korean war - History Forum ~ All Empires

Here are the pat answers for question 2;

http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/korea/overview.html

The "should" question, of course, is open to discussion!

http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/

Maybe Cryptic to be more Politically Correct you should have substituted the "United Nations" rather than the USA?

http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/

Goliwog, to answer your questions:

1 - Because Australians in 1950 saw it as interest to do so. Remember, their point of view had been forged in the late 30s and 40s. There was no 'domino theory' yet, but 1945-50 had produced enough Communist victories to convince reasonable people that Communism, like Fascism before it, was a threat.

2 - Should they have fought it? If they had the advantage of a 2010 viewpoint, certainly not. But they had no magic crystal balls to foretell the future. They did, and one of Asians poorest countries rose to be the 10th largest economy in the world (Not sure of where they are now, maybe 14 or so) and a democracy to boot.

Phong trần mài một lưỡi gươm, Những loài giá áo túi cơm sá gì

Mostly 2, IMHO.
They were worrying about a possible domino effect from Korea to Indonesia to Australia.
The SEATO Treaty was created exactly to counter the communist threat, so it was the effect, not the reason.

1 is a reason too, but one of the reasons why Australia was ally of the US was in order to get help to counter the communist threat. Australia became ally to US in the WWi and then in WWII, when it started to see US as a primary defense partner/protector.

Edited by Don Quixote - 18-Apr-2012 at 01:46

Yes, forget SEATO. The Korean War was, in many ways, a holdover from WWII. Australia fought in the Korean War as part of the Commonwealth contingent of the U.N. Command. Truman was looking for a way to commit the U.S. to Korea's (i.e., the ROK) defence, thereby avoiding the necessity of a declaration of war, and happened upon the U.N. solution, which assisted by a USSR absence in the U.N. meeting, contributed to a 'police action' to restore the pre-invasion status quo (which was the U.N. writ). MacArthur drove north bent on clearing the NK forces from Korea, and the Chinese intervened.

Pay attention to the time line. The invasion by and later defeat of the North Koreans, saved from extinction by Chinese intervention, followed by a Chinese attempt to sweep the U.N. forces from Korea, which the U.N. stopped below Seoul, all took place in the first year. By July 1951 everyone had agreed to meet and settle the war issues, so the next two years of fighting were all over where the demarcation line between the two hostile forces would be.

Phong trần mài một lưỡi gươm, Những loài giá áo túi cơm sá gì

Good link.

I would have recommended the old digger history forum but it appears to have been tossed into the crap can.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

S. T. Friedman

Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

Australian Korean War veterans:
http://www.koreanroll.gov.au/

Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains!