THE LESSON FROM THE KOREAN WAR: THE US IS NOT ALL-POWERFUL

On June 25, 1950 the United States started the Korean war (1950-1953), looking down upon the newly founded Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

By the end of the Second World War it advocated omnipotence of strength, with the aim of consolidating its postwar position of predominance and carrying out its aggressive foreign policy smoothly.

To have a general idea of this theory it is worth remembering Muccio’s remarks as the first US ambassador to south Korea: Politics is strength. In case of a conflict of strength no means or methods are unjustifiable. Victory is good and defeat is evil.

His remarks reflected the philosophy and attitude towards war of the US that worships strength and regards it as almighty.

As a matter of fact, toward the start of the Korean war, the DPRK’s military and technical forces could not compare with those of the US. Korea had been liberated less than five years ago, and the DPRK founded less than two years ago. To make matters worse, the regular armed forces and defence industry for self-defence were too young. On the other hand, the forces the US shipped into the areas around the Korean peninsula before the war were enormous.

From the end of April 1950, the US, on the pretext of joint exercises of the army, navy and air forces, reinforced its 7^th Fleet with two aircraft carriers, two cruisers and six destroyers, and added three B-26 and B-29 regiments, six pursuit fighter regiments and two transport plane regiments to Japan. And it also reinforced the four divisions under the 8^th Army in Japan with tank, gun, transport and other services, so as to make them fully ready to be hurled to the Korean front any time.

Japanese book Korean War reads in part: Just before the outbreak of the war the US Air Force units stationed in Japan had 595 planes in reserve—375 jet and other fighters, 40 night fighters, 80 bombers, 50 transport planes and 50 communication planes; MacArthur believed that when this air force in the Far East was mobilized, the Korean war would end early.

An American magazine wrote that throughout the US history there was no such an instance that prewar preparations were so perfect. Besides, the US trained the south Korean puppet army into shock brigades and cannon fodder for its soldiers.

Korean War Viewed by a Chinese disclosed that Johnson, director of the Korean Affairs Department of the US Economic Cooperation Administration, testified at the House Appropriations Committee on May !9, 1950 that the 100 000-strong south Korean army equipped with the US arms and trained by the American Military Advisory Group was fully ready to enter into operations any time. Roberts, head of the American Military Advisory Group in south Korea, bragged about the strength of the south Korean army on several occasions, saying that it was capable of repulsing a rival at the same level and twice and thrice stronger than it and that it was the finest army among those out of the US.

These are merely part of the arms buildup by the US for the Korean war.

It was too obvious that the US was too strong as it had already made atomic bomb, its economic potentialities in the US proper had suffered no damage during WWII and it was the leader of the capitalist world. The imbalance of power on the Korean peninsula was beyond doubt. The DPRK was no match for the US.

However, the military and technical superiority of the US, which had been boasting of its might, was powerless in front of the army and people of the DPRK, who rose up as one fully aware of the justness of their cause.

During the Korean war the myth of the strength of the US, which had claimed it had always emerged victorious in the past more than 100 wars, was smashed to atoms. It hurled into the Korean war a huge armed force over two million strong, including one-third of its ground force, one-fifth of its air force and the greater part of its Pacific Fleet, plus troops from 15 vassal states, the south Korean army and the remnants of the former Japanese army, but it could not but sign the Korean Armistice Agreement, which for it was as good as a surrender document, three years after it started the Korean war.

Instead of drawing the lesson from the crushing defeat in the Korea war, the US has for decades schemed to unleash another war. This year, too, it has conducted various war games, the main contents of which were deployment of the US forces stationed in foreign countries and in the US proper in the Korean peninsula and rapid strike against the DPRK. The US is yet to be awake from the dream of omnipotence of strength. It still thinks that if it wields its strength, it can destroy any country and bring it on its knees.

But, the DPRK is not what Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were. Having inflicted a serious defeat on the US in the Korean war with inferior military equipment, it has increased in every way its capabilities for self-defence for decades amidst the confrontation with the US. It now has nuclear deterrent to cope with the extreme nuclear threat of the US. Today its strategic rockets plus the nuclear deterrent are capable of dealing merciless blows at those who dare provoke it wherever they are.

The US is well advised to be sober in looking at this stark reality. If it unleashes a second Korean war, it would be not only Korean peninsula that would be devastated like in the previous war. The US, where not even a bomb of another country has fallen in its history, would be submerged in a sea of fire.

The US is not all-powerful.