What if Anyone Won the Korean War?

this video was sponsored by World of Tanks find out more about the special invite content for new players later on in the video in the United States the Korean war is often known as The Forgotten war sandwiched between the Monumental conflicts of World War II in Vietnam starting 5 years after Hiroshima and ending 11 years prior to the Vietnam War it really gave this conflict middle child syndrome so despite the importance of the conf conflict it tends to fade into the background of American and Global Consciousness remembered mainly for the stalemate that left the Korean

Peninsula divided Forever After all who wants to remember a war where there were no winners however in Korea this war is anything but forgotten like of course you've probably heard this at some point but yeah the conflict never technically ended instead of concluding with a peace treaty it just ground to a halt in 1953 with an Armistice leaving the North and South in an unresolved stalemate that persists to this day so what if the Korean War had ended differently What If instead of a stalemate one side actually won hey speaking of mechanized Warfare how about

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using the same code existing players who haven't played in the last 60 days get 3 days of Premium access the camouflage 2D style bargain a 7-Day rental of the premium tank Centurion Mark 51 or an 100K credit compensation if you already have this tank in your garage what a way to jump in or back into well this world of tanks register today on PC by clicking the link in the description and play World of Tanks today the outcome of the Korean war was shaped by the contributions of each side's allies at the start of the

war the northern forces heavily outmatched their southern counterparts while the South had a number of experienced commanders most of whom had fought for the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II the bulk of their forces were ill trained and ill equipped North Korea on the other hand included not only people with experience fighting the Japanese but also numerous veterans from the Chinese Civil War War when the northern Korean People's Army or kPa invaded the south in June of 1950 the southern response was a complete mess most of the Southern Line crumbled instantly president Sigman re

relocated the r Army Headquarters South of the capital of Soul without notice cutting off Communications with the troops north of soul and sparking a panic among civilians Soul was captured within a matter of days prompting a mass Exodus towards the South the retreat was so chaotic in the middle of it the southern forces killed hundreds of their own civilians by blowing up a major Bridge across the Han River while people were still crossing the north managed to pull off a blitz cre Rush B quickly secure the capital with very little casualties probably what a certain

Russian was hoping to achieve not too long ago with poor discipline and equipment and limited faith in their Superior many units mutinied or fled from their posts by the end of June around half of South korean's forces were either dead captured or missing and so much equipment had been lost or abandoned during the retreat that only two divisions were still fully equipped in just a matter of weeks the South Korean forces had been pushed to a tiny pocket in the Southeastern corner of the peninsula but that's when big daddy came in with the arrival of

Allied un troops troups cough cough the balance of power flipped on its head allowing the South not only to reclaim all of their territory but push all the way to China the Chinese in turn really didn't like that and jumped to the aid of their North Korean allies pushing the South Korean forces and the Americans more or less to the initial border between the koreas where the two sides found themselves evenly matched unable to make much progress in either direction 3 years of fighting 3 million casualties and and 20% of the Korean population later they

were back to square one so how about we change that following the plan single-handedly drafted by US Secretary of State Dean akison Truman committed the US to militarily support South Korea less than 72 hours after receiving the news of the northern Invasion did he wait for approval from the UN consult Congress or at least the Pentagon nope he just sent in the army guns blazing this lets us create an alternate timeline without making too many changes all you have to do is take aisin out of the picture maybe he was never made the Secretary of

State maybe he dies early or maybe he's stuck in history's worst traffic jam all that's important is that he isn't there to drive the US response in Korea without his influence Truman might have listened to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were hesitant to send troops to South Korea's Aid fearing it would pull us attention away from the more significant threat posed by Moscow even if Truman still ultimately decided to send troops into Korea given how quick things progressed in our timeline a few days without US troops to slow them down would have given the

kPa enough of a head start to capture the whole Peninsula before un reinforcements reached a critical mass by early August the dprk could have reunited the entire Peninsula under their regime and high-ranking R officials would be evacuated the us would have to give up on any chance of regaining foothold in Korea and Sigman re lives out the rest of his days exiled in Hawaii ironically the same fate he'd face a decade later in our timeline after being overthrown by a student Uprising so either way he's going to Hawaii looking at our timeline's version of the

dprk you might assume that this would be a much darker scenario for Korea a dystopian hell but that wouldn't necessarily be the case you you see the Korean War kind of broke North Korea before the war the dprk was by all accounts one of the less crazy dictatorships in the Soviet sphere but after being pelted with enough bombs in Napal to flatten every city in the country and kill on average at least one member of every family North Korea was rebuilt from the ground up on a foundation of horrific trauma Kim mung came out to

be seen as the savior of his people from from the evil us and the nation doubled down and created a bunker mentality it's From the Ashes of that destruction that the North Korea we know today came to be in this alternate timeline however with a quick Victory and no bombings the dprk is decidedly more normal kimlong is quick to blame all Southern atrocities on the US or Japanese collaborators allowing average R soldiers to avoid harsh retribution although any high-ranking officials or former Japanese collaborators would be condemned to death or the goog many lower ranking officials

and soldiers are instead sent to re-education camps it's there where they're taught to blame the US for brainwashing them into betraying their country before being allowed to rejoin Korean Society for the rest of the 20th century there are basically two paths the newly United Korean Republic might go down one student protests against the regime break out out in the 1960s just as they did in South Korea in our timeline while Kim is unlikely to step down like Reed did there's a good chance this kind of Uprising does prompt some reforms Korea likely follows a similar

economic path to China potentially leading to a fairly wealthy unified Korea maybe even on par with South Korea our timeline alternatively the dprk might follow a similar economic path as in our timeline resulting in stagnation within the 1960s in either case though the unification of the Agricultural South with the industrial North makes for a more stable and self-sufficient economy on all ends allowing the dprk to avoid the massive famines that followed the fall of the USSR but a North Korean Victory doesn't just have implications for Korea in the US Truman was blamed for losing China

after the ccp's victory in the Civil War and with another communist vict in Asia his reputation would be gutted in the remaining two years of his presidency Truman would be desperate to make up for this failure rather than just providing funds and training to French Colonial forces in the first Indochina War Truman goes the extra mile this time sending a considerable expeditionary Force to Vietnam in the early 50s you see Vietnam would not be lost like Korea and China before it's possible because of those past failures Washington would be a lot more eager to go

further a strong US military presence deployed a decade earlier to help out the French not simply military aid not just advisors actual American troops on the ground a force meant to crush the vietman and their allies just as South Korea had crushed Rebels with us assistance in the previous years a conflict that Roots out Rebels before a situation like the Battle of D NBN food can even happen as synonymous Vietnam is today with an unwinnable fight there is a possibility the conflict could have been one if it was just stamped out while the French were

still there at least the conflict with the Viet men and that chapter of Vietnamese resistance I can imagine even if the Viet men are defeated there would always be some anti-colonial resistance in its place the French were trying to keep their empire after all and while there were some Vietnamese that sided with the French there are also Vietnamese that didn't in this alternate timeline the French successfully win and Southeast Asia is reorganized into a bunch of puppet western-based monarchies there may be uprisings from here and now but that's kind of just Colonial politics in general

it's likely that this alternate first Indochina War as it would be called would be a far wider conflict than it was in our history thanks to the Americans and Chinese being able to actually pay attention to it but it also wouldn't be as big and chaotic as the Vietnam War got in the 60s because there would never be any peace agreements that split the nation into North and South the NVA never would have been established and the vietn eventually Viet Kong wouldn't have gotten a breather now saying that this wouldn't be some simple feat for

the US this would be a legitimate conflict just not as big as Korea it would probably be the most action the Americans had seen since World War II and it'd be a conflict that would transcend presidents going from Truman to Eisenhower now in our timeline while the French were failing Eisenhower refused to send men to bail them out he understood correctly that it would just drain us resources but here Eisenhower is inheriting Truman's War American soldiers would already be in Vietnam and they already lost men pulling out would just be a political disaster at least

for the politicians and opponents that cared because here's the thing in the 1950s the American public your average Joe Schmo really wouldn't like the Korean War a conflict that resulted in the deaths of millions of Koreans and 40,000 Americans and it was just barely talked about by people at the time it was called The Forgotten War for a reason after World War II who cares and that was a conflict unofficially at least against China a conventional conflict if your average American America in the 1950s didn't care about Korea how would they react to American troops

in Vietnam a gorilla war in this alternate world the United States would get involved in a conflict France was going to lose win it defeat the Viet before they became big and it' never be known by your average American atrocities included oops if this sounds farfetched it really shouldn't just one example in 1965 the US sent 20,000 troops to crush a communist Uprising in the Dominican Republic and your prob just hearing about it now the Cold War was full of military operations that stamped out fires before they became raging infernos most of which from the

American public's point of view was so out of mind it was never given attention this kind of just spins out into a scenario of its own if we're being honest like we're talking about an alternate timeline where the political ramifications of the Vietnam War just don't happen the post-war disillusion a large part of the 1960s chaos the anti-war movement really just wouldn't exist unless the US got a chance to go into another Quagmire cuz no failure of Vietnam also means that the lessons kind of have to be learned elsewhere perhaps without Vietnam America gets more

involved in postcolonial Africa even more in L America perhaps also southeast Asia gradually escalating involvement until there is a conflict they can't control and it becomes just like well Vietnam wait this isn't a video about Vietnam this was a video about Korea how do we get off topic yeah so this was a scenar scario where North Korea won I know we we kind of forgot about that so what if we flip this scenario what if the South had complete in total Victory instead it really wasn't easy to find a way to turn the tide for

the us since in our timeline Truman just went let's throw everything at the commies but he didn't throw everything when going up against China there really is nothing militarily the UN and American forces could have done differently to stop that from pushing them back to the Border except for well today when we think about Atomic Warfare we automatically think of mutually assured destruction but this was a time before mutually assured destruction this was a time before there was even a precedent about what a nuclear power should even act like this was before the Soviets could

even compete with the Americans on a nuclear level they had nukes sure about 10 to 20 of them well the Americans had 300 to 500 and they were Advanced too Uncle Sam had hundreds of more bombs Superior bombers and just developed the first ballistic missiles if you think about it for at least a few years the United States had a total Monopoly on the fate of their enemies the only thing that really held them back from using the bomb was morality ethics and worrying that the Soviets would steamroll Europe as well as Truman's promise to

the world to never use the bomb After Japan this was also that brief moment after World War II where the US and its allies didn't really face any major threats that was until North Korea invaded for the first time in human history there was the question of whether a country should hold itself back if the US has nuclear weapons should it use them could nukes be used as tactical weapons against an aggressor the answer in our timeline was debated throughout the whole War like you probably we know about MacArthur wanting to turn a chunk of

Manchuria into a sea of radioactive Cobalt and yeah he was fired for that but this wasn't the only time nukes were considered Truman had 20 nuclear capable bombers stationed in Guam in 1950 with the only thing missing for a nuclear strike being the plutonian core of the bombs in 1951 there were even orders in place to launch a immediate nuclear strikes on Soviet bases in Manchuria in response to any air strike strikes on American targets or major troop movements into Korea the US also dropped dummy bombs and TNT across North Korea to test the viability

of using nuclear weapons while in our timeline this never came to be there were a lot of factors that stopped the use of nukes like how would America's allies react if nukes were just used indiscriminately how would America's enemies respond when they eventually get the same weapons going off the precedent the US just said no matter what it was nukes weren't used of course but it wouldn't really take a huge change for nukes to fly like the bombers and Guam or using nuclear strikes on Soviet bases were things already considered while the war was evenly

in the US's favor so what if the war wasn't in America's favor say the North Koreans have slightly more insight and decide to place Naval mines at Inon say they defend the beaches even a little bit better than they did in our timeline say the US's attempted Landings fail miserably or go horrendously wrong leaving the southern forces defending the pan perimeter with no end in sight not only that a failed Invasion at inchan is an embarrassing moment for the Americans as a whole a symbol that they can't defend their capitalist allies inchon makes this bad

situation fatal it's not likely that this would happen like inchan was a very successful Invasion but this would be the only thing that would make the US desperate enough to think about crossing the line employ nuclear weapons as a show of force selecting a single strategic Target in North Korea to vaporize no City or anything uh pongyang wasn't going to get nuked like hirosima but this would be something to display America's real nuclear power a military Target meant to crush their resolve kind of the world's biggest remember who you're dealing with and while that probably

wouldn't rattle the North Koreans it would rattle their allies especially Stalin while the USSR had conducted its first nuclear test the year prior the first airdrop wouldn't come until 1951 like in our timeline he would have abandoned North Korea if the Americans had involved nukes he would be more than willing to just salute Korea and press F in the chat and leave the USSR had committed air Pilots to fight in Korea under the markings of the Chinese Air Force as well as train Chinese pilots in Manchuria hundreds of Soviet Air Force officers and thousands of

other Personnel would participate in the war in some capacity in this alternate timeline if Stalin pulled this support the North Koreans would be left at a significant disadvantage allowing the Americans to break the line at the pan perimeter and push North now the Chinese would still commit troops to Korea as the southern forces reached the yalu river and they would still push the Americans back from their border but without signant ific an air support their Advance would stall before they ever reached the 38th parallel the southern forces could perhaps push North To The yalu River

and become entrenched at the Chinese border the fate of kiml sun would kind of be up in the air there's a chance he could be caught by South Korean forces and killed on site or he would just flee into China either way the dprk kind of wouldn't exist anymore the South and not the North would have reunified Korea the r is Victorious uh singman re quite openly talked about his intention to bring in bulldozers to dig Mass Graves for suspected Communists so if he got his way we can expect an incredibly brutal occupation however R

likely wouldn't be left in charge of the north at all seeing the atrocities carried out by Southern forces during both their Retreat and Advance northward the American Military Advisory Group in Korea contemplated making the north just off limits to R authorities and some countries in the UN questioned whether a regime as corrupt brutal and inept as re should even be allowed to retake control of South Korea yeah the US state department planned for the occupation of the north to be under the supreme authority of the UN or failing that a us-backed puppet an idea that

was sure to excite the newly formed CIA although their Vision still involved an incredibly authoritarian set of policies including around 14% of North Cris population being sent to re-education camps put on a blacklist but at least it avoided the mass murder that re had in mind in our timeline Sigman re ruled as a dictator until 1960 when he was overthrown by a student Uprising known as the April Revolution with South Korea becoming a parliamentary Republic for like less than than a year before the military stepped in to restore order this instituted aut with Park Jun

he in charge his 16 years of power saw South Korea flip from military rule to civilian government to one party dictatorship in that time Park oversaw plenty of repression but he also introduced economic policies that turned South Korea from a poor country reliant on American Aid to an export driven industrial Powerhouse South Korea transitioned back to democracy in 1987 which has lasted till today in a South Korean Victory scenario I can see two main paths Korea might have gone down in one scenario with North Korea eliminated as a threat the US and un pressure Sigman

re to step down no longer seeing him as a useful Ally against communism after his inept response to the northern offensive just as in our timeline his regime is replaced by a parliamentary Republic but nearly a decade earlier and it wasn't really Korean students that did it the State's earlier transition to democracy eliminates the causes of the April Revolution and in turn it also prevents Park Chun he's coup the UN Administration in North Korea applies a martiall plan- likee set of policies to rebuild the region after the war the largely agricultural country gets a bit

of an economic boost however without the kinds of economic policies introduced specifically by Park chuni it's debatable whether Korea ever reaches the levels of wealth that it reached in our timeline so it could be a more united but slightly poorer country I'm not going to open that can of worms on South Korean Economic Policy though so we're just moving on the other option is that re is allowed to remain in place and after 3 or 4 years of un Administration the north is turned over to his government although it's unlikely he would carry out the

same reign of terror he had planned during the war he still makes use of the US's Black List to make a lot of people in the north disappear taking revenge on anyone he Associates too strongly with the dprk if his administration of rebellious regions in South Korea is anything to go off of free speech would be heavily curtailed with any open mention of Southern atrocities during the war not met well we can say that just like in our timeline however re's authoritarianism would ultimately bring about the same student protests intense enough to OU him from

the presidency and force him to flee to Hawaii yet the student protest would probably include a generation of North Korean kids those who had grown up with some anti- capitalist sympathies and also had faced anti-communist repression so there's potentially a communist element into these protests in his youth park Chun he had briefly been a member of the Korean Workers Party and after seizing control he made sure to demonstrate his opposition to Communism whenever possible to relieve any suspicion the US had towards him in this scenario this would mean continued repression of the north throughout Decades

of his Reign I mean really if there's anything to take away from this whole video it's that it would just be a blended version of the North and the South it is kind of funny though whether communist or capitalist Korea is just kind of a dystopia and in different ways it's actually fascinating special thanks once again to World of Tanks for sponsoring this video by using the invite code combat new and returning players get access to all sorts of rewards click the link in the description to get on board