The Korean War and Vietnam in Hindsight

[timhau]

Nazism did replace a (albeit short living) democracy. Communist regimes mostly replaced other authoritarian regimes and dictatorships. In fact, in several, maybe most cases; communism was associated with a relative improvement in the population's lot.

Examples of this, please. I'll admit to Cuba, although even there the long-term results have been less than impressive (and that's mostly not the fault of the US embargo).

 

[stilicho]

And I happen to think that such an application of force, had it been made, would have resulted in a much better outcome for Poland, Chzechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, etc. than the Yalta conference did.

It's a little hard to reconcile the policy of status quo ante bellum with that of unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. Yalta, taken out of the context of the several wartime conferences and the position of the Red Army at the time, leads some people to an untenable conclusion to this day--that the Allies were in a position to back away from unconditional surrender and to try something else instead.

Although you agree with Churchill's assessment, apparently voters in the UK did not. While the Pacific Theatre was yet unresolved, Attlee's Labour Party was swept into power with an overwhelming majority. Given France's war-weariness extending from the Great War and the UK electors overwhelmingly in favour of a socialist party, exactly where would the US have summoned the logistical and political support for such a venture?

I suppose they could have hired the Wehrmacht.

 

[Simon39759]

Examples of this, please. I'll admit to Cuba, although even there the long-term results have been less than impressive (and that's mostly not the fault of the US embargo).

Both Russia and China were essentially a medieval political system before the various revolutions.
A lot of the central European countries were under authoritarian monarchies whose ruling elite allied itself with the Nazis at some point (for example, Yougoslavia and Romania).
Other countries such as Korea and Vietnam were colonies.


The major difference is that while many of these countries were ideologically routed in the past, the communist ideologies considered itself to be a manifestation of the future and in several case made efforts to finally bring some progresses to countries that had been for a long time leaving in the past.
While this strategies was certainly not aimed at improving the populace' lot; it did in many case end up trickling down somewhat...

 

[Klimax]

Nazism did replace a (albeit short living) democracy. Communist regimes mostly replaced other authoritarian regimes and dictatorships. In fact, in several, maybe most cases; communism was associated with a relative improvement in the population's lot.

Are Czechoslovakia,Poland and Austria included?Or had we dictatorship?

Just minor problem...

 

[timhau]

Both Russia and China were essentially a medieval political system before the various revolutions.

True. But how much did communism improve the lot of Ivan the Average? The Russian Empire had famines under the Czar, and it had famines under Communist rule. The Czar had a notorious secret police, the Okhrana, certainly a repressive tool if there ever was one; yet after the October revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks managed to execute more counterrevolutionaries and class enemies before the year was over that Okhrana did during its 35-year existence. Is that improvement? Is that improvement over and above what would have been expected if the Czar had remained in power, or if the Bolshevik coup had failed and the Kerensky government had been calling the shots?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Depends on the situation. In some cases, none at all. In others, no amount is great enough to do the job.

In between, we have situations like the Korean Peninsula, where the spread of communism was halted through outright warfare, and could possibly have been rolled back further up the peninsula to the Korea-China border with a greater application of force. Similarly in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army (communist, intent on establishing a PRC-backed communist hegemony in the region) was almost entirely used up during the spectacular but disastrous Tet Offensive. A greater application of force at that time, rather than a systematic retreat and withdrawal, would have almost certainly resulted in decisive defeat for the communist forces in Vietnam.

Then, of course, there's the case of Eastern Europe at the end of World War 2 and during the Cold War. Had the western allies been willing to apply force against the Soviet Union immediately following the fall of Nazi Germany, the Eastern European nations might have peacefully elected socialist governments, but certainly would not have suffered for two generations under the tyrannical and inhumane Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union.

And let's not forget the FARC. The Colombian people don't seem to be in any hurry to vote themselves a communist regime. Not being an expert in such matters, I can't give you an exact amount of force would be necessary to root the rebels out of their mountain camps, but I'm sure it's finite, and well within the resources of any one of several powers in the Americas.

That's a very thoughtful answer, but I couched that in careful terms for a reason. It's one thing for two rival powers to fight over whether or not a given country should be conquered, but it's another to make them change them their minds about the government they want to have.

 

[Simon39759]

True. But how much did communism improve the lot of Ivan the Average? The Russian Empire had famines under the Czar, and it had famines under Communist rule. The Czar had a notorious secret police, the Okhrana, certainly a repressive tool if there ever was one; yet after the October revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks managed to execute more counterrevolutionaries and class enemies before the year was over that Okhrana did during its 35-year existence. Is that improvement? Is that improvement over and above what would have been expected if the Czar had remained in power, or if the Bolshevik coup had failed and the Kerensky government had been calling the shots?

And the Soviet system ended up providing electricity to a number of people and, at some point, free housing...

I am not arguing that the situation in the Soviet Union was pleasant by any stretch, just that the situation was crappy to being with. The Revolution was essentially a redistribution of the crap with some people winning and other loosing.

In contrast, Germany was a developed country. Relatively prosperous before the economic crisis that put Hitler into power.
From there, the Nazi dictatorship got millions killed (I believe a higher proportion of Germans died during WWII than of Soviet citizens, at any rate, Germany was more obviously responsible of WWII than the USSR was); the country got occupied and divided for 45 years and most of the city got burned down with entire cities burned to the ground.
Maybe the situation was not much better in the Soviet Union, but they fell from lower, so maybe it did not hurt as much...

 

[theprestige]

It's a little hard to reconcile the policy of status quo ante bellum with that of unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. Yalta, taken out of the context of the several wartime conferences and the position of the Red Army at the time, leads some people to an untenable conclusion to this day--that the Allies were in a position to back away from unconditional surrender and to try something else instead.

Yes, but that isn't my conclusion. I was giving an example of a scenario where an application of military force--had such been available and palatable--would have, in fact, stopped the spread of communism.

You're welcome to debate the whys and wherefores of that lack of force, and the lack of willingness to use it, all you like. But I'm afraid I won't be much fun for that, though, since I pretty much already agree with your position on that subject.

That's a very thoughtful answer, but I couched that in careful terms for a reason. It's one thing for two rival powers to fight over whether or not a given country should be conquered, but it's another to make them change them their minds about the government they want to have.

Perhaps your terms weren't careful enough. History gives us several instances where communism--Soviet Stalinism in some cases, Maoism in others--was spreading explicitly through conquest by force. And in these cases, forceful opposition to this conquest did, or could have stopped the spread of communism. Maoism was stopped on the Korean peninsula by force. It was halted for a time, and probably could have been pushed back indefinitely in Vietnam, by force. Etc.

If you want to ignore all the cases where military force can, in fact, halt the spread of communism, then sure, I'll happily concede your point, as far as it goes. I just think it doesn't go far enough, and tends to ignore a lot of really important cases.