# Vietnam vs Korea



## scottishcanuck (26 Mar 2007)

Why did the UN help S.korea, but not S.vietnam. In both cases there was the communist north trying to take over the south. The UN sent a military force to repel N. korea but no to repel N.Vietnam. I just dont understand ???



[Edit to correct grammar in title to aid in future SEARCH.]


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## mckee19 (26 Mar 2007)

there are some things in life no one will fully understand, and to me this is one of them


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## Danjanou (26 Mar 2007)

Basically it comes down to the UN Security Council and the permanent members with their Veto. The Soviet Union were in a position to veto any UN resolution calling for UN intervention in South Vietnam.

As to why they didn’t do it in 1950 when North Korea attacked the south, the simple reason is they screwed up. Rather than veto the resolution they chose to boycott it. Remember the UN and the Security Council was still a relatively new thing then and the Cold War just starting. They never made that mistake again.


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## FascistLibertarian (26 Mar 2007)

At that point Communist China did not have the veto the Nationalists which had been pushed off the island did.  That is why the USSR walked away.

The UN and war
Korea
1st Gulf War
Afghanastan
I think thats it.
I have NO IDEA why Bush thought the UN would back him on Iraq!


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## Danjanou (27 Mar 2007)

FascistLibertarian said:
			
		

> At that point Communist China did not have the veto the Nationalists which had been pushed off the island did.  That is why the USSR walked away.
> 
> The UN and war
> Korea
> ...



yeah that's about it



> I have NO IDEA why Bush thought the UN would back him on Iraq!



It worked for Daddy 8)


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## nowhere_man (27 Mar 2007)

Why the heck would they give the Russians a veto when they we're the enemy.

And if the Russians wernt boycotting the counsel would they have veto'd the UN action in Korea?


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## Danjanou (27 Mar 2007)

Ok a little history lesson ( God why don’t teach this in school anymore). The Soviet Union ( not Russian mind) were not the “enemies” when the UN was formed just prior to the end of the Second World War. Remember they were on our side back then. It was only in the post war years when the Soviets decided to not give back the European Countries that they had “liberated” during the war that they became the new bad guys and the Cold War started.

Anyway it was agreed that the five main Allied powers, the United States, The United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and Nationalist China would all have permanent seats on the new Security council with a special veto power denied all other members, go read Orwell for an explanation on that.

I’m not going to get into a why France got one, hell Romania or US ( Canada) would probably have been better if it was based on numbers involved in winning the damn war. Chang Kai Chek was still top dog in China in 1944 and would be for another 4 years before getting booted out by Mao and the Communists. Mind the UN is a Government Bureaucracy so it would take a few more years for them to change who got the Chinese seat (like almost 30).

Yes they would have vetoed the UN mission to Korea had they not been relatively new at the game. As noted they never made that mistake again.


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## I_am_John_Galt (27 Mar 2007)

> And if the Russians wernt boycotting the counsel would they have veto'd the UN action in Korea?



Definitely; they tried to have the resolution declared illegal after the fact, and then tried to have the UN withdraw (vetoed by the US and others).  While Soviet participation was primarily by proxy, the end result was that they were involved in a war against the UN (of which they were a senior member).  Stalin's policy was to spread communism everywhere in the world, primarily by fomenting and supporting communist revolutions (you can draw your own conclusions about whether you believe that we would all be left living in a worldwide socialist utopia, let alone if the state would 'whither-away').

The Korean War started because the Soviets (and to a lesser extent the Chinese) wanted it to, as was the case for most the 20th Century wars and conflicts (with the obvious exception of the world wars).

_<< EDIT: first part better-explained by subsequent post! >>_


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## AJFitzpatrick (27 Mar 2007)

So all the vetos were granted at the founding? I was under the impression it was more to do with who had Nuclear Weapons.
All five permanent members certainly have them now, mere coincidence or requirement for continuing membership?


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## rz350 (27 Mar 2007)

AJFitzpatrick said:
			
		

> So all the vetos were granted at the founding? I was under the impression it was more to do with who had Nuclear Weapons.
> All five permanent members certainly have them now, mere coincidence or requirement for continuing membership?



Or maybe the members (USA, USSR, France, England and China) Just all happened to be the MAJOR world powers, and major world industrial and technological powers with the need, desire, money and industrial capacity to develop Nuclear weapons.


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## Danjanou (27 Mar 2007)

What part of my third post is unclear?

The original five permenant members of the Security Council were the five major victorious Allied powers. 

It had nothing to do with nukes then. Only one was a nuclear power at the time, the US. the UK and later France would devlop/get nukes ast ey were Allies and the Soviets would steal the process. Nationalist China never had them, and may/or may not now. When they lost their seat to the PRC, it already had nukes.

Conventional military power yes as they were the winners and both the US and the Soviets had massive numbers of men under arms but were in a process of demobilizing. The other three,  the  Chinese had a large feild army but that was it, The Brits including the Dominions were also pretty big in terms of troops,ships, places etc., but also demobolizing. France had noreal fleet left  and only a few Divisons in the field (-10 IIRC).

Economically both the Brits and the Soviets were pretty close to bankruptcy, China and France the same and while the US wasn't there yet it was close. Wars can be expensive.


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## Spirit of the Sixties (27 Mar 2007)

That seems like an overt simplification of the workings of the United Nations Security Council, not to mention a bit of an attitude in your response. They were only asking questions. BTW what are your qualifications in regards to Political Science may we ask?


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## Old Sweat (27 Mar 2007)

Spirit of the Sixties,

What do you find objectionable about the short lesson on the origins and working of the power structure of the UN? The Security Council may be elitist and it often is disfunctional, but perhaps the intent was to put checks and balances in place. 

Do not forget that when the UN was established, much, perhaps the majority, of the current membership that sit in the General Assembly were still colonies. Thus there was an imbalance in the General Assembly, with the western democracies outnumbering what would become the Soviet Bloc. As a result, a number of member republics of the USSR were granted seats in that body as a counter balance.

I am old enough to remember the Soviets boycotting the Security Council and being caught flat-footed when the resolution on Korea passed. As the time it was recognized as a major error on their part, due to, well, I'll let others more better qualified debate their motivation.

Regards


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## a_majoor (27 Mar 2007)

Political Science? This is just basic history, like they should be teaching in high school.

Most organizations reflect the condition of the world at the time they were created (check out the GDP's of various world powers compared to the membership of the G-8, for example), that part is history

Organizations either evolve (i.e. NATO expansion) are discarded (the Bretton Woods agreement) or wither into irrelevance (the League of Nations) as the world changes. That part is political science.


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## Danjanou (27 Mar 2007)

Old Sweat I think he’s just upset that us poor soldier types don’t use them fancy big words. Or maybe he’s afraid/upset that we do know how to use them ;D. 

As to my qualifications Spirit, rest assured I have them. I stay within my lanes here. Now how about you telling us your credentials skippy. Or are you just a troll?


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## mckee19 (27 Mar 2007)

my detective work has led me to figure that spirit of the sixties was in the US army and went awol during the vietnam war.
judgeing by the name, his military experience in his profile and where he now lives.

Danjanou your posts seem very clear to me


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## AJFitzpatrick (27 Mar 2007)

Danjanou I found them pretty clear as well, I guess I should have added this   to my last line.


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## FascistLibertarian (27 Mar 2007)

Just wondering why you think Spirit of the Sixties went AWOL?
Just because he now lives in Canada and did not join the army by choice does not mean he went AWOL...... (I could be missing something here)


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## mckee19 (27 Mar 2007)

haha it was more of a joke, if you look at his military experience it says US army but not for long, his name gives you a time frame and he now lives in canada. everything just kind of falls into place
but i do not know for sure i was joking around


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## Fishbone Jones (27 Mar 2007)

mckee19 said:
			
		

> haha it was more of a joke, if you look at his military experience it says US army but not for long, his name gives you a time frame and he now lives in canada. everything just kind of falls into place
> but i do not know for sure i was joking around



"haha it was more of a joke" doesn't make it so, especially on the internet. It looks like a cover for a cheap shot. Keep your speculation to yourself. You're already on thin ice around here for other thread responses. You've been warned there also. Don't push your luck. Steps on the warning ladder can and are, taken in strides in special circumstances.


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## mckee19 (27 Mar 2007)

recceguy said:
			
		

> "haha it was more of a joke" doesn't make it so, especially on the internet. It looks like a cover for a cheap shot. Keep your speculation to yourself. You're already on thin ice around here for other thread responses. You've been warned there also. Don't push your luck. Steps on the warning ladder can and are, taken in strides in special circumstances.



okie dokie
dont know where ive been warned before but i guess it was kind of out of line
it was not a cheap shot, somone asked for his credentials and i put that there joking around, how am i suposed to know?


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## Danjanou (27 Mar 2007)

In the immortal words of Officer Barbrady “Okay people, move along, there's nothing to see here!”

That’s Mod speak for lets try and get back on topic. I’ve already exceeded my quota of locked threads this week. 8)

As my fellow Mod has pointed out lets not jump to assumptions and/or make presumptions about someone here. Yes he could be a draft dodger or deserter. He also could have served his time, got out and been disillusioned by the whole thing. He’s been given the opportunity to fill out this profile. Lets leave it at that for now.


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## midget-boyd91 (27 Mar 2007)

Putting it back on track......
Here's the most sensible reason (IMO) for the UN not going for the intervention in Viet Nam.  Viet Nam had already been at war for more than a decade when the US responded into combat ops in '64. The French already had been defeated, the world already knew the kind of fight to expect and what the enemy was.  When the UN intervened in Korea, there had not been war for a decade, and a major friendly military had not been defeated.


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## FascistLibertarian (27 Mar 2007)

As well you have to remember that Vietnam was after the Suez.
Maybe the British and Canadians did not support Vietnam for different reasons?
The Korean war started while the UK was preforming maybe the last sucessful counter insurgency campaign in S.E. Asia! 
Out of the non koreans and chinese the US were by far the most important part of the UN force in Korea

You guys have a quota?


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## Blackadder1916 (28 Mar 2007)

Though both were proxy wars of the Cold War, the circumstances of Korea and Vietnam were different with regard to the run up to war, Korea being a relatively sudden, distinct action and Vietnam being a gradual escalation.  For those not familiar with the circumstances of the two conflicts, let’s go to a history lesson for dummies (myself included).

Korea (having been occupied by Japan since the early part of the 20th century) was divided along the 38th parallel following the end of WW2 in 1945 into separate zones of occupation with the Soviet Union responsible for the north and the US for the south.  Each enabled the establishment of a government in their respective halves that was favourable to their political ideology.  The Allies (UN?) had as their intention the eventual reunification of Korea but no timetable or process had been identified.  Following withdrawal of American and Soviet occupation forces from their zones the two Korean governments competed in their attempts to re-unite the peninsula under their own systems.  There were limited military attacks along the border through 1949 and early 1950.  North Korea, having been more heavily armed by the Soviet Union than South Korea by the Americans, changed the nature of the conflict with a full-scale invasion of the south commencing on 25 June 1950.  This was the defining act of overt aggression that was used to request and receive authorization for UN military action.

The story is much more complicated and long-term in regards South Vietnam.  At the end of WW2, France attempted to reassert itself in its colonial empire in Indochina (a federation of protectorates, Tonkin, Annam, Cambodia, Laos and one directly ruled colony, Cochinchina).  Vietnamese nationalists (the Viet Minh, predominantly communist) opposed them in this led by Ho Chi Minh.  For the first few years it was a low-level insurgency against the French authority.  After the communists took control in China, they provided direct support to the Viet Minh and it became a more conventional war.  This, the First Indochina War, lasted from 1946 to 1954 and was costly to the French in terms of money, casualties, power and prestige.  Following the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, an accord was reached at the Geneva Conference that resulted in independence being given to the former French Indochina possessions. The military action in Vietnam during this period could be viewed as similar in aim to the American Revolution.  Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina) was partitioned into northern and southern zones pending unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956.  As an aside, Canada was one of the three countries that made up the International Commission for Supervision and Control that was to monitor the partition process. 

During the period 1954 to 1959 the governments of South Vietnam and North Vietnam ruthlessly suppressed political opposition in their own countries.   The elections scheduled for July 1956 were not held primarily due to the decision of the South Vietnam government (supported by the USA) to not participate because any election would be unfairly won by the communists.  By 1959 the north had reached the conclusion that the country would not be reunited by purely political means and ramped up the campaign of violence and insurgency in the south.  The United States had been providing military assistance to the French during their war and continued their involvement in the region by aiding the government of South Vietnam. As the level of violence and insurgency increased so did the military assistance and level of participation from the USA.  By 1965 the situation had developed to the point that the USA committed ground combat forces. Over the next few years US troop levels increased as the war escalated.


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## time expired (28 Mar 2007)

Ah the good old ICSC,it was such a wonderful UN op that it was featured in a long running
comic strip in MAD magazine,Peace Doves I think it was called.
                                       Regards


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## 3rd Herd (29 Mar 2007)

An interesting use of ICSC reports:

"The insurgency cross-check was unexpectedly provided to me by the International Control Commission. They get reports from the communists as well as from our side, but in this case what interested me was the alleged incidents inside South Viet-Nam. The communists would report from Hanoi, through the ICC, that Americans or Vietnamese were doing certain things out in the villages which Hanoi alleged were "violations" of the ceasefire agreement. I said to myself, "If I plot out all the communist reports about alleged violations on a map, and if they match high-incident areas, there may be a logical connection between the guerrilla operators and the intelligence operators who provide the basis for the ICC reports." Sure enough the same areas with the high incidents also had high reports. As of early 1958, I knew we were in deep trouble in Viet-Nam and I kept saying so."(Fall)

"As the guerrilla war in the South slowly escalated throughout the late 1950s, Diem turned in-creasingly to the United States for military assistance. Chapter III of the Geneva Ac-cords, however, did not allow reinforcement of forces beyond the number present in 1954.65 This stipulation meant that the United States was legally restricted to only a handful of military advisors because its Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) had numbered less than 400 per-sonnel when the Accords went into effect.66 The American solution to this legal quan-dary was simple: ignore the ICSC. Between 1956 and 1961, over two thousand addi-tional advisors entered South Vietnam under the guise of MAAG, and the Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission (TERM)(Schrebier)

Source:

Fall, Bernard B. "The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency" http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/fall.pdf

Schreiber, Shane B. Major "THE ROAD TO HELL: CANADA IN VIETNAM, 1954-1973" http://wps.cfc.forces.gc.ca/papers/otherpublications/83_schreiber.pdf


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