What if Anyone Won the Korean War? | Alternate History Hub | History Teacher Reacts

Hey there, I'm Mr. Terry, high school history teacher. Welcome back to another History Teacher X video. All right, we've got another one from Alternate History Hub and their most recent video is called, What If Anyone Won the Korean War? All right, the original is linked down below. Give it a view, like, subscribe to their channel. And thank you for liking my video and make sure you sub so you can see stuff that I put out. All right, let's get started. All right, my original thoughts when I saw this prompt was, I don't think it would be nearly as massive of a change, especially as compared to the other what-if scenarios that we've covered here with Alternate History Hub. Now, if, let's say, the North wins, then you've got a unified peninsula there. It's just more of that peninsula becomes unified. United States would still have a military presence in Japan, regardless of what happens in Korea. If the United States and the South Koreans had sort of won this, then, yeah, you get a border that pushes up to China and there'd probably be some similar hostilities on the Chinese border, potentially. Anyway, I don't think it would be as massive. I'll be interested to see what Cody has got here and be sure to let me know what you think down below. Let's see. 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 and in Vietnam. Starting five years after- Probably because it ends as a stalemate, but yeah, Forgotten, which is horrible because when you look at per scale, US involvement, time spent, you're talking about more deadliness like for- than World War II when it comes to some of the extensive nature in such a short period of time from the Americans and a lot of people died, millions, when you look at both sides. 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 conflict, it tends to fade into the background of American and global consciousness, remembered mainly for the stalemate that left the Korean Peninsula- With no end to it technically. After all, who wants to remember a war where there were no winners? However, in Korea, this war is anything but forgotten. Especially in the North. 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. It actually brings an interesting situation. There's a thing to think about is, do you need a treaty for really a war to end? Isn't it over when you stop fighting and have largely basically agreed that one position is going to be here and one position is going to be here when you're talking about borders? I mean, yeah, it probably leads to a little, you know, not necessarily little, but a lot more defense of that border. The demilitarized zone or DMZ in Korea is one of the most, if not the most militarized border on the entire planet and has been so for decades. Now remember, historically, Korea was a colony of Japan and had been a colony of Japan for decades before this war ever started. So it was one of those places that saw that sort of ideological battle of communism and American-backed capitalism in a former colony of a losing country, i.e. Japan. And you see that play out. You saw it play out in Germany, although those sides will not fight each other because that would be even more devastating, especially after World War II, but it is going to get divided, same with Vietnam. You're going to see that as well. So it's just more of the same. 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 today's sponsor, World of Tanks? What better way to break through all the enemy lines than in this bad boy? You know, unless the enemy line has anti-tank. And what's your most hated tank? Never played World of Tanks before? It's simple. World of Tanks is a PvP, free-to-play combat game where you take control of your very own tank. I've only played a ton of tank warfare-type games. 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Including the Tiger 131, T-78, and... Guys, what if tanks were street-legal? Like civilians could just buy them? That's just... What you drive to work or school. The camouflage 2D-style bargain. You're arguing with somebody for a parking space? You pull up with your tank, like, nah, I'm taking it. 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 North's forces heavily outmatched their southern counterparts. The Union 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... And forced to. Remember, they were a force, they were a colony. They got invaded around the turn of the century. 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. When the Northern Korean People's Army, or KPA, invaded the South in June of 1950, the southern response was a complete mess. Yep, it was horrible. They ran through it. Days. Sigmund Rhee relocated the ROK Army Headquarters south of the capital of Seoul, without notice. Cutting off commun— Do you see that there, though, with the map? Again, this was not going very long. It's like a month. Basically, they got put down right to a tiny little corner here. The war was about over. This was also one of the early tests by the UN. Was the UN going to allow such activity? And it was seen as not allowed. But the problem is, from the UN, is like, nobody really showed up. I mean, you have the United States, which provide a lot, but there were other nations that supplied things, but not very much. Enough to basically say that they're at least— can say they're a participant of UN decisions, that, you know, they're not just bystanders, that they are doing at least something here. But yeah, this was on the verge of victory for the North, no doubt. —capital of Seoul, without notice. Cutting off communications with the troops north of Seoul, and sparking a panic among civilians, Seoul 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. —They're stuck now. The North managed to pull off a blitzkrieg. Rush B quickly secured the capital, with very little casualties, probably what a certain Russian— —By the way, that whole thing about, like, them basically abandoning people is not talked about in Western history. I mean, let alone— we already talked about the Korean War, it isn't talked about much at all, but even that, where a lot of people might consider that an atrocity, you know? ——achieved not too long ago, with poor discipline— —Can you go back? ——capabilities, probably what a certain Russian was hoping to achieve not too long ago, with poor discipline and equipment— —Current events! ——limited faith in their superiors, many units mutinied or fled from their posts. By the end of June, around half of South Korea's forces were either dead, captured, or missing. —They're like, screw this. 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, cough-cough, the balance of power flipped on its head. —He said cough-cough because, like, very little was even close to what the Americans brought to there. Now, I guess to be fair, a lot of you might say, this is the early 50s. We just had World War II. Who has the financial and military power to go into a major conflict again? Well, pretty much just the United States, if you're talking about people on that side of the ideology. So, the U.S. were basically OK with that. They were sure they probably would have liked a lot more help. But that also means the United States can really manipulate things in the way that they want to, especially after the war, and use South Korea as a, you know, as a partner and an ally, which is definitely going to happen. This is all part of the Cold War, too, right? —Allowing the South not only to reclaim all of their territory, but push all the way to China. —All the way. —The Chinese, in turn, really didn't like that, and jumped to the aid of their North Korean allies. —So, you see the Chinese are doing what the Americans did, which is like, they stayed out at first, right? But then, once they see that it's going to be bad for their ally, they go in. Now, all of a sudden, you got United States versus China. —Pushing the South Korean forces and the Americans— —In a war that was a civil war. —To the initial border between the Koreas, where the two sides found themselves evenly matched, unable to make much progress in either direction. Three years of fighting— —But the thing is— Okay, he's getting to it. I was going to say, it may not look like a lot's changing in some ways, but not when you're boots on the ground and looking at how devastating this was. Let's look at those stats. —Unable to make much progress in either direction. Three years of fighting, three million casualties, and 20% of the Korean population later, they were back to square one. —So how about we change that? —One in five, man! —Following the plan— —Okay, North wins, hypothesis. —By U.S. Secretary of State Dean Ackeson, Truman committed the U.S. to militarily support South Korea less than 72 hours after receiving the news of the Northern invasion. —You know, the thing about it is, if he went much further than that, it could have been over anyways. —Did he wait for approval from the U.N., 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. —Don't ask for permission. —All you have to do is take Ackeson 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 U.S. 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 U.S. attention away from the more significant threat posed by Moscow. Even if Truman still ultimately— —Well, a lot of people thought of it in the same picture, though, that it's just communists. That's what it is. You've got Kim Il-sung, who was a communist and backed by China and with the Soviet Union, so it was all just kind of part of the same thing. Remember, there was not a lot of distinguishing here in the early Cold War of those types of dynamics. It was very cut-and-dry, very black-and-white. —decided to send troops into Korea 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 U.S. troops to slow them down would have given the KPA enough of a head start to capture the whole peninsula— —That's fair. —before U.N. reinforcements reached a critical mass. —Fair hypothesis. —By early August, —I agree. —the DPRK could have reunited the entire peninsula under their regime, and high-ranking ROK officials would be evacuated. —Well, you've got to understand, too, that it wasn't as— the people aren't so geographically divided at this time about support and what ideology they want to subscribe to. Remember, this is a former colony of a brutal colonial pyrrhid under Japanese occupation, and understand that in a lot of those places, the ideals of potentially a socialist state were very appealing to a lot of those people. So the North could have recruited and seen people that would maybe end up joining them, from an ideological perspective, or just the fact that people don't want to die. So you side with whoever is winning at the time. And more time would probably do more of that, right? —the U.S. would have to give up on any chance of regaining foothold in Korea, and Syngman Rhee 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 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 and napalm 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 Il-sung came out— —Okay, I see what he's saying. You look at the Kim dynasty, as you might call it, as, again, being incredibly dictatorial. And that's true. And he's saying that that is because of their experience in the war. And there's definitely some truth to that, because if you look at the rhetoric still used in North Korea, it still uses the hostilities of, you know, the war, especially with the Americans, to prop up this dictatorship because they are seen as the ones that can't protect them. And have continued to protect them for decades and decades, because in the North Korean mindset, this is still something they believe the United States, like, wants to do, and are preventing the unification of the Korean peninsula. That does make sense to that extent. Now, would it not have been, like, totally? I don't know. Maybe I think it would be, depending on what he says next, still maybe a little bit more— I guess dictatorial is the word, but then maybe he thinks it would have been? We'll see. —as the savior of his people 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. Kim Il-sung is quick to blame all Southern atrocities on US or Japanese collaborators, allowing average ROK soldiers to avoid harsh retribution. Although any high-ranking officials or former Japanese collaborators would be condemned to death or the gulag, 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. So basically the rhetoric would— He's saying the rhetoric would— The rhetoric would be the same. Maybe not the response by the people in this almost like cult of personality, cult-like following that occurs in North Korea. So, okay. All right, 20th century Korea. This is all in 20th century. 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 in the 1960s, just as they did in South Korea in our timeline. That's fair to expect. While Kim is unlikely to step down like Ri 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 of our timeline. Alternatively, the DPRK might follow a similar economic path as in our timeline, resulting in stagnation within the 1960s. Well, they would have— Well, here's what possibly could have happened if North Korea wins. You might get sanctions or trade embargo happening from UN nations, many UN nations, which could cripple their economy just like it has in recent years. The sanctions are, again, crippling for North Korea, but you'd also have more access to trade potentially if there aren't going to be those embargoes with some of the port cities that are down south, also access to more resources. But just like it is now, North Korea would still have access to trade with, say, China, maybe the Soviet Union. But, yeah, I mean, economically, I guess they could do better, but a lot of that is going to depend on the foreign response and if they try to economically sort of punish them for this. 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 famine— But a North Korean victory doesn't just have implications for Korea. In the U.S., Truman was blamed for losing China after the CCP's victory in the Civil War. And with another communist victory in Asia, his reputation would be gutted. I mean, gosh, think of the bloodiness. Like, we saw the bloodiness that happened in Korea. Again, three million people are going to die. Imagine how worse that would have been if the United States responded to the Chinese Civil War the way that they did with the Korean War. Holy cow. That's where you wonder if nukes are back on the table, okay? Something like MacArthur would be, you know, clamoring for and was in these conflicts here. That would have been crazy. Maybe that's why they didn't, because they saw that. China's a very different threat than North Korea. 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. Really? You think so? You see, Vietnam would not be lost like that. So, we've seen this in history before, maybe, where you get involved militarily to try to, like, save face and save your position. I wonder something like Russia, you know, maybe jumping the gun in World War I because they had been seen as a failure over in the Russo-Japanese War, right? And so, there is precedent for that. I just wonder if the Americans would have really done anything different than it was, like in Vietnam. I mean, they supplied the French already with a huge percentage of what they were using to fight the communists in Vietnam. Or, not the communists, but just everybody because it was a whole national independence movement. But, because we're talking before the split of Vietnam. But, like, that was still propped up so much. I can't, I don't imagine the Americans getting involved more than they would have in Vietnam. But, let's hear if there's more case for that. 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 U.S. 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- Am I wrong to think this is a little bit of a stretch? Just as South Korea had crushed rebels with U.S. assistance in the previous years. A conflict that roots out rebels before a situation like the Battle of Dien Bien Phu can even happen. As synonymous Vietnam is today with an unwinnable fight, there is a possibility the conflict could have been won if it was just stamped out while the French were still there. At least the conflict with the Viet Minh and that chapter of Vietnamese resistance. I can imagine even if the Viet Minh are defeated, there would always be some anti-colonial resistance in its place. I was wondering, yeah, does that mean the French win? They hold on to their colony? Or is it really just extend France's place there as they're just going to continue to have anti-colonial resistance? That's probably the latter being more plausible, right? The French were trying to keep their empire after all. And while there were some Vietnamese that sided with the French, there were also Vietnamese that didn't. They really wanted to, which is interesting because you saw like the British, their empire starts to collapse and a lot of it was basically non-violent. You didn't see necessarily as much military resistance from the British and their colonies than you did the French. The French love the indirect rule and again, you will see them put up incredible fights here in say Vietnam, Algeria would be another example. Then like the British, you see less of them fighting to keep their colonial possessions and letting some of them walk, you know, pretty much. Say like India and then Ghana and Africa. 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 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 Viet Minh, eventually Viet Cong, wouldn't have gotten a breather. Now, wouldn't they have unified though? 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- Remember how nonpartisan American presence in Vietnam was? It went through different political parties, multiple presidents. ...to send men to bail them out. He understood correctly that 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- You could have thought that anyways, though. 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 Schmoe, really wouldn't. Like the Korean War, a conflict that resulted in the- Unless... they go to a draft again, then the American public would be very involved. And it was, you know, having things like the draft is going to push politics quite a bit in the Vietnam era. It's why the voting age honestly gets lower. And you get just the normalization of these protests against American foreign policy, which largely was the first that ever had experienced that. 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 in the 1950s didn't care about Korea, how would they react to American troops in Vietnam? A guerrilla war. In this alternate world, the United States would get involved in a conflict France was going to lose. Win it, defeat the Viet Minh before they became big, and it'd never be known by your average American. Atrocities included. Oops, this sounds perfect, and 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 you're probably just hearing about it now. The Cold War was full of military operations to that extent. Damped 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. Because no failure of Vietnam also means that the lessons kind of have to be learned elsewhere. Perhaps without Vietnam, America gets more involved in post-colonial Africa. Even more in Latin 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'd we get off topic? Yeah, so this was a scenario where North Korea won. You didn't talk about it, though. We kind of forgot about that. So, what if we flip this scenario? What if the South had complete and total victory? Alright, so, okay, he did the whole North thing. Only thing, I guess, I just haven't bought into how it's going to affect what happens in Vietnam. I just don't know, because it seemed like he hinged it upon just like Truman wanting to not look weak here towards the end of his presidency. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not maybe as bought in as he is. What do y'all think about that? Alright, let's look at the other scenario. South Korea wins instead. My initial thought was, okay, it's just, you know, South Korea is unified under the South with the United States being a huge part of that. They're probably, well, the United States being part of that and able to withstand any kind of resistance movements potentially with that. That could be part of it. Again, would it have then inflamed even more with China? I don't know. I mean, it already was pretty bad when they had to fight the Chinese when the Chinese come in and push the Americans back. So, I don't know. I just think you have a larger South Korea and more American presence there. Now, crossing my mind, would you see, again, more, would you see a big constant resistance movement like what happened with the French in Vietnam? Would you see something like that? How much would, say, China be helping like insurgents? I don't know. Let's see and gather my thoughts. It really wasn't easy to find a way to turn the tide for the U.S. 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- Soviet Union's gonna have, because we're talking 1950, they're gonna have, I mean, even then, they just had their first nuke a year before this. China wouldn't have been an issue with that. So, yeah, wouldn't be mutually assured destruction. The United States still held the upper hand when it comes to that technology. 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, while 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— That same question would have been asked in the way that the Korean War went, and with how the Chinese Civil War went too. I don't know how much that would have changed. —be used as tactical weapons against an aggressor. The answer in our timeline was debated throughout the whole war. Like, you probably know about MacArthur wanting to turn a chunk of Manchuria into a sea of radioactive cobalt. And yeah, he was fired for that. He was. Truman fired him, because MacArthur's answer was just like, nuke everything, and Truman's like, dude, you've gone way too far. But MacArthur was also really popular amongst the American people. When he got fired, there were, you know, angry letters and people putting opinion pieces in the newspaper saying that, you know, MacArthur was a hero. You know, I don't know. I guess, in hindsight, we're probably, you know, depending on, I guess, how you're aligned with things. I've talked to people that think that they should have just continued the war against the Soviet Union and against China, and even if nukes come in there. But I think a lot of people are going to say the other thing, that they're glad they didn't necessarily take MacArthur's advice. But again, remember, that was the time when the United States had a monopoly on this stuff, when it comes to, you know, having those nukes. Time nukes. If you do it before 1949, though. That's the difference. Were considered. Truman had, 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 plutonium core of the bombs. In 1951, there were even orders in place to launch immediate nuclear strikes on Soviet bases in Manchuria in response to any airstrikes on American targets or major troop movements into Korea. The U.S. also dropped dummy bombs and TNT across North Korea to test the viability of using nuclear weapons. While on our timeline, this never came to be, there were a lot of factors. Wait, is he saying that happened? Because I actually hadn't heard that. That's interesting. Like, fake ones to see, like, will they shoot them down or something? ...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... I'll be honest, I don't think they would have... Do you think they would have cared that much? If you're still talking like Churchill and stuff, I don't know. ...same weapons. Going off the precedent, the enemies respond when they eventually get the same weapons. Going off the precedent, the U.S. 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 in Guam or using nuclear strikes on Soviet bases were things already considered while the war was evenly in the U.S.'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 Incheon. Say they defend the beaches even a little bit better than they did in our timeline. That was already incredibly hard. Say the U.S.'s attempted landings fail miserably or go horrendously wrong, Wait, I thought we were talking about what if South Korea is winning in this one, in this scenario. ...versus defending the Pusan perimeter with no end in sight. Not only that, a failed invasion at Incheon is an embarrassing moment for the Americans as a whole, a symbol that they can't defend their capitalist allies. Incheon makes this bad situation fatal. It's not likely that this would happen, like Incheon was a very successful invasion, but this would be the only thing that would make the U.S. 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. Pyongyang wasn't gonna get nuked like Hiroshima, 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 U.S.S.R. In a lot of ways, they kind of did that, though. The U.S.S.R. had committed air pilots to fighting Korea under the markings of the Chinese Air Force, as well as trained 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 Pusan 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 significant— So now I'm wondering what, in this scenario, leads to the success of the United States. And if it's not nukes. Because we saw in real time that it didn't work. They were not able to withstand this pushback. —significant 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 Kim Il-sung would kind of be up in the air. There's a chance he could be caught by South Korean forces, and killed on sight, 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. Yeah, United Korea, I mean, that was kind of the goal, especially for the North. The North always felt the South, you know, wanted to be unified, but it was foreign adversaries, like the United States or Japan, that didn't want them to. —Korea is victorious. Syngman Rhee quite openly talked about his intention So if he got his way, we can expect incredibly brutal occupation. However, Rhee 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 ROK authorities. And some countries in the UN questioned whether a regime as corrupt, brutal, and inept as Rhee's should even be allowed to retake control of South Korea. Yeah, the U.S. State Department planned for the occupation of the North to be under the Supreme— —Well, I mean, the U.S. did that with, like, Goh Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, where they have him, and he was aided by his own people. So maybe they try the Syngman Rhee thing? It's like, alright, you're going to be kind of a puppet with American interests at hand. But then again, if it gets bad, and you pretty much get him out and off him, he ends up dying with talking about Diem. Like, I'm trying to think of that scenario. I guess I could see that happening. It would just be another Diem situation. Although it's before what happens in Vietnam. —Supreme authority of the U.N. planned for the occupation of the North to be under the Supreme Authority of the U.N. Or, failing that, a U.S.-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 Korea's population being sent to re-education camps. Put on a blacklist! But at least it avoided the mass murder that Rhee had in mind. In our timeline, Syngman Rhee 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 a year before the military stepped in to restore order. This instituted a junta with Park Joon-hee in charge. His 16 years of power saw South Korea flip from military rule to civilian government to one-party dictatorship. —I feel like now he's intertwining, like, what actually happens in history. Saying it's also part of this alternate history. In that time, Park oversaw plenty of repression, but he also introduced economic policies that turned South Korea into 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 U.S. and U.N. pressure Sigmund Rhee to step down, no longer seeing him as a useful ally against communism after his inept response to the Northern Offenses. —That's why I was kind of wondering, though, if they keep him in at least for a while. Give him a chance. Just as in our timeline, his regime is replaced by a parliamentary republic, but nearly a decade earlier, and it wasn't really Korean-style 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-hee's coup. The U.N. administration in North Korea applies a Marshall Plan-like set of policies to rebuild the region after the war. The largely agricultural country gets a bit of an economic boost. —Very plausible. I was thinking about this, that, yeah, what happens there is, you know, or what happened in Japan might be similar to what happens here, especially if they had won the war. They want stability there. You know, American policy behind Marshall Plan stuff is— well, sorry, Marshall Plan, don't, with Germany, but remember that the financial support and crafted rebuilding of Japan were supposed to prevent the rise of communist and socialist sentiment because it was supposed to show, with all of this financial support, that capitalism and everything that's attached to it is the way to go, and financial stability would prevent socialist movements. And so, yeah, it totally makes sense that the Americans would do that. There's probably going to be a lot of strings attached. I also wonder if, like, they would do, like, what they do in Japan, which is tell them they don't have to worry about their military anymore, like we do with Japan, and the United States would basically be their military. I wonder if that would be there, but we're talking about a civil war that actually happens here in Korea, not like what happens in Japan, although there was, you know, obviously World War II, but that was to defang Japan. There wouldn't really be a defanging of Korea that way, so I wonder if that would happen because that was a big benefit for Japan to not have to put all this money into their military. They could put it into economic development, and it's why we see Japan also rebound so quickly. However, without the kinds of economic policies introduced specifically by Park Joon-hee, 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 gonna open that can of worms on South Korean economic policy, though, so let's move on. The other option is that Ri is allowed to remain in place, and after three or four 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 U.S.'s blacklist 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. Interesting that he's putting, yeah, Syngman Rhee kind of becomes the new villain here. You know, more than, you know, like Kim Il-sung ever was. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, I could potentially see that. Just like in our timeline. It's like there was gonna be a villain of some kind, no matter what comes out of this. However, Rhee's authoritarianism would ultimately bring about the same student protests intense enough to oust him from the presidency and force him to flee to Hawaii. Very possible. 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. This was what I was thinking too. So, there's potentially a communist element into these protests. For sure. In his youth, Park Chung-hee. There definitely would be. It's not like that sentiment would have just been gone because the South won the war. That would be something they would be dealing with probably forever. 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 U.S. 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 in different ways. Final thoughts. All right. I don't think I've deviated too much from my original thought when I just saw the prompt. He went through some big changes that he thinks would have happened as a result. I hadn't bought in completely to what he says would have happened with Vietnam. I actually, I think, agree more with what he said about if the South won when it comes to their future, how the Americans would be involved, how Syngman Rhee's career might play out. I think I agree more with him on, yeah, what if the South had won rather than what if the North had won? But I want to know what you think. Let me know down below. We'll see you all next time. Bye.