at duelling.
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Nov 27, 2016 21:36
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OwlFancier posted:If you're fighting 30 duels against the same guy you're very bad at duelling. I think both of 'em gotta be pretty bad for that sorta streak.
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Nov 27, 2016 21:38
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OwlFancier posted:If you're fighting 30 duels against the same guy you're very bad at duelling. It's more of a case your doing something that is clearly not encouraged in the middle of a long rear end conflict. Some of these throw downs are in the middle of campaign after all. Other combinations include the duels were called off at the last minute, somebody told an officer or they were busy recovering from fatigue or injury or they just didn't feel like it that day.
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Nov 27, 2016 21:41
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