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It's 100% fair to question the geopolitical morality of any nation, especially the US, that's fine - but - as a South Korean, maybe you should consider for hal

by jasmer 4y ago

It's 100% fair to question the geopolitical morality of any nation, especially the US, that's fine - but - as a South Korean, maybe you should consider for half a second the 50 000 Americans that died so that you would not be living as a slave under Kim Jong-un at this very moment. Aside from that more 'humanist' element, there is the geopolitical reality that your sovereignty is still depends on the US. After a war - nations usually have autocratic leaders who oversee a couple of decades of reconstruction, that is normal, and for them to be 'pro American' in the contex that America literally saved your entire nation from being slaves, is understandable. It's a bit hard to read what you have written, imagine what would happen if the US/West dropped support for literally you, either now or decades ago? Where would you be? Happy unification under democracy? My gosh. If you can't see that Xi is operating on a different moral level than most of the free world including S. Korea, then I have bad news for you. Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought it wold be a cake walk. The best thing we can do to 'avoid war' is to project strength, not ambiguity. Xi is not irrational, and if Taiwan is extremely well defended he won't invade. In fact, it's relatively easy to deter China if other nations just have some basic political courage and a basic coherent strategy, then we can mostly live happily together. (FYI I'm not American)

defrost 4y ago
> so that you would not be living as a slave under Kim Jong-un at this very moment. Leaving politics aside, that's some very flawed alternative history thinking there. The alternative world in which (say) Korean War era "Domino Theory" wasn't so aggresively pursued with military action and so many former Western colonies in Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia, etc) weren't defended from finding their own path post WWII is a world where factors that created an extreme North Korea, and Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc. are absent. Who's to say where the world would be had Kissinger and friends not been so hawkish. In Korea at least: Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of these–about 10 percent of Korea's prewar population–were civilians. (This rate of civilian casualties was higher than World War II's and the Vietnam War's.) Almost 40,000 Americans died in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded. Five million would still be alive, fewer families would have been torn asunder, and the < %1 of the deceased that were US service personal would not have died.

by jasmer 4y ago

defrost 4y ago

> so that you would not be living as a slave under Kim Jong-un at this very moment. Leaving politics aside, that's some very flawed alternative history thinking there. The alternative world in which (say) Korean War era "Domino Theory" wasn't so aggresively pursued with military action and so many former Western colonies in Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia, etc) weren't defended from finding their own path post WWII is a world where factors that created an extreme North Korea, and Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc. are absent. Who's to say where the world would be had Kissinger and friends not been so hawkish. In Korea at least: Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of these–about 10 percent of Korea's prewar population–were civilians. (This rate of civilian casualties was higher than World War II's and the Vietnam War's.) Almost 40,000 Americans died in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded. Five million would still be alive, fewer families would have been torn asunder, and the < %1 of the deceased that were US service personal would not have died.