This is an archive of past discussions about Korean War. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

←

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

Archive 9

Archive 10

Result of the war

You cannot say or mention only "North Korea's invasion was repelled" in the result of the war, because during the war, but before China's participation, US also largely went across the 38 line, entered North Korea's territory, and tried or tended to end the communist power thus liberate the whole Korea, so de facto at least there were two waves of invasions, whose same symbol was crossing over the 38 line. (Zhang 2008

So probably we can ignore "whose invasion was repelled" for the result of the war, but just mention "cease fire", that would be the most objective comment, also because the whole process of the war was such complicated, and every espects had its own purpose and interest! (talk) 09:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC))

I just reverted your edit. What its referring to is the initial invasion that was repelled. Good friend100 (talk) 13:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

incorrect intro?

escalation of border clashes is mentioned in the intro.

North Korea did not take a section of the border and later decide to take the whole country. They did...well, let's just quote the article...The North's well-planned attack with about 415,000 troops achieved surprise and quick successes

So saying it was only a border clash at first is not accurate. FridayCell7 (talk) 17:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

However, there were a series of border clashes before the North's invasion, so the intro is correct. Parsecboy (talk) 22:06, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

No, although there were some minor border clashes, the North reserved a large force intended for an all-out attack on the South. "Escalation of border clashes" implies that the war grew out as a result of these border clashes. There is no evidence to prove that. In fact, the declassified Soviet documents indicate that Kim Il Sung met with Stalin and Mao Zedong several times well before 1950 to have his invasion plan against South Korea approved by Stalin. So there is ample proof that invasion against South was a well-planned event, while there is no evidence connecting border clashes and this large-scale attack. We may "assume" that these minor clashes served as an inspiration for Kim's large-scale attack, but that's only an assumption. But we certainly do know that the main invasion itself was planned beforehand. So I will correct this intro. --24.126.51.40 (talk) 22:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that to call the Korean War an escalation of border clashes is ridiculous. Escalation implies that things got out of hand, that the North Korean attack was simply an unfortunate response to earlier happenings. This could not be farther from the truth. The sheer speed and success of the North Korean attack shows that it was well planned and highly coordinated. Even the citation provided states that the war was an escalation of border clashes only in a very narrow sense.

This issue is extremely significant because it is the first sentence of the article. The first sentence should give the gist of the Korean War, not a "very narrow sense of the war". --- Bosoxrock88 July 2008

I think we should examine the intro in greater depth, for now I just changed that sentence to reflect the information from the citation was is given. - Schrandit (talk) 07:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I had a go a rewriting the introduction: The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korea and South Korean regimes, with major hostilities from June 25, 1950 to the armistice signed on July 27, 1953. Both Koreas were supported by external powers, with each attempting to re-unify Korea under their respective governments. Some have refered to the conflict as a civil war, though many other factors were at play.[17] The term has also been used to describe both the events preceeding and following the main hostilities.

After disputes arose regarding elections concerning the entirety of Korea, as well as escalating border conflicts at the 38th Parallel; the North Korean Army assaulted the South on June 25, 1950. The conflict was then expanded by the United States and the Soviet Union's involvement as a proxy war. Iciac (talk) 03:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added this to the article - if anyone disagrees, please state your reasons before reverting. Cheers Iciac (talk) 05:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez Image

The image on the page incorrectly identifies Lt. Lopez as being "USA (United States Army) 2nd Lieutenant"

Lt. Lopez was a US Marine and was a First Lieutenant (appointed 16 June, 1950 prior to his deployment to Korea, and prior to Inchon where the picture was taken). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jared WoodyUSA (talk • contribs) 02:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Err....so fix it. You can fix it.Kfc18645 talk 06:39, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Chinese Intervention

Whether this is written from the PRC perspective is unclear. Taiwan is mentioned as a province of China which is false -or at the very least, as yet undetermined. This should be corrected by mentioning Taiwan in the neutral sense by changing "launching an invasion against Korea and the Chinese province of Taiwan, and carrying out active intervention in other countries in Asia" to "launching an invasion against Korea and carrying out active intervention in Taiwan and in other Asian countries" or simply dropping the Taiwan reference altogether. Thoughts? Jamesbohling (talk) 08:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

If you just us the word "Taiwan" (which also could refer to the island of Taiwan) it's doesn't say anything about the political status of Taiwan. So that's probably NPOV. Dre Odz (talk) 14:36, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

This article reads like it was written by Kim Jong Il's slightly less fanatical brother. I would think that such a major event would have a much better wiki. 24.125.19.104 (talk) 01:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)Disinterested Party

The article is an utter joke written by fantastics from the West, its sourced only from rather one-sided studies, and don't provide any balanced view, for instance, they only provide the Chinese loss based on west estamtion, but not include any Chinese estimation for UN loss.

And also, the west fantastics significantly understate their own loss, The total loss for UN is already around 1.3-1.6 million (based on various west sources, S.korean along loss from 1 million to 1.3 million soliders), the total loss of China/NK is around 1 million(base on Chinese estimation) to 1.5 million (US estimation, which claim chinese alone loss 0.9 million).

Here is a less biased casualties table: http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/casualty.htm

Either significantly rewrite the article, or remove it completely, as it is a big joke now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs)

I can point out one significant problem with the website you provided (other than that it's not a reliable source). It lists the US deaths as 54k; this is an old figure, that includes all US military deaths during the years 1950-1953, including, say, automobile-related deaths in West Germany or training accidents in the US. The reason we don't use the Chinese estimate of US casualties is because it's demonstrably false; numerous independent scholars have examined the US's record of its own wartime casualties, and have verified it. No independent scholars have verified the Chinese records. It's as simple as that. As for the UN casualties, the discrepancy lies with the South Korean figures; sometime in the 80s or 90s, the figure was revised down from in the 800k neighborhood to the figure that's in the infobox right now. Older calculations will probably still have the older 800k number, hence the differing numbers. Parsecboy (talk) 14:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Then you need to add different studies on UN total loss as well.

You can not just add studies that over-estimate Chinese total loss only, it almost look like you are intend to compare the maximum estimation for Chinese loss to your minimum estimation for UN loss, it's more of entertaining stuff than serious study, you know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 14:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

You may want to read through the archived discussion about casualties, which can be found here. Both the Chinese and US estimates of Chinese casualties are provided, I don't know what you're talking about. The article doesn't use the Chinese estimates of UN casualties because they are demonstrably false. NPOV doesn't require including views that are unquestionably wrong. Parsecboy (talk) 15:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

First, lets talk about the UN loss:

Your west source is a joke, how could the american loss in Korea war can be reduced from 54000 to 36000 simply because they miscalulated the place where the guys dead back then? You mean your officials/new reporters back then were just a bunch of utter idiots who could not tell the difference between Europe/America/Asia, could not tell the diffence between KIA in Korea and drunk to death in a strip club in Germany, and then just simply put all the death as life loss in Korea?

Not to mention that the S.Korea could reduced their loss from 1.3 million to as low as under 0.3 million in 90s, what an utter joke, I guess just like the americans,back then, the koreans were also a bunch of fools who could not count any number beyond the total fingers they had.

Rubbish like that keep me from taking your west media rubbish seriously.

Now, lets talk about Chinese loss:

Given the fact your pathetic record on counting your own bodies properly, how could you give any, even remote to true, estimation on the Chinese loss?

You know, I really find its funny that how you can estimate our total loss since you were busy retreating all the time and hardly have any leisure to count anything, not to mention back then you guys could not count, as you have proved.

Anyway, for a less laughable comparison, at least you guys need to remove the US estimation for Chinese loss as well since it is, at the very very least, just as unreliable as Chinese estimation for UN loss.

Btw, I found another problem in the article, the Chinese source(reference #15) provided in the main page mentioned:

"148,000 deaths altogether, among which 114,000 died in combats, incidents, and winterkill, 21,000 died after being hospitalized"

Therefore, the 114,000 should not be considered as KIA, since the number also includes those dead by incidents/winterkill.

Anyway, it is very obviously the wiki article is a laughing stock.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 17:06, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you read through the archived discussion to which I linked? What happened with the US casualty figures was a clerical error; the US Government had figures for total deaths during each of those years, not necessarily those who died in the war. Initially, it was mistakenly assumed that those figures were only for war-related casualties, but this was later corrected. Please advance a serious argument in regards to this issue, or don't waste both of our time.

As for Chinese casualties, the article says as much. From the casualties section of the article: "Chinese People's Volunteers suffered 148,000 deaths altogether (among which 114,000 died in combat, incidents, and winterkill, 21,000 died after being hospitalized and 13,000 died from diseases); 380,000 were wounded and 29,000 missing, including 21,400 POWs (of whom 14,000 were sent to Taiwan, 7,110 were repatriated)." It also mentions the Chinese claims about casualties inflicted on the UN forces, including the patently false claim of almost 400k US casualties.

I really don't see what you think is wrong with this article. Perhaps you should state clearly what you think should be changed. Parsecboy (talk) 19:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I have already made it very clearly:

1. Since in the article you have not mentioned the Chinese estimation of U.S. loss, for the fair of comparison, you should remove the U.S. estimation of Chinese loss as well, since it is just as unreliable.

2. The S.Korea number is obviously way too low, the U.S. estimation, the Chinese/N.Korea estimation are all much higher than that, and acutally S.Korea's own estimation is not consistant with each other, according to the book <<Korea Military History>> written by the Military History Dep. of S.Korea's DoD, the total loss is 227,800 dead, 717,100 wound and 43,500 missing, while you claim there are other sources say the number is way lower, yet a source has not been provided.

Therefore, you should include this around 1 million loss for Korea number in your article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 20:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The common tactics US empolyed in Korea war is using S.Korean troop to fight first, it is rather highly unlikely that the S.Korea's loss is as low as 0.3 million, the number is questionable at best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 20:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The Chinese estimate is included in the article, in the Casualties section. It's not in the infobox because it is demonstrably false. As for the South Korean figures, all I can tell you is that they have been dramatically revised several times since the war, and what's there now is the current estimate. If you have other sourced figures, they should probably be added into the Casualties section. Lastly, it's not my article—it's not anyone's article. We can all make changes as we see fit, provided they are in line with policies like WP:RS and WP:NPOV, and there is consensus to do so. Parsecboy (talk) 22:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Er. yeah right. you said 227,800 dead. So that problem has ended. Dead doesn't equal wounded.Kfc18645 talk 15:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

When I say loss I mean casualties which=total dead+total wound+total missing+total captured, etc, since English is not my first language, I prefer to use some rather simple word to discrbie the similar thing. By the way, since current S.Korea's total loss is unsourced, I suggest remove it and use a sourced 980k number instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 18:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

America's Wars in Asia (1997) gives an estimated figure of 59,000 SK war deaths (military only), that supports the number in the article. The Korean War (2001) also provides the 59,000 figure for South Korean deaths, although it has a higher number of non-fatal casualties, at an estimated 250,000 compared to about 175k listed here.

A Troubled Peace (2006) provides slightly different figures, and attributes them to the UN report: 47,000 KIA, 183,000 non-fatal casualties, and 70,000 MIA and POW. Parsecboy (talk) 18:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, those links doesn't provide the reference to the number listed in the amusing article written by west/korean day-dreamers, maybe they have not decided which number should make UN looks less miserable yet lol. I believe a ZERO loss should be best fit for such purpose, hence how about you simply put a ZERO casualties for UN here, since afterall the west estimation of their own loss in KW is uniformly convergent to ZERO as time goes, lol.

Jokes aside, since even those links your provided doesn't agree with each other, therefore I still suggest to remove those entertaining numbers.

I think Chinese scholars should reduced Chinese side of loss to 1/10th or so of the orignal estimation as well, otherwise we can not keep up with your pace of re-writting the history, lol. However maybe they aren't that pathetic, so they don't need to do that anyway.

Anyway, since wiki is not considered as serious source and full of entertaining articles, I guess one more is not that bad, you guys can write whatever you want, however just keep this in mind, history is something that has already happened and therefore wont change no matter how amusing a pathetic article is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pptv2r2 (talk • contribs) 09:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

It will probably never be known exactly how many Koreans died during the war, so it's unreasonable to expect every source to agree. Just the same with the current war in Iraq, there are no firm figures for the number of Iraqis that have been killed, only estimates that differ widely from each other. Also, if you don't have an argument to make, please don't post here; Wikipedia is not a forum for discussion. Parsecboy (talk) 12:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Helicopters

Can we talk about the use of helicopters in the Korean war? It was the first time they where used in war. Try reading some pages on it. Or google it, like this. User:Micov 76.179.164.79 (talk) 06:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

UN and Communist forces in Belligerents

I strongly object to this. This is POV. It suggests that the UN was fighting communism. The USSR was in the UN. Its not needed information. It makes the article seem anti-communist and therefore is in violation of NPOV. I suggest we remove the UN and communist forces in Belligerents to improve the articles neutrality. Ijanderson977 (talk) 18:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

But the UN forces were indeed fighting. This is a fact, whether you like it or not. However, I am ok with removing the label "Communist forces". Colchicum (talk) 19:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This was discussed briefly once (the discussion can be found here). I also agree that "Communist" should go, but as Colchicum says, "UN" should stay. The forces there were fighting under the UN banner; despite the fact that both the USSR and China were on the UNSC. The Soviets were abstaining at the time, to protest the disagreement over whether Mao or Chang Kai-Shek would have the 5th seat on the UNSC. Parsecboy (talk) 20:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It is fine to keep "Communist forces". If you want to remove "Communist forces", one should use another definition/word that unites all military forces/countries on the North Korean side. Would that be "Soviet forces"? Biophys (talk) 19:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the need for a label for the countries on the North Korean side. Take Napoleonic Wars for example; it just lists "French Empire and allies". If there must be an overarching label, then it should probably be "North Korea and allies". Parsecboy (talk) 02:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

All the nations fighting on the communist side were communists, they would have proudly told you they were communists, they would have appreciated being labeled as communists and they would have enthusiastically told you that they were fighting for communism. Calling them communists is historically accurate and I'm sure those nations would have no problem with it. Why not call a spade a spade? - Schrandit (talk) 05:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Because they were not defined as a group by it. In much the same way, the UN forces would be defined as "Democratic forces", and many would have enthusiastically told you they were fighting to bring democracy to Korea. I would have to agree that the "North Korea and allies" label would be much more accurate. Iciac (talk) 07:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong (I probably am), but were some of the countries under "UN" even in the UN at the time? I'm talking about countries such as South Korea, Luxemburg, Greece and Columbia. If they weren't part of the UN at the time, were they specifically fighting under the UN banner? If not, like the "Communist" forces, they should probably be stated under "South Korea and its allies" and the UN forces sublisted under that. Iciac (talk) 22:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I've changed "Communist Forces" to "North Korea and Allies", for a more neutral POV. While the UN label is fine as those countries fought under a UN banner, the nations on the North Korean side never refered to themselves as "Communist Forces". They may have all been communists, but they never formed any alliance called the "Communist Forces", so why should we call them that? Saru (talk) 20:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

or if folks do decide on "communist forces," should not they also include "capitalist forces"? or "imperialist forces"? or.... is this pointing out the obvious impossibility of NPOV and inescapability of POV? Hongkyongnae (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The UN label is inappropriate because it promotes the illusion that there was a global consensus surrounding the invasion and occupation of Korea by the USA and its client states. The historiography of China, for example, calls conflict in Korea the War to Resist U.S. Aggression. Serious scholars observing the conflict in Korea call it a United States campaign fought under a UN flag. It's also worth considering that UN activity on Korea was considered illegal by a significant part of the world. Nierva (talk) 22:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

No, the UN label is quite appropriate, as it was officially under the UN banner. It doesn't matter what China calls the war. Why don't you provide some of these so-called serious scholars? Again, what people thought about the legality of the war is totally irrelevant to whether it was under the UN banner or not. Parsecboy (talk) 22:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Article quality

What is going on here? In doing a little academic work on wars I thought I would see what Wiki had to offer. Several wiki pages, one example of WWII, had a decent presentation for the purposes I needed. This page is just absurd and appears taken over by people with an agenda.

For example, this page subject, the Korean War, was a short time frame, relatively, in a small area, but is a whopping 11 percent, by kb, (and by screen count 25 percent)larger than the site labeled WWII on Wiki. WWII was the most devastating war in the history of the world, both in lives and property. It involved area and nations that make the Korean War pale. The only expansive aspect about this site is that it goes back in time to 700AD anf forward to 2007! That is absolutely amazing when this is about the Korean War; reasonably from 1945 to 1975 for wide prelude and generous end. I could add that the first emperor of Japan was Korean but I somehow cannot connect that to the subject matter. This doesn't need re-working but a complete start over. This work really reflects very poorly on Wiki scholarship. Asvrc100 (talk) 18:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The WWII article is a summary, with reference links to thousands and thousands of wiki sub-articles that are more minutely detailed to a far greater degree than I could ever imagine. For example, the article on Operation Market Garden, just one battle in WWII, is 10% larger than the korean war article. The Korea article is probably more comprehensive, maybe because there are so few sub-articles on the subject?

"this work....poorly" If you think its a Poor article, then you should start rewriting it--Divbis0 (talk) 01:00, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

KCNA

Please stop with senseless obstruction towards an attempt to provide balance to the section titled "Crimes Against POWs." Wikipedia is not a government propaganda network where viewpoints from the other side are excluded. To dispute the reliability of information from the media and government of a country with a solid international reputation is unreasonable. All English-speaking media depends on information published in the DPRK for information on that country. The KCNA is cited in numerous Wikipedia articles. This article itself contains citations from the BBC and sources published by the U.S. Government. Any future attempts to vandalize this article in such a fashion will be resisted. Nierva (talk) 22:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Likewise, Wikipedia is not North Korea's propaganda mouthpiece. The source you are using is clearly not reliable; it's straight propaganda. Any purported "news" website that refers to Americans as "ogres" and Kim Il Sung as "he great leader" is clearly biased (far more so, than, say Fox News). And no, North Korea (like most repressive regimes) most certainly does not have a solid international reputation. If you can provide legitimate scholarly works that support your allegations, fine, add them. But the KCNA is a totally unacceptable source. Removing such controversial and poorly cited claims is not vandalism, it's protecting the quality of the article. Parsecboy (talk) 22:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

While you may have your opinion, international organizations and media would beg to differ. DPRK representatives have regularly been invited to speak at the United Nations. The KCNA is one of the most reliable sources with regard to the situation in Korea. Whether or not the KCNA is biased is irrelevant. The BBC and CNN are equally biased, yet they are cited in this very article. Wikipedia is hardly the place to apply cynical double standards. That the citation has been clearly attributed to a party conforms to Wikipedia policies. Unless the view from the other side is given consideration under a section titled "crimes against POWs", it qualifies as pure propaganda. Nierva (talk) 23:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

If the KCNA is one of the most reliable sources in regards to Korea, I'd hate to see the rest. No, the BBC and CNN don't call North Korean "ogres", nor do they refer to either Bush or Gordon Brown as "the great leader". Again, I suggest you post the KNCA link at the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, and let the sourcing experts decide for us. Parsecboy (talk) 23:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The KCNA definitively is the propaganda mouthpiece of the North Korean regime and it ought not have a place in academic discourse. So help me God I will fight this tooth and nail. If events truly are as they are described by the North Koreans they will be documented in other, legitimate places. Seek them out. - Schrandit (talk) 03:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

CNN is an independent news agency. BBC is supported by the government by taxes, but by charter it operates independent of government. As we all know, both agencies frequently and openly criticize their own governments, and the opinions of those who work for the government. The KNCA is completely different. It is by definition, a communication organ for the North Korean government. Its not just funded by the government, its controlled by the government. If you go to their webpage, there are NO articles that criticize the pongyang. Everything to do with North Korea, its leader and its government is 100% positive. There is NO debating opinions. Therefore I find it ludicrous that Mr. Nierva demands Wikipedia maintain its objectivity by balancing the entire world opinion with that from one, wildly slanted and utterly unobjective opinion expressed by the KNCA. That said, I do believe that the vast majority of the free world recognizes the fantastic bias present in KNCA information, and so long as KNCA's opinions are clearly labeled, I suppose they should be admitted to wikipedia.--Divbis0 (talk) 01:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The report by the DPRK Foreign Ministry is the important aspect of the link. Because it has been attributed as such, it has a place in Wikipedia. That it is linked to the KCNA is irrelevant; the KCNA merely reported what was presented. To include a report by a DPRK governmental organ is wholly consistent with the presence of analagous sources from western countries. Wikipedia is not the place to censor views that stand in contrast to a set of prejudices. Scholars studying Korea have utilized sources published in the DPRK. The KCNA is regularly cited by western news agencies. The KCNA is cited in other Wikipedia articles. You have yet to provide a reasonable explanation for such mischievous behavior.

Speaking of scholarly discourse, all specialists on Korea utilize sources published in the countries of every party. This scholarly book, for example writes: According to north Korean sources, in March, the United States carried out more than 220 espionage flights against North Korea. If scholars find it fit to report what is published in North Korea, then Wikipedia can do the same. Nierva (talk) 02:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

There is, however, a difference between scholarly sources published in North Korea (and the book in question does not identify which sources it used), and the KNCA, which is a propaganda outlet for the North Korean government. Parsecboy (talk) 02:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick comment here. I've read over the POW section and I have to say that the entire section is biased. The parts alledging North Korean war crimes read much the same as the ones alledging US crimes. I've accordingly tagged it for neutrality. As it stands, I believe that the KNCA reference should remain, as it gives a Korean view. However, the entire section needs a major rewrite. Iciac (talk) 07:20, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Its neutral. And, It's clear as it stands; each side disagrees violently with the other. The sources of the claims are clearly given; Hence Its up to the reader to decide which one is probably more or less correct, and..... which one is, er... light entertainment. --Divbis0 (talk) 00:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Gratuitous photograph.

The photograph of a dead Chinese soldier is gratuitous and adds nothing to the article. I suggest that it be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lohengrin9 (talk • contribs) 10:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death in the past, and you can find the related discussions in the archives. The tldr answer is: no, it's been identified as a featured picture, and Wikipedia is not censored for what people might find offensive. There's a picture of an executed American prisoner as well, so there's no NPOV issue going here (i.e., showing dead Chinese and victorious Americans, or the like). Parsecboy (talk) 13:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't care how much this topic has been discussed before. Wiki is supposed to make an attempt to objectivity. On this page, all the UN soldiers are portrayed driving tanks and making heroic postures, not to mention the famous photo of the courageous and winner of the Congressional medal of honor Lt. Baldomero Lopez leading his troops in an attack. And all you have to show for the Chinese side is a dead soldier. Lt. Lopez also died during battle. Maybe you can find a picture of him lying on the battle ground in the same posture as that Chinese soldier and see how people react.

What makes it gratuitous is that combat death is expected during war and this photograph adds nothing. Notice that I did not object to the photo of the US POW being shot. Uncomfortable as it is to look at, it is a proof of war atrocity.

This page is yours, but I can express my opinion.

No one owns any article on Wikipedia. There is, however, a longstanding consensus that the image is valid and useful in this article. It is also a Featured image. I don't see it as gratuitous at all.

As for the rest of the pictures, that's all we've got. If you can find suitably licensed images of Chinese soldiers in combat, or North Koreans driving their T-34s, by all means, upload them and add them to the article. We just don't have them, or have access to them. Plain and simple. Parsecboy (talk) 18:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is difficult to find those photos via google, but I guess the key word is "licensed". In any case, this article is locked up which makes uploading difficult. I just checked the corresponding Chinese, Korean and Japanese pages and I think the Chinese collection of maps and photos are better while the Japanese page has the best collection in my opinion. Lohengrin9 (talk) 19:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

It took me a while to put to reason my visceral reaction against this photo. When 9/11 hit, there were films and photos showing people jumping to their death from the top of the World Trade Center. Needless to say, it was very disturbing to watch and those photos and films caused a minor controversy at the time. Afterward, the media stopped showing them. When asked, a commentator said that it may have had some news value on the first few days, but that value has since disappeared.

This shocking photo is in the same league. The dead soldier once had a family and perhaps a wife who is still alive and children who have grown up. It is insensitive and of poor taste to put it up on World Wide Web for all to see. I don't fault people for publishing it back in the 50's in the height of war, but surely we know better now.

As I said above, it is gratuitous since combat death is expected during war; therefore, this photo showing a dead soldier on the battle ground doesn't add much to the article.

I have just checked the page on Battle of Stalingrad, supposedly the bloodiest battle in human history, and did not find a similar tasteless photo.

Finally, a tasteless photo remains tasteless regardless whether it is in featured picture.

After all the previous discussions, I don't think I can convince anyone on this; nevertheless, it needs to be said.Lohengrin9 (talk) 05:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

What About "Other" Nations?

One gets the impression reading this article that this was exclusively a US war against communists. There is almost (except for the flags in the box!) no mention of the dozen or so nations which sent their boys and equipment there and left so many dead behind. True, US forces did the heavy lifting, but there were others, their commanders, their units, their main battles, their ships and their stories. There are no references even. As for the article in general, it could be so much better. It should be much better. Lacks a clear organization, esthetics and it is rather uneven. No list of major battles. It also needs to be cleansed of some of the grandstanding and posturing. Can someone lead the way?--Murat (talk) 23:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, one thing I can say is that there is a list of major battles.Kfc18645 talk 04:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Picasso Massacre in Korea.jpg

The image Image:Picasso Massacre in Korea.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --08:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to Dongmakgol

Could someone please change the info for Welcome to Dongmakgol? The current description makes it sound like its about an American pilot in this village when in fact the American plays an extremely small role in the film. The movie is about a village, Dongmakgol, that is inhabited by people unaware of the current Korean crisis. Members from both the South and North Korean armies eventually wander to it and are forced to confront one another, at first with great hostility, but then come to understand one another. The American is a mere background character and is only important in a minor sense. Sorry, its just that since it is a Korean film (by the way I am not Korean) I find it offensive that someone who has clearly not seen the film and has only read a summary on an English page would make it seem like it centers around this minor American character. Great film by the way!!! Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.50.233 (talk) 22:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Cerebellum (talk) 00:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Source Attribution

The previous version of the "Crimes Against POWs" section has an outright bias concerning source attribution. A U.S. Government report is not properly attributed while sources from North Korea are identified as "state-controlled" and "frequently antagonistic" as if its content is to be dismissed. It can just as easily be said that the U.S Government is frequently antagonistic against Korea while the U.S. media is controlled by corporations and advertisers. There needs to be attribution for all sides and an absence of this kind of silly commentary. Nierva (talk) 20:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you seriously comparing the US Government's reliability to that the the Korean Central News Agency? - Schrandit (talk) 20:23, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Nierva is a sock of Jacob Peters (talk · contribs). YellowMonkey (click here to chose Australia's next top model!) 00:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Vandilism

The first word of the Stalemate are is bitches. I dont know what was their before and where the paragraph started so could someone who does change it Riggy1990 (talk) 17:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I just fixed it, thanks for pointing that out. Parsecboy (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

South Korean casualties

It seems as though as the casualties for south korean troops are exceptionally low. The casualties compared to the North koreans seem almost too out of place and underexaggerated. There are many sources (Not Chinese ones) and even some american sources that estimate at least 200000 death from the SK army. The source that is attached to the casualty rate of the SK is an american website and only lists american casualties during the korean war. The page that was referenced only talks about the POW and MIA statistics of the SK, and doesnt at all prove the deahs and wounded that is listed on the main page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.167.105 (talk) 13:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

The South Korean casualty figures have been drastically revised several times since the war, particularly when more liberal or conservative governments came to power. It would probably be pretty easy to find at least a half-dozen different estimates. If you have reliable sources that give a recent estimate (within the past 5 to 10 years or so), then by all means, post it. However, the website you have been posting simply doesn't pass muster; it still has the wrong 54k number for American casualties, which was discovered to have been a clerical error years ago. Parsecboy (talk) 15:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you on how many sources can give different accounts. However Why do you think of this source? http://www.korean-war.com/sokorea.html Although it is not the most reliable, some of the sources referenced on the article are also a bit sketchy. I also cannot find the source backing up the SK KIA and wounded that is listed, I might not have searched hard enough, but if I am right, there should be a link to that source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.167.105 (talk) 10:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

That site seems that it's at least somewhat reliable; it does have the correct US casualty figures. It would be helpful if we could find what the Korean government's official casualty figures are, but I'm going to be more or less out of the loop for the next 4 days or so, so I won't be able to do any looking. Parsecboy (talk) 11:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Explanation of edits by Cerebellum on 12/4/08

I understand that this article can be a bit of a touchy subject, so I thought it might be a good idea to explain my recent edits to this page. Nothing too controversial in my opinion, but you never know.

The first couple edits were referencing, and most of the references I added came from one source. I realize that this is not ideal, and hopefully with time the range of sources will broaden, but my reasoning was that even references from a single source are better than no references at all. I hope you agree.

I also removed some verification tags from the Division of Korea section. In all of the cases, the statements to be verified were sourced (multiple sources, in a few cases) and the sources appeared reliable, so it seemed that verification had already happened.

Lastly, I noticed that the section on the Japanese occupation had been moved to near the bottom of the article. No reason had been provided, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. That section is very helpful in helping a reader understand the background of the conflict, but that effectiveness is lost when the section is at the bottom of the article, where few users will read it and, if they do, will probably be confused. I but it back in its original place (in between "Name of the conflict" and "Division of Korea,") and added a couple of citations. Cerebellum (talk) 15:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Neverending

The Korean war hasn't ended, the two countries are still technically at war since it ended in a truce, not an official peace treaty. This has been stated by CNN and the Associated Press several times. Any attack by either side would be completely legitimate and not a "sneak attack" since they are still in conflict. --65.34.48.125 (talk) 00:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)Reggie

The beginning of the war

The beginning of the war is made to seem like it started as a war between the North and South Korean govornments, which is not entirely true. There was a huge amount of support in South Korea when the North crossed the 38th paralell to re-unify the country. The resistance was met after North Korea had already annexed most of the South and the UN (mostly Americans) counter-attacked, and advanced to Pyongyang and beyond, which is when China got involved. So, in effect, the external influence of the US/UN is what led to the Korean War as we know it, and if they had not been involved, Korea would have most probably been unified without any major conflict. 88.146.77.120 (talk) 13:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Biological Warfare

We need some mention of the "germ warfare" allegations against America as it is mentioned in other articles e.g. Wilfred Burchett and Joseph Needham which could then be linked here.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

No, we don't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.48.96 (talk) 05:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Reference style

I noticed that some sources have been cited dozens of times. You could condense the footnotes by using {{harv}} (seeing as there is already a separate References section), or {{rp}}. Just making a suggestion ... --Adoniscik^{(t, c)} 23:15, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! While I'd prefer to use all one type of citation in this article for consistency's sake (eliminating {{harv}}, since there's no way I'm changing all of those footnotes to Harvard citations), I like the idea of using {{rp}} (I wasn't even aware of it until just now; same with {{tl}}, for that matter). Since it looks like the sources I've added are the worst offenders here, I've implemented it on a few of them. If there are no objections, I'll change all of them in a few days. --Cerebellum (talk) 23:48, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Done --Cerebellum (talk) 02:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Communist forces/North Korea and Allies

I don't see what the problem is with calling them "Communist forces" in the infobox. How is it a problem? The hammer and sickle image and communist forces statement was in the infobox for a while before it was changed, why? Other wars between communist/non-communist countries have it in their infoboxes, why should this one? Is there really that much of a problem with it? I mean, the Soviet Union, North Korea and People's Republic of China were the communist forces in the Korean War, right? So what's the problem with calling them communist forces? Speedboy Salesman (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Why not then call their opponents the "Capitalist forces"? It's not an analogous term to "UN forces", and moreover, isn't really correct. This has been discussed several times before: see here and here for two of the more recent discussions. Basically, the problem is that it paints the picture that the three countries were acting as a monolithic block for the sole purpose of the advancement of Communism, something that is just plain false. We shouldn't try to pigeon-hole things into neat categories at the expense of accuracy for the readers. Parsecboy (talk) 06:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

But the Russians, Chinese and North Korean were trying to advance Communism into, at least, South Korea. The one side were "united" so to speak, by communism but the United Nations weren't "united" by capitalism at all. They were just part of the United Nations force. Speedboy Salesman (talk) 10:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

That's just not true; Stalin didn't really care what happened in Korea, he was continually pestered by Mao to assist the North Koreans. Stalin was never a proponent of the "permanent revolution" (hence his split with Trotsky); the main reason he created satellite states in Eastern Europe was that he wanted a buffer against the European attacks on Russia that had been going on every few decades since at least Napoleon. It's highly questionable whether most of the North Koreans were fighting for communism or just fighting to unify their homeland after 40-some odd years of Japanese oppression. Trying to paint something as being black and white when it just isn't is historically inaccurate and a disservice to our readers. Parsecboy (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Mao repeatedly asked Stalin to help the North Koreans, but ultimately it was Stalin who actually let Mao go into North Korea, Mao and Stalin actually tried to have a working relationship around the time of the Korean War, there was no Sino-Soviet split yet. Why is it wrong classing the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and North Korea as "Communist forces"? It fits in every sense of the two words. They all had forces in Korea, and they are all communist. It doesn't matter that the North Koreans were fighting for communism or reunification, they were part of the Korean People's Army, which is a communist army, which in turn, was fighting for communism. Speedboy Salesman (talk) 17:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The status of the Sino-Soviet relationship isn't really as relevant to this issue; the most important point is that Stalin was not involved for any pro-spread-of-Communism beliefs, so it would be incorrect to classify the Soviet involvement as strictly "Communist". Stalin's actions in the realm of foreign relations were almost never about spreading communism; if it had been, he never would have allied himself with either Nazi Germany, or the Western Allies after the Germans turned on him. That's something Western propagandists have always gotten wrong about Stalin. His actions as the head of the Soviet Union were centered more around keeping the USSR in a powerful position and maintaining his own control than it was to destroy the capitalist system and initiate a global revolution (hence, the split with Trotsky, who favored expansionist communism). As for the other two, Kim wanted to unify Korea under his rule and then retreat into his Juche "paradise"; spreading communism by direct force is totally incompatible with Juche's extreme isolationism. Mao, yes, was more in favor of spreading revolutionary communism abroad but he seems to be the only one of the three. Lastly, it implies there was some sort of hegemonic power structure; that's the worst part about labeling them as "Communist" and leaving it at that. Even before the Sino-Soviet split there were tensions between the two, and the North was basically a pawn to both of them. Parsecboy (talk) 19:44, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

You said "if it had been, he never would have allied himself with either Nazi Germany, or the Western Allies after the Germans turned on him." That's original research. You also said "That's something Western propagandists have always gotten wrong about Stalin. His actions as the head of the Soviet Union were centered more around keeping the USSR in a powerful position and maintaining his own control than it was to destroy the capitalist system and initiate a global revolution" which appears to TOTALLY ignore the frequent and vociferous references to communism by the Soviets and Stalin themselves. You may THINK Stalin was all about power, and I may even agree with you, but it still ignores MANY, MANY instances of Soviet references to communism as a motivation, so you assertion that "Stalin was not involved for any pro-spread-of-Communism beliefs" seems to be blatantly ignoring the cast historical precedent and evidence that shows you are wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.48.96 (talk) 05:50, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Ever hear of the phrase "political rhetoric"? It's usually a bunch of huff and puff designed to elicit some reaction, either from the population of the country, or from foreign countries. Your assertions also ignore the fact that Mao broke away from the Soviets for "lacking the will" to foment the global communist revolution, and it wasn't an overnight development: he had been trying to usurp Stalin as the leader of the communist movement since at least the 1940s. Moreover, casting the war as "the free world under the UN fighting them bastard commies for the sake of them being bastard commies" is grotesquely wrong and presents as fact McCarthyist paranoia instead of the more nuanced version that actually took place. Parsecboy (talk) 12:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

That wasn't me by the way. I think the Sino-Soviet relationship at this time was important, because Mao wouldn't have dared to invade North Korea with his army without Stalin's permission. Mao did ask Stalin for permission. Mao may not have liked Stalin as much as he did as a guerilla, but he had to get along with Stalin. He gave a speech at Stalin's 70th birthday. But anyway, I think communist forces is better than NK and allies. The former works, because as I've said, they were all communist at this stage (Kim Il-sung still declared Marxism-Leninism at this point, he didn't proclaim Juche until later, and Mao allowed excerpts of speeches referring to Marxism-Leninism in his Little Red Book, and Stalin, of course, had Lenin's death mask hung in his dachas). So they all had the prevailent form of communist ideology at that time. "North Korea and Allies" makes them sound rag-tag, which they weren't. Speedboy Salesman (talk) 13:54, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to repost something I said back in May about this very issue, since it sums up my objection to using "Communist forces", and you may not have seen it:

In one of the seemingly endless discussions over the contents of the WWII infobox, someone said "The great vice of this place is that editors constantly try to pigeonhole and categorise, even when the material does not conform to a tidy schema. If you can't categorise accurately then don't mislead - let the article explain the complexities of the matter". That, essentially, is my point. Sticking a homogenizing label on an alliance only obscures what was actually going on. Yes, all three countries were communist societies, but that doesn't mean that that was what drove their decisions in participating in the war.

As to the rag-tag bit, does it make it seem that France and her allies were rag tag in the Napoleonic Wars? I just don't see that implication in either case. Parsecboy (talk) 14:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

They were rag-tag enough to lose ;). But it seems that they were more than just allies, they were united by communism, if you'll pardon the expression. Speedboy Salesman (talk) 21:00, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

And the North Koreans/Chinese/Soviets were ragtag enough to only achieve what was essentially the status quo ante bellum ;) I would disagree with the assessment that they were united by communism to any degree greater than they were united by their opposition to Western countries. Parsecboy (talk) 04:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Good point although the UN had more troops in Korea than the communists :D. Not necessarily they were all united against western countries, particularly the Soviets were anxious at the start (particularly didn't want to anger the US) and that's why the Soviets only gave minimal help to the North Koreans, and handed the problem to the Chinese. Actually when it was clear that the North Koreans were losing (before the Chinese intervention), Stalin said (according to "The Court of the Red Tsar") "Let the Americans be our neighbours instead of the North Koreans". If they weren't united by communism, why didn't other "Anti western countries" who weren't communist join in on the North Korean/Chinese/USSR side? Why was it only some communist forces who fought the UN? Because by your logic, anti-western, non communist countries would maybe have joined the war on the communist side, which was unlikely to happen. Speedboy Salesman (talk) 19:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The Coalition had more troops than Napoleon did, too :) If the Soviets were really motivated solely by Communism, Stalin wouldn't be so nonchalant about the prospect of the total defeat of his Communist neighbor, as he seems to be in the quote you provided. The explanation for why only the Chinese and Soviets became involved was because they were the only major non-West-aligned powers in the region; the only other major power in northern Asia—Japan—was still under occupation. But that question is flawed, as it examines only one variable: I could just as easily ask the question why Yugoslavia, a non-aligned Communist state did not join the fight for the expansion of Communism (which you seem to be getting at in the second to last sentence). Parsecboy (talk) 06:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

KCNA

This particular section is troublesome. A quick look at the "news" on the page show it to be in the traditional propaganda mode, barely anything we'd consider a reliable source for anything. Since the cited material itself cites US government documents and testimonies, if there is any validity to these claims, one would expect there to be a better source for this material. In the absence of that, simply citing the extraordinary claims gives undue weight; these are accusations of war crimes (They separated babies from their mothers and herded them into different warehouses. They poured gasoline upon the crying babies, instead of letting them suck their mothers' milk, and set fire to them. Not content with this, they threw hand-grenades over them, massacring all of them.). The material should be removed. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I and others objected to it as well initially, as can be seen on this talk page (probably in the archives by now). However, it was taken to the WP:RS/noticeboard, where uninvolved editors there felt that as long as the allegations were properly attributed, they were fine in the article. We do have to present the allegations of "the other side", no matter how much we believe them to be completely false. I have no objection to the section being rewritten, but it shouldn't be discarded completely. Parsecboy (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Why do we have to present the allegations of "the other side"? Do we put unembellished Nazi propaganda in WWII articles? It's really obviously crapola; it can be discussed as propaganda, and perhaps as an example of what passes for news in absolute dictatorships, but in a factual article? Really? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 04:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

It's sort of funny, I've made similar objections to the KCNA in previous discussions. The most recent discussion can be found here. The related discussion at the RS/Noticeboard can be found here. As long as it is determined that the KCNA is a reliable source for claims the North Korean government is making against the US and South Korean military, it has a place in this article. The paragraph could certainly be trimmed if it's decided that it's too much per WP:UNDUE, but again, I don't think it shouldn't be removed completely. Parsecboy (talk) 05:08, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I really don't know why something this ridiculous should be included. If we start to include such things where will it end? Will you also include KKKs assertions in an article about African-American history? Wikipedia's policy clearly sates that "Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. " How can be a news agency where a brutal dictator is "Dear Leader" and Americans are "Vicious Ogres" be considered reliable?

Also according to Wikipedia gudilines "Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as fringe, pseudoscience or extremist should be used only as sources about themselves and in articles about themselves or their activities", this is not an article about KCNA - and "An individual extremist or fringe source may be entirely excluded if there is no independent evidence that it is prominent enough for mention. The material taken from such sources should not involve claims made about third parties. Fringe and extremist sources must not be used to obscure or describe the mainstream view, nor used to indicate a fringe theory's level of acceptance."

A properly edited version could be included, but there is no justification of including it in present form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.223.113 (talk) 07:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

However, you've missed the point that the KCNA is a reliable source for what the government of the DPRK claims the US did during the Korean War. No matter how false we believe it to be, it has to be included per WP:NPOV. It's why the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide is included in that article, despite the fact that most reputable historians assert that it did in fact happen. We don't get to decide what to include based on what we know to be true. Parsecboy (talk) 14:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:YESPOV states "Wikipedia's nature as an encyclopaedia demands that articles should always use the best and most reputable sources. A neutral point of view cannot be synthesised merely by presenting a plurality of opposing viewpoints, each derived from a polarised source."

To me KCNA is worse than a polarised source. It is pure fantasy. If you really want to include it than you should at least also include some background about KCNA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.240.58 (talk) 15:24, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Considering the section of the article, there's no real need. Yes, if we have a source referring to KCNA as a hooey-generating mouthpiece of a nutcase dictator, we can temper the claims with that; but otherwise, the section is about claims, propagandistic or otherwise, and we're not giving KCNA's characterization of its claims -- we're giving the claims themselves. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I never said the section couldn't or shouldn't be rewritten, I just don't feel that it should be removed completely. Qualify their claims however you see fit, but they should be included, regardless of whether they are true or not, per WP:V. Parsecboy (talk) 20:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Wait a sec. WP:V doesn't say if it's verifiable it should be included; it says if it's included, it must be verifiable. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

The very first line says that the threshold of inclusion is verifiability, not whether it's true or not. No, it's not at all likely that even some of the claims issued by the KCNA are true, but they are verifiable claims made by the KCNA. Therefore, as long as the claims are properly attributed, they're perfectly fine for the article. Parsecboy (talk) 00:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

If the consensus is that the claims belong in there, the fact that the claims are verifiable as claims allows them to pass muster. However, the fact that they are verifiable does not in itself mandate they be included; that's an editorial decision the community gets to make. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 04:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The North Koreans destroyed 89 tanks??

Apparently this article says the north koreans destroyed 89 south korean tanks, but in the previous paragraph its said that the south koreans had no tanks? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.197.73.168 (talk) 04:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

That paragraph was just changed, less than 4 hours ago (see here). There appears to be a discrepancy somewhere (the source can be found here). The paragraph that states that the North Koreans destroyed 89 tanks, 76 artillery pieces, etc. is completely unsourced. Given that we do have a source for the claim that the South Koreans had no tanks, I'd argue that it would be better to modify the article to match what it says. Any thoughts? Parsecboy (talk) 04:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Me again, I agree.

I would suggest- North Koreans claim to have destroyed 89 tanks, 76 artillery pieces, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.197.73.168 (talk) 19:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

But, we don't have a source for the claim by North Korea. If you can find a source supporting that North Korea claimed to have destroyed the tanks/artillery/etc., then it can be re-added. Parsecboy (talk) 18:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

A whole load of Korean War Images = CC-BY-NC-ND??

I stumbled upon US Army Korea - IMCOM's photostream on flickr via an unrelated search, and I noticed that it has alot of Korean War Era pics. However, the licensing is CC-BY-NC-ND, which would make it intelligible for Wikipedia useage. In one image, it also has the "disclaimer" Cleared for public release. This image is generally considered in the public domain - Not for commercial use. But this has got me confused. If these are of (any) US Armed Forces origin, shouldn't it by default be Public Domain without restriction? Theirs even alot of (C) images on the site, but again, if this is of Military origin, isn't it PD by default if it was taken by a member of the US armed forces while on duty??

I wanted to raise this issue on Commons, but after a frustrated search to find even a place to discuss it (and the lack of discussion thereof at commons), I gave up and figured I try the main Wikipedia site first given there has to be someone around monitoring the Korean War pages and start from there.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 09:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that any of the images that are licensed under the CC-BY-NC-ND license should be suitable for upload. Many if not a significant majority probably are in the public domain, but we should probably use the proper license unless we have actual proof. There is the possibility that some of the images were taken by a war correspondent, which would mean the image is not a work of the government, and therefore still within copyright protection (which is probably why some of them are marked as still being copyright protected). I hope that helps. Parsecboy (talk) 15:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Now alot of the Copyrighted images have reverted to CC-BY-NC-ND. The heck??? --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

article needs to be downsized

I would take some of the "fat" out of it.--Levineps (talk) 07:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Fat? Which are the fat parts? Will Beback talk 08:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Ideally, this article would indeed be quite a bit shorter, but ideally, there would be a dozen or so supporting articles about the various offensives, operations, major battles, etc. The "Characteristics" sections would each have their own articles. Until that happens, however, we have to choose between a longer-than-ideal article, or cutting out content; to my mind, the first option is preferable. Cerebellum (talk) 13:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Question

KIA, MIA? What's that supposed to be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.177.24.28 (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

"Killed in action" and "Missing in action". Parsecboy (talk) 16:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is the article 'protected' when it clearly needs all the help it can get as far as cleaning up is concerned. I am unable to make even cosmetic changes. Vrlak (talk) 01:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Where's the NPOV? Nothing in Talk page about the 2 sections

Two sections of this article have been labeled as not having NPOV. I see nothing on the discussion page stating what's disputed. The person(s) putting the labels on the article should step up. Jjjanos (talk) 16:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC) JJJAnos

Conflicts in article

I found a discrepancy. When they mention the Battle of Osan on this page it says:

""" The first significant foreign military intervention was the American Task Force Smith, part of the U.S. Army's 24th Infantry Division based in Japan.[26]:45 On July 5, it fought for the first time at Osan and was immediately defeated with 1,416 casualties and 785 taken prisoner. """

Then on the page dedicated to the Battle of Osan it says:

""" Vastly outnumbered and ill-equipped, U.S. Task Force Smith of 540 men suffered 180 casualties while inflicting about 120 casualties on the North Korean force and delaying them half a day. """

I made no correction but will leave it for someone else to look in to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.153.57.211 (talk) 05:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"The conflict arose from the attempts of the two Korean powers to re-unify Korea under their respective governments." I was wanting to correct this in that the Korean war was intiated on the behalf of Kim Il-sung. It was not, as stated, started on behalf of both governments wanting to unify. Granted both governments had that objective once the war started, but the way it is stated is (deliberately) misleading. As soon as Kim Il-sung was guaranteed Soviet support for the operation from Stalin by way of his underlings, Kim moved to take Seoul and then pushed south towards Pusan where the 8th army was surrounded for a good amount of time :/ Vrlak (talk) 01:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"the South Korean military had no tanks at all", yet two paragraphs later, "the largest battle between only North and South Korean forces happened. The North Koreans destroyed 89 tanks". Are we to assume that the North Koreans destroyed their own tanks??? I made no change, as I can't find a reliable source at the moment to discern the truth. ricegf —Preceding undated comment added 03:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC).

Casualties

I was looking at some photos of mine of the Korean War memorial. Enscribe on the memorial it clearly states "DEAD U.S.A. 54,246 U.N. 628,833

MISSING U.S.A. 8177 U.N. 40,267

CAPTURED U.S.A. 7,170 U.N. 92,970" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.253.132.140 (talk) 07:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The US figures are the result of a clerical error; the Army released casualty figures for the entire Army between 1949 and 1953, not just the portion deployed to Korea. So a training death in Germany, for example, is included in the figure. The error was discovered after the memorial was built, and they haven't changed it (who knows why). Parsecboy (talk) 12:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Casualty figures

I think that they are grossly in error. Even when you take into consideration admitted counts rather than body counts. For instance the Chinese count is off their official estimate by ~20,000. The UN estimate of Chinese casualties is nowhere near the 400,000 quoted, rather it is closer to 1 million ^[1] The BBC is fine and dandy for popular news events, but history should be left to credentialed academics.

In the end, distorting the facts, either deliberately or accidentally, is doing a disservice to the warriors of both sides in this nearly 60 year-old war. Vrlak (talk) 01:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's a discrepancy wrt the Chinese figures; casualties includes both KIA and WIA. The BBC source has a total of 886,000+ for KIA+WIA, and another 21,000 POW. That seems to fit to me. Parsecboy (talk) 01:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Right before that it lists 33,000 US casualties which would imply that the context of casualties in this sense is KIA rather than KIA+WIA. I might be reading it wrong though. Vrlak (talk) 01:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

perhaps they destroyed american tanks? Barciur (talk) 04:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Infractions

There are a lot of infractions after Korean War that are not listed on the events. Anyone plans to update these? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kadrun (talk • contribs) 21:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you be a little more specific? If you're referring to incidents such as the Axe Murder Incident or any of the North Korean tunnels, they really aren't in the scope of this article, which just covers the fighting between 1950 to 1953. Parsecboy (talk) 22:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Korean War

Under the chapter "Americam Intervention" the first paragraph says "United States of Government." This should be changed to United States Government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balloonguy55 (talk • contribs) 00:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Aftermath of Chosun - Operation Glory

Shouldn't this section be moved down? It breaks up the chronology, since the body exchange occurred after hostilities had ended. Could also be rephrased to make clear that the exchange was officially termed "Operation Glory." And by whom was it named? Captqrunch (talk) 16:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Canada flag is wrong

I don't know how to change it, but the Canadian flag used in the article is wrong. The maple leaf wasn't adopted until 1965. The World War 2 articles have the correct one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.133.249 (talk) 04:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. Iciac (talk) 06:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

citation for accusation that USSR "did not want" elections

The page which citation 43 leads to does not have any real proof of this claim. Can anyone find any article which confirms that the USSR flat-out "did not want" elections? If not, this claim should certainly be deleted from the article, and all related articles in which the same claim is made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.66.62 (talk) 08:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, the article states that the USSR "opposed" the idea of elections in Korea. The link used as a citation is no kind of objective source of fact - not by a long shot. Did the USSR oppose elections because socialist parties had been outlawed in the US-administered regions? If so, then that is a relevant detail which MUST be included in the article. Some details around this would be great, too - such as how many candidates ran against Syngman Rhee, voter turnout, etc, because I have read that the election was extremely dubious indeed. Perhaps also mentioning how Kim Sung-Il enjoyed wide popular support, while Syngman Rhee's brigades were seen as collaborators of foreign powers, would make the article more accurate and objective. The absence of these details skews the truth so as to justify the insane anti-communist crusade which the US led, as so many Wikipedia articles currently do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.241.140 (talk) 04:12, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Additionally the Casaulty figures for task for smith are approx 1400, whereas the task force smith page states the force only consists of 540 personnel? ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.209.7.112 (talk) 13:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Response to Neutrality Dispute

After reading the "neutrality disputed" section of the page, I think that there is probably no case for this. The POW section was composed very carefully with facts backing each and every statement. I didn't detect even a hint of POV.

If there are sources to contradict the statements presented here, the person complaining about neutrality should add them, and in force. Otherwise, the complaint about neutrality should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.99.132.133 (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you read my section above? What I already mentioned is plenty to justify a NPOV tag, and it goes on like that through the whole article. Wikipedia is not meant to promote ingrained anti-communist assumptions, yet this article is written like something from the McCarthy era. I have no idea why you mentioned the POW section in particular, as I had not mentioned that. 96.50.66.62 (talk) 06:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree about the communist statement - much of the article requires a more neutral (and less American focused) rewrite. The anonymous user refered to the POW section because there is an already existing tag specifically for that section. When the tag was originally placed, the POW section had definite biases, recently however it has improved (although it could still use a rewrite). Currently, I'd say the section is no more biased than the rest of the article. Iciac (talk) 08:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

appropriate belligerent names

the table refers to the sides as "the UN" and "North Korea and allies", yet the text continually uses "the communist forces", "the communists", "communist chinese", etc...

Should we go ahead and change all these to "the North" or "the allies"? Anatoly.bourov (talk) 05:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No, Chinese forces and DPRK forces should be differentiated. And US, ROK, etc. Edward2020 (talk) 14:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated claim of US war crime

From the article:

The US administration responded by declaring martial law, firing into crowds of demonstrators and killing an unknown number of people.[40]

This is hardly a reputable source for such a claim. The cited source is a radical (their own definition) Australian weekly newspaper. The ten year old article that makes this claim provides no sources to back up its claim that the US administration ordered the indiscriminate killing of unarmed Korean civilians in 1945. Unless a reputable source can be found--and I've searched already without luck--this line should be immediately removed from the article. 72.75.10.251 (talk) 19:47, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Removed. ND Conservative (talk) 13:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistent army strength of the South Korean army

I am curious how come the first paragraph about the South Korean army described that they had no tanks or fighters, then later claimed that North Korean armies destroyed 89 tanks in the first major battle with the South before the UN intervention. Is it a grammatical error or inconsistency? That does not seem to be referring to US tanks, as later on in the paragraph of South Korean strength it says US troops were stationed in Japan (actually as agreement with USSR none of the two powers had significant presence before the war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.175.229.1 (talk) 00:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Also there is the following discrepancy: "the South Korean air force consisted of a mere 12 liaison-type aircraft and 10 advance trainers (AT6)" - which then is followed by: "North Korean forces occupied Seoul on the afternoon of June 28. An air battle took place over the city in which 37 South Korean fighters were shot down while only 9 North Korean fighters were downed. Two days later, the largest battle between only North and South Korean forces happened. The North Koreans destroyed 89 tanks, 76 artillery pieces, 19 bombers, and 21 fighters" - unless my maths is shocking these numbers just dont add up!

Yeah that struck me too - the article specifically states that the battle when 89 South Korean tanks were destroyed was the largest battle that only involved North Korean and South Korean forces. So were there South Korean tanks or not? 152.91.9.219 (talk) 03:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Come Back, Joe and Mao!

It's amazing to find people defending communism and objecting to the "neutrality" of this article because it blames the communists and the north koreans. Let' start with a simple premise. Communism ruled by force and intimidated or killed anyone who challenged or did not accept the unquestioned rule of the party. Communism was not popular - this is why you never hear of masses of refugees fleeing towards communist forces. The story of the korean war is pretty straightforward. The American inadvertently signaled that South Korea was outside their sphere; Kim jumped on it; Stalin duped the Chinese into a war; there were human right violations on both sides but the vast majority were committed by communist forces (hence the flight of huge numbers of people away from the communists). Were there any free elections in the countries taken over by the Soviets after world war 2? Clearly not, and Korea would have been no different. Official Chinese statistics are always distorted for political purpose (to avoid any criticism of the party), so citing them uncritically is nonsense. By any metric you chose - economy, freedom of expression, environment, health, even height and weight, the people of North Korea are worse off than their neighbours and this is the result of communist rule and the intervention of the Soviet Union and China. I understand the desire of many wikipedians to tell simpleminded morality tales in which the Americans are the bad guys, but if wikipeida wants to be taken seriously it needs a way to ensure careful sourcing of evidence and a better means to distinguish opinion from fact in its articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaintes (talk • contribs) 14:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

There are so many factual errors in what you just typed. First, do you think Syngman Rhee's government was any less brutal? Communism actually was popular in Korea at the time (the Soviets and CCP were the only ones helping the Koreans fight Japan during the latter's occupation of the former). Stalin didn't dupe anyone; it was the Chinese who twisted Stalin's arm into backing the DPRK. It's ironic that you think the "desire of many wikipedians [is] to tell simpleminded morality tales"; I see the desire to propagate Cold War-era hypernationalist propaganda as an even worse problem. The changes you suggest would make the article so one-sided (not to mention factually inaccurate) it would completely fail our core goal: producing objective articles. Parsecboy (talk) 15:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. It's a matter of history that China intervened in the Korean War because it feared expanding US action. That fear was, in hindsight, misplaced, but there was no conspiracy to get involved in North Korea, and no love lost between the Soviets and Chinese, leading to an eventual gulf between the two countries that Nixon exploited by visiting China in 76. There's already an article on McCarthyism, so there is no need for this "the reds were hideous monsters trying to overthrow our great way of life". Both sides saw the Korean war as a defensive war: the US wanted throw back the aggressive North Koreans, who they falsely assumed to be part of a monolithic communist bloc that never really existed, the Chinese wanted to throw back the threat of US intervention throughout Asia to undermine regional powers. The North Koreans alone were aggressors in this war and their goal was more nationalist than communist - unify the country. 152.91.9.219 (talk) 03:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

According to Henry Kissinger's memoirs, because China had no direct contact with the US, China asked India to pass the message to the US that China will tolerate the UN forces to push the North Koreans back to the 38th parallel. The message was clearly sent that if the UN forces cross the 38th parallel then China will perceive that as an aggression and will help North Korea push back to the 38th parallel. Kissinger said McArthur did not agree and pushed through the boarder. A miscalculated McArthur induced US action led directly to China joining the war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.214.222.172 (talk) 05:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

If major hostilities started again

I assume that info would just be added to this article since technically the war has never ended? Given recent events I thought now would be a good time to ask. Cryomaniac (talk) 20:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that North Korea has officially cancelled the armistice, there should be an end date added to the armistace details. 222.155.69.112 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:14, 27 May 2009 (UTC).

If hostilities were really major, I'd imagine a separate"Korean War (20xx)" article would be created. So much time has passed since the last war (even if a state of war still technically exists), that new "major" fighting would probably be seen by many as a new war. To give another example: Lebanon has been technically been at war with Israel since 1948 (except maybe briefly when Israel tried to install a pro-Israeli regime), but each conflict between Israeli forces and Lebanon is termed a separate "war", eg the 1982 war, the 2006 war. 78.154.112.26 (talk) 21:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Discrepancy in ROK Air Force Numbers

This paragraph:

According to Roy E. Appleman in "South to the Naktong - North to the Yalu", the South Korean Army had 98,000 soldiers of whom only 65,000 were combat troops. Unlike their northern opponents the South Korean military had no tanks at all, and the South Korean air force consisted of a mere 12 liaison-type aircraft and 10 advance trainers (AT6). There were no large foreign combat units in the country when the war began, but there were large American forces stationed in nearby Japan.[34]

Suggests the South Koreans only had 20 planes but two paragraphs later the article states that '37 South Korean fighters' were shot down over Seoul. Two days later, it says that 21 more fighters were destroyed.

Unless I have misunderstood it seems plain that either the numbers cited are incorrect or Appleman's estimates are wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.205.120.167 (talk) 19:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Tanks or no tanks? =

In the 5-6th paragraph detailing the invasion, it is first said that South Korea had no tanks, then that NK destroyed 98 tanks. Is it a typo? Meaning SK destroyed 98 tanks? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.145.171.169 (talk) 00:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

about colombia

Colombia send 4.314 men ,there were 111 officers and 590 subofficers.the losses were: 163 killed in action ,448 wounded ,28 prisoners(They recovered the freedom at the end of the war) and 2 lost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.82.140.34 (talk) 00:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

N Korea rejects armistice, 2009

Should it be mentioned that yesterday (May 27 2009) North Korea said that 'it no longer considers itself bound by the armistice'?Jandrews23jandrews23 (talk) 10:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be appropriate to add it in, with a reliable source, of course. Dawn Bard (talk) 11:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that this has been added, very prominently to the introductory paragraph. I am not sure it is such an important event as to be included in the very top paragraph of the article. Being included in the Legacy section, where other relevant post-war events are mentioned, seems to be a better option.

As well, to be objective and clear, any mention of North Korea's cancellation of the armistice must mention South Korea's failure to sign the armistice in the first place, and that the North's reasoning is that the south has, in its view, violated the armistice.

24.69.66.116 (talk) 08:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I have added this to the Legacy section. I'll wait for others' opinions before removing it from the Intro paragraph. I've also removed a few lines of commentary from the Legacy section: "As the health of the Northern leader Kim Jong-Il has waned, North Korea has acted with increasing hostility. In January 2009, threats have been issued towards the south, and all communication has been stalled. By February 1 2009, North Korea once again threatens to open a war between the countries." This is not exactly an encyclopedic view of the recent events (for example, "threats" have not been issued to the south, but warnings against inspection of north korean ships have), and not every thing which North Korea does to make headlines should be included in the Korean War article. If it were, the article would be much too long. 24.69.66.116 (talk) 09:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Crimes against civilians

Under the section "War crimes", subsection "Crimes against civilians" there appears, "Main article: No Gun Ri massacre." I propose that this be changed to "See also: No Gun Ri massacre", or better yet that the massacre be detailed in its own text under this subsection. The way it's worded now implies that this particular massacre was the MAIN or MAJOR civilian massacre of the entire war, when in fact it was one of many (and arguably minor relative to some of the others). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nhr6 (talk • contribs) 00:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I edited this section, as the previous wording was confusing: "At least 100,000 people were hastily shot and dumped into makeshift trenches, abandoned mines or the sea after communist North Korea invaded the south in June 1950. Declassified records show U.S. officers were present at one of these sites and that at least one U.S. officer sanctioned another mass political execution if prisoners otherwise would be freed by the North Koreans." The first sentence states unambiguously that the killings were done by the communists, which is false, so I revised this to specify that the killings were accomplished by the southern forces. 24.69.66.116 (talk) 06:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Photo in "Legacy" section

I don't think the U.S. Army public relation picture of a senior American officer apparently showing two young South Korean soldiers which way the wind blows serves any sensible purpose. Suggestion: delete. --Bernardoni (talk) 01:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Montage in the infobox

Isnt it kind of US centric? Four of the five pictures feature US related subjets, trucks, jets, infanterie. Even though the war is the "Korean War" there are no pictures of ether Korea in it. Or any of the other 26 other countries that participated with the exeption of China. The montage used on the WWII article atleast shows British, Chineese, Germans, Japanese and Soviets.--SelfQ (talk) 19:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Update on South Korean/civilian casualty

Numbers are changed by great difference. All numbers of casualties are from Ministry of Republic of Korea Armed Forces. The number of KIA and MIA/POW likely to be increase/decrease as South Korea exhume the body of dead. Kadrun (talk) 22:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

UN crossed Yalu?

The UN Command’s counter-invasion of North Korea worried the Chinese — correctly presuming that the US, UN, and ROK Army forces would not respect the Yalu River-border between North Korea and China, and would attack the People’s Republic of China as an expedient, opportune extension of the US’s anti-Communist Rollback Policy.

I can't figure out what this refers to. Mao told the Politburo he would intervene at a meeting on Aug. 4, before Inchon or crossing the 38th parallel even came up as issues, never mind crossing the Yalu. The above implies that U.S. forces actually crossed the Yalu, which AFAIK never occurred. After the Chinese invaded Korea, MacArthur and other generals suggested bombing Chinese staging areas Manchuria, but (unfortunately, in my view) Truman never approved. Kauffner (talk) 09:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Was McArthur right?

After all, United Sates lost about 38,000 men and didn't won. If the United States fought why more will, they could win? Was general Douglas McArthur right?Agre22 (talk) 23:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)agre22

No. You don't win a land war in asia. China could have poured another million troops onto the peninsula. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.217.6.235 (talk) 04:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

This is completely unrealistic. The supply lines across Manchuria were stretched to the limit as it was, with deprivation-related disease rampant among the Chinese troops. If they "could have" poured another million troops in, why didn't they? Kauffner (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

McArthur was not advocating a land war with conventional means but rather a nuclear war conducted from the air, using the closing events of WWII as a proposed model for winning in Korea. Please see James, D. Clayton (1985), The Years of Macarthur: Volume 3: Triumph and Disaster 1945–1964, 3, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0-395-36004-8, pp.653-655; this reference may also be found in the Wikipedia article on Douglas McArthur at #46. David Corliss (talk) 03:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think MacArthur was a very good general, otherwise he wouldn't have lost the battle at Chosin Reservoir. There was plenty of warning that the Chinese were about to strike, even as MacArthur ordered a new general offensive and proclaimed that the troops would be, "home by Christmas." MacArthur did have several good ideas that Truman rejected: Bring in KMT troops from Taiwan, bomb the Chinese supply routes in Manchuria. Gradual U.S. escalation would have given the communists a motive to make peace, something they didn't have after Truman promised not to advance north of the 38th parallel again. On the other hand, MacArthur was a bit of loose cannon, especially with regard to nuclear weapons. He repeatedly asked for authorization to use them at almost every stage of the war, even though his though his understanding of nuclear weapons was limited. He was also insubordinate, so Truman had good reason to fire him. Truman was thinking of moving a nuke to Korea at the time as a psywar tactic and needed someone reliable in command. Kauffner (talk) 11:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's be careful with captions

These photos have been edited-and-reverted-and edited again:

These guys are manning a machinegun, not "stopping international communism". The "stopping communism" caption is silly, IMO. They are undoubtedly manning a machinegun position, that's unambiguous and describes what they are doing specifically. We can see that. "Stopping communism" is POV. It is also unnecessarily vague - that caption could theoretically be applied to any photo of any UN troops/sailors/airmen anywhere and it would always be meaningless.

This tank is an M46, recognizable by the lack of a twin exhaust on the rear plate. The similar M26 had a small, twin-pipe exhaust on the rear plate and lower drive sprockets. Kindly do not revert this caption if you do not know the recognition features.

Regards, DMorpheus (talk) 16:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

US artillerymen fire a 105mm howitzer, Uirson, Korea, August 1950.

Another caption that has been changed back-and-forth several times in the last week or so. The link to the M101 howitzer article should provide any information anyone needs. Calling this piece a "howitzer cannon" (or "canon" as it was spelled last week) is a misnomer at best. The weapon type is howitzer. "Cannon" is merely a less-specific name; all howitzers are cannons but not all cannons are howitzers. An analogy would be to caption a Rickenbacker guitar as a "guitar musicial instrument" rather than just providing a link to 'guitar'. Hope this helps. DMorpheus (talk) 18:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

National varieties of English

I'm unsure about whether to use British or American spelling in this article. In the July 6 revision, the only British spelling I spotted was "labour". Since then, the diffs show an active conversion to British spellings (recognised, industrialised, authorised, publicised, organised, etc.) – are we all agreeing to switch to British spellings then? Pslide (talk) 04:30, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The article doesn't have any regional bias through content, so I'd suggest simply using whichever style is more prevalent, or easier for the editor to use. There's been a large amount of recent editing, and if American English has been previously used, I'd simply convert back to that. Iciac (talk) 08:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I frequently see editors saying that if the article content is primarily US-centric, then American english should be used, but if it's a British subject then British english should be used. Since US forces formed by far the main combat power of the UN forces in Korea, and since the political content of this article (on the UN side) is mostly about Truman, it would make sense to use American english in this article. regards, DMorpheus (talk) 13:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Anyone opposed to the above rationale? Pslide (talk) 18:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

By the way, not a big deal, but I noticed that "U.S." is actively being converted to "US", and date formats are being switched from "June 25, 1950," to "25 June 1950". Do we all agree? I don't care either way, as long as it's consistent. Pslide (talk) 18:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not doing it, but most military history articles I edit usually use "US" rather than "U.S." and it's a heck of a lot easier to type ;)

As for the date format, the "date-month-year" format matches US military practice but I couldn't care less which way it is written. DMorpheus (talk) 18:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree on both counts. Since no one seems opposed, I'll help make the switch for consistency's sake. Pslide (talk) 03:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Kumyangjang-ni?

Where is Kumyangjang-ni exactly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.56.118.177 (talk) 02:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

POV in language and section titles

May I suggest that we be as neutral as possible in our use of language in this article, especially with section headings/titles? We can create factual, neutral titles with ease. This is not the place to repeat propaganda from any of the parties in the war. regards, DMorpheus (talk) 14:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Dear DMorpheus:

Hello. It is good to joust with a man who stands his ground ’cause he knows his stuff. It is fun working with an editor whose perspective helps catch and curb editorial over-enthusiasm.

Thank you, for the correctives; I try to correct stylistic (POV) excesses in the following copy-editing — because I am not the author of this great manuscript — to whom we are much indebted, (per my US infantry Korean War-vet stepfather).

Once the writer’s points and data are fulfilled, the original manuscript is developed ’til it coheres. Given the ideological nature of this fascinating war I have used as much of the sources as narrative consistency will bear; thus the application of the four names for the war as respective sub-section titles: the name the subjects of the thematic sub-section use for the Korean War; thematically, the names help the reader in grasping the gist of the war-stage narrated in the sub-section, and how it fits to the whole war, because some occurred simultaneously, in different places.

The readable, discrete article comprising the data and information required to answer the question: What was the Korean War? — without having to refer elsewhere is the editorial purpose. In substantive editing, the editor must use all of the submitted text, at first; by the writers presenting the reader the four names that exist, in three cultures, for a short, eventful war (many important battles, names, dates, et cetera), the editorial consideration is using them (why the writer included them) to the reader’s advantage (a crib) for perceiving the perspectives of the (Korean, Chinese, Western) combatants (The Why?).

The (presumed) reader is an outsider-to-the-subject, who knows less than we (you and I), the military history aficionados (jousting about hyphenated tank nomenclatures and the howitzer cannon); we know that, but (please recall), not everyone else on the Internet reading this entry of ours might know that. It is an editorial consideration, albeit minor, and it is someone’s complaint, registered here, of entirely-Western bias (perspective). Only the Western name? Was it a one-combatant war? Reportage, not propaganda; I did not create the names, they are relevant facts. Politically, I concur with you, but, facts are facts . . . ignore them . . . and what is the point of the military history endeavour to report “What happened was. . . .”

With the active voice, the superfluous qualifiers (the POV) fall off, because a tank needs neither water wings nor corporate logotypes to kick ass and take names. Unfortunately, the passive voice is too-easily abused in painting POV onto an event, a thing, et cetera, thus: “. . . and then the Communist T-72 tank, made from NKVD-stolen blueprints handed by Kim Philby to the Evil Empire, over-ran the heroic. . . .” versus “. . . and then the Soviet T-72-99 tank over-ran the heroic. . . .” I think we agree. Let me know.

Integrating important technical data; the effort is rendering interest in (strategically, tactically) important (dry) technical facts of a war machine, and how they matter in the narrative, thus the thematic Why?; for example, “Aircraft began the war with a propeller, and ended with a jet engine and swept wings, in terms of combat, it means 1-2-3, A-B-C, and, per these numbers here, the turbo jet motor and swept wings led to I-II-III.”

I mention these things because, in early editing, I mistakenly identified the term Korean War as “US History”, it ain’t, it applies elsewhere in the Anglophone world, not merely the US, where we do not deign to call it a war, but a “conflict” so we might weasel away from responsibility; it was an international war, hence the stylistic differences that might embarrass . . . whom?

Again, thank you for correcting the errors in editing this good, but uneven war history writing.

Best regards,

Mhazard9 (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It appears to me we are largely editing back and forth over the same terrain. Really, 'reducing prolixity' is an oxymoron. The consensus (above) was to use American english, so let's stick to that. Let's reduce rather than increase POV in the article. This is an encyclopedia, not a novel. The writing can be interesting without introducing POV. The whole article is very weak and needs an awful lot of work, particularly with regards to sourcing. We are just tinkering aroudn the edges right now. regards, DMorpheus (talk) 22:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Repeated reversions

Let's avoid compromising accuracy for the sake of "reducing prolixity". Some words are there for a reason. Just one recent diff as an example:

Prop-driven fighters did not relinquish all combat roles, hence the "air superiority" qualifier. They shifted to ground attack and reconnaissance roles, in which their longer range and endurance were an advantage over jets. (And no, range and endurance aren't the same.)
A maximum speed around 660 mph is not 660 mph. Fact sheets state 685 mph for the F-86 and 670 mph for the MiG-15bis. (Before someone cries "POV source!", these are just examples.)
The MiG's higher ceiling could be advantageous at the start of a dogfight, not "was"; ceiling is irrelevant when MiGs are bounced at low altitude. "Moreover", the highest reported engagement was 37,000 ft, well below the ceiling. (Werrell, p. 79.)
Radar-ranged gunsights help the pilot predict the projectile impact point – the guns are not "controlled with" radar.
The Hawker Sea Fury did not serve during WWII. Hence, "designed during World War II" rather than "Second World War craft".
Losses are qualified as combat losses for a reason. Depending on the source, they may exclude "other" losses due to pilot error, friendly fire, mechanical failure, etc.
Differing roles for the F-86 and MiG-15 do not alone "account for" the disparity in losses, although they may have contributed, as originally phrased. Cited sources explicitly state that UN pilots were, overall, more experienced, skilled, and aggressive.
It is neither POV nor stating the obvious to say that the USAF quickly countered with its best fighter. The USAF initially declined to send the Sabre, citing "stateside air defense priorities for the F-86." (Werrell, pp. 75–76.)

Many passages, including those above, could be improved – but let's maintain accuracy when altering existing prose. Rather than obliterate nuance, enhance and clarify. Perhaps check the sources. Best regards, Pslide (talk) 22:53, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

For ping-pong over MOS-related minutiae, please note the following:

MOS:ENDASH: "Sino" lacks lexical independence and requires a hyphen, not an en dash. Prefixes such as "pro-" should also be hyphenated, per WP:HYPHEN.
MOS:EMDASH: "Em dashes should not be spaced."
WP:ITALICS: "Loan words ... do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in Merriam-Webster Online." This applies to materiel and regime.
See also the revert comments I posted on Mhazard9's talk page.

Before reverting, check the MOS, especially when edit summaries provide direct links to relevant guidelines.

Lastly, instead of repeatedly changing "cooperate" to "co-operate" and "likewise" to "like-wise", or writing "data is plural, even in the USA!", check a dictionary.

Merriam-Webster states that data is "noun plural but singular or plural in construction" and provides this usage example: "the data is plentiful". That said, I don't care either way.
The following dictionaries may be useful: Merriam-Webster, The Free Dictionary.

We all make mistakes, and that's fine. These comments are directed only towards the constant reversions. Please use this talk page to build consensus. Pslide (talk) 23:18, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Problems with the lead

The lead of this article continues to imply that the Korean War was the result of an escalation of previous hostilities. No one is denying that there were border skirmishes immediately before the War's outbreak. But an entirely different conflict began with the North's premeditated and sustained invasion of the South on June 25th. This was not escalation. This was a well planned and well executed invasion. The citation given in the lead to support the idea that the War was the result of military escalation, says nothing of the sort. In fact pages 2, 6, and 9 in the given citation argue the common historical opinion that the war was the result of a unilateral invasion by the North.

In the United States the "Korean War" does not refer to the hostilities before the invasion and since the armistice, but only the open warfare between 1950 and 1953. --- Bosoxrock88 27 July 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bosoxrock88 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The Chosin Battle aftermath: Operation Glory

...of the 4,167 returned remains, 4,219 were men,[clarification needed] of whom 2,944 were identified as American... I don't think these numbers are written correctly. Of 4,167, (4,219) 52 more than were returned, were men? This needs more than clarification, it needs to be corrected by someone with the right figures or it needs to be deleted.Meyerj (talk) 10:46, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, got it – it's "4,167 containers of human remains". Pentagon site, should be reliable so I'll make the change. Pslide (talk) 11:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect Display of the Philippine Flag

Please revise the "Korean War Infobox" the Philippine Flag is displayed incorrectly. It is inverted, I'm a Filipino, my forefathers fought for the Koreans and it its a sign of disrespect and blasphemy.
Yes, the Philippine flag may be inverted if The Philippines is under attack and has declared war Executive Order No. 321 of the Late president Elpidio Quirino The Philippine army in the Korean War is under the ensign of the Philippine Army which will not invert the flag unless Manila, the capital is under attack or has been declared by President Elpidio Quirino then. The United Nations will carry the Philippine soldiers under it's flag signifying that The Philippines is with the UN and is not involved in the fight. JoshuaCruzPhilippines 13:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the latest revision, I rest my case. --JoshuaCruzPhilippines (talk) 15:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Can we remove the dead soldier pictures? Give the dead people the last respect.

There is no intent to demonstrate disrespect to either of the soldiers pictured in the article. An article about 'war' is about something that is not nice. Images showing the effect of war can bring home the seriousness of war. A single PVA soldier on the side of the road is not intended to glorify the results of war, but to show the seriousness of conflict. An image of an "executed" prisoner is intended to demonstrate the atrocities of war. I have lost soldiers. I say keep the images in the article. Meyerj (talk) 12:57, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, or perhaps edit the photo and blurr the soldier's name and all identifying badge or tags JoshuaCruzPhilippines 13:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

this article lacks a NPOV, needs a tag saying so

This article reads like it was written by some US general. It is not impartial. It clearly has a bias against communism and the North Koreans. Please remove the lock on this article so it can be improved, and add a NPOV box to the top. Some specific problems:

In the second and third sentence of the article, a claim is made that there were negotiations for an all-Korea election, with the clearly slanted view that such negotiations were brought by the US and "ended" by the communists. This is very, very far from the truth; the June 25th border crossing of the North Korean Army did not "end" the negotiations for an election, as separate elections had already taken place, against the wishes of the communists and most of the Korean people (who, by the way, had very little to choose from between Syngman Rhee's rightist extremism and the other right-wing options, since the US occupiers had outlawed all socialist parties). The article should reflect this. The source given as support for the mistaken claim in the article is actually the US military's official version of events! If it were primary documentation from that era, this would be fine material to start with, but this is a revised, propagandistic look back at the war which is buried in its own assumptions about the war's righteousness.

Later, the claim that the americans proposed elections and the soviets simply "opposed" the idea really needs to be expanded upon. The one source cited is not sufficient, since it too is written as by a US official. Adding in the fact that the US manipulated which parties could or could not exist would make the article more NPOV, as it is relevant information which cannot be ignored.

There are examples such as these throughout the article. Much work still needs to be done before this article can be considered NPOV.

The glaring lack of Bruce Cumings' The Origins of the Korean War in the Further Reading section is also quite inexplicable. Was the presence of this book removed by someone who could not handle the facts? The listing of further reading needs to include this book, as it is considered THE authoritative work on the origins of this war. 142.104.143.199 (talk) 02:56, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce Cumings' "The Origins of the Korean War" is "considered THE authoritative work on the origins of this war"? Considered by whom? When? Where? Also, there seems to be an underlying assumption that US official histories are ipso facto unreliable. But, can this claim be corroborated by reliable published sources? Kraken7 (talk) 15:37, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

If half or more of the citations were from official North Korean agencies, wouldn't you cry foul? The US is no more objective in how it sees the conflict than NK is.

24.69.66.116 (talk) 05:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

just remember, the victor writes the history. same as in the american civil war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.6.235 (talk) 15:01, 1 September 2009

are you communist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.85.9.189 (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

would that matter? are you a capitalist? would that matter? 24.69.66.116 (talk) 05:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

nope im communist —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.6.235 (talk) 15:40, 28 August 2009

I think the first guy has a point. There's lots of little POV problems. Just one example: it says the conflict is also known as "the forgotten war". Really? It certainly isn't forgotten here in Asia, nor in New Zealand and Australia, who sent troops there. The reference goes through to a US military website. In other words, it's known as "the forgotten war" in the U.S., and the U.S. person who wrote that part of the article just assumed that everybody who's gonna read this article is a U.S. citizen. Little things like this are annoying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.240.61.2 (talk) 06:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I've just noticed another POV problem, which is that North Korean and Chinese forces are repeatedly refered to as "Communist" forces. For example, one of the captions mentions a "North Korean Communist tank". I think it's POV to apply a political tag like this, especially since the U.N. forces are never referred to as "Capitalist". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.240.61.2 (talk) 23:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

See the section on films about the Korean War: "North Korea has made many films about the war, mostly by the government supporting forceful, armed reunification of the North and South of Korea. These have been highly propagandized to portray potential war crimes by American or South Korean soldiers while glorifying members of the North Korean military as well as North Korean ideals." This shows such clear, unadulterated bias. How is this sort of thing accepted by the wiki community? To become fair, the same sort of commentary needs to be added to the discussion of Western films about the war, which do also glorify their soldiers, accentuate the other side's atrocities and their own ideals. Or, this commentary should be removed. Either or. I'll also mention that the two citations for the above lines do not in any way relate to or support it. In fact, I'll just go ahead and remove these lines, as it seems to be unquestionably justifiable (biased POV + false citations = good target for editing). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.66.116 (talk) 09:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Like in nearly all articles dealing with communism, there are many cases in this article where all communist entities are given the prefix "communist", "state-run", "Stalinist", etc. This is a technique whereby these unnecessary descriptors are used whenever doing so will create a negative connotation, or will create a bias in the readers' mind. Example: in the POWs section, a paragraph describing North Korea's claims begins with, "The state controlled KCNA claims...". In this case, it is not necessary to say 'state controlled', and such tags are always used stategically to discredit all claims by the North Koreans. A more neutral way would be to just state, "The KCNA claims...". Any reader would understand that the competing claims of the US government and the KCNA represent obviously biased sources. The other option is to add adjectives onto all nouns, communist or otherwise, such as 'for-profit' (As in, "according to the for-profit sensationalistic Western media"), 'capitalist' ("The capitalist US government claims..."), etc etc. Unless someone can argue differently, I'll go ahead with such changes. 24.69.66.116 (talk)

Please make no changes without first forming a consensus of editors on this talkpage. Skinny87 (talk) 21:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

However, nobody responded. How long is one to wait before making changes? It seems to be unopposed. Hence, according to wiki policy, the choice to make the changes is the editor's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.66.116 (talk) 22:57, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Be bold. You aren't obliged to get some kind of consensus if there's a clear problem with an article. Skinny87, you need to explain yourself if you want the article frozen in its current state. ManicParroT (talk) 09:49, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

"The glaring lack of Bruce Cumings' The Origins of the Korean War in the Further Reading section is also quite inexplicable. Was the presence of this book removed by someone who could not handle the facts? The listing of further reading needs to include this book, as it is considered THE authoritative work on the origins of this war."

The opinion of Bruce Cummings does not represent the historical consensus on the Korean War. Cummings is a revisionist, whose conclusions are not referenced or respected. Historical consensus is formed through debate and eventual agreement within the scholarly community. This debate has been occurring for over 50 years. There are plenty of historians who disagree with the mainstream view. However, this article should seek to represent that mainstream view, rather than the opinions of a few outliers. ---- Bosoxrock88 27 July 2009

I totally disagree. An encyclopedia is not a reflection of a "mainstream" opinion, is indeed a source of historical facts, and, if needed (this is clearly a case), both political, religious, ethnical, etc. positions... History is never objective (the only way to achieve that is let a computer write it), so is mandatory to reflect the thoughts and feels of both sides... 190.133.214.208 (talk) 22:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)pjaguilar

In reply to 24.69.66.116's comments on the phrase "the state-controlled KNCA," this discussion may prove useful. It appears that the section has been changed from its previous form, but the old discussion may still provide some helpful background. Cerebellum (talk) 17:12, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

A Comment

(moved from top of page. Xyl 54 (talk) 14:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC))
This article needs to be renamed. It was never a war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.253.147.34 (talk) 18:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC) sure but what would you call it? the fight of communist and capitalist forces in north korea that did everything a war would do except call it a war? seriously, what would you call a war if it wasnt a war? my grandfather was there. im sure he considers it a war.

You are correct that the American government officially considers it to be a police action, and not a war, due to the lack of a declaration of war by congress. However, the ~4 million killed and wounded, as well as common usage, indicate it to be a war in the fullest sense of the world. From Wikipedia's on article on war:

War is a reciprocated, armed conflict, between two or more non-congruous entities, aimed at reorganising a subjectively designed, geo-politically desired result.

The Korean conflict fits this definition quite well. See also: Korean War#Naming of the War Cerebellum (talk) 16:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Another comment

(moved from top of page. Xyl 54 (talk) 14:13, 18 August 2009 (UTC))
Under "Japanese Imperial Rule", in the fifth paragraph, Anthony Eden is referred to as "PM", in reference to discussions between Eden and Roosevelt in 1943. Eden wasn't PM in 1943. I think he was Foreign Secretary. I don't know if whoever added this meant Winston Churchill, or Anthony Eden, or I'd change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.208.124.130 (talk) 09:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC) korea was definitely a real war. whassup people west side chillin all day —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.6.235 (talk) 15:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC) thats how i roll —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.6.235 (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

What's with the use of italics all over this article?

I mean, seriously? Was this article written by, like, some Valley girl? 195.59.168.254 (talk) 10:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Could you be a little more specific? Other than the "Naming of the war" section, which has so many italicized words because of the nature of its subject matter, I don't see any superfluous italics. Cerebellum (talk) 16:09, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

When you search for '' into the text, there are indeed a few strange use of italics. For instance south of the 38th parallel, so far south, foreign rule, foreigners and even North Korea. I didn't fix them as I'm not sure which ones are correct and which ones are not. Laurent (talk) 16:40, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

After a second look, you're right, some of the italics are just plain excessive. I'll try to fix as many of them as I notice. Cerebellum (talk) 16:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:MOS#Italics looks like a helpful guide; anything that violates the rules there can be safely changed. Cerebellum (talk) 16:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

References

On the subject of references within the article, there is currently a failed verification tag for ref 32, after the sentence:

Despite reunification talks in the months preceding open warfare, their continual cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel, and the political frustration of failed all-Korea elections in 1948, escalated to warfare.

However, on page 9 of the given source, there is this paragraph:

Border clashes broke out along the parallel during early 1950 and Communist political propaganda in South Korea mounted. After the elections of May 1950 in South Korea failed to strengthen their cause, the Communists decided upon sterner action. They demanded new elections, to establish a legislative body for all Korea with unification under the Communists as the objective. When the South Koreans refused to accept their proposals, the Communists launched a full-scale attack on 25 June 1950 across the Parallel.

This seems to me to be adequate verification for the statement, unless whoever added this tag was taking issue with the source itself, so I've removed the tag. Cerebellum (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The section I quoted refers specifically to the 1950 elections, but on pages 7 and 8 of the source, there is info on the 1948 elections which corroborates the statement in the article. It looks like elections were held in May of 1948 per the recommendations of the UN, supposedly valid in all of Korea, but opposed by the North Korean Communist faction, which established the DPRK on 9 September. Cerebellum (talk) 15:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

anyone know of 150thAAAGun Bat.

looking for anyone who knows about 150thAAA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.142.8.255 (talk) 01:01, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

George VI and Elizabeth II

They are shown in the infbox as commanders of Canada. Yet they had equal, if not more, command to the United Kingdom. Could there names be added with the Union Jack next to them aswell? Flosssock1 (talk) 14:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure how they could have been "more" commander-in-chief of one country than another, unless you mean the intermediary governor general made Canada less under the sovereign's command than Britain. But, it's probably not necessary to get into that debate; I see what you mean about the missing UK commanders. Should it not just be here as it is at War in Afghanistan (2001-present)? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, don't know why I put that, must have been tired or something. But yes, I was thinking that they could go between Canada and the United States as that would be the order of amount of soldiers there. Or the Canadian flag and British flag could be side by side? Flosssock1 (talk) 18:25, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so the commander list is now fine on my computer, but it is different on each of the 3 computers in my house. - Can anyone explain? Thanks, Flosssock1 (talk) 19:25, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Armistice

I am not an expert but I do know that there is a serious mistake in this article which claims that DPRK and the ROK signed an armistice in JUL 2012. I don't have the answer as to when it was signed but I am sure it is not JUL 2012. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.12.210.20 (talk) 18:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Lack of Neutrality

It seems about every line points to American bias. Every image is of "American firepower", with nothing regarding the other nations involved. None of the paragraphs seem to regard the successes of the Koreans and their allies or the US allies. --SuperSmashBros.Brawl777 (talk) 13:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect Casualty statistics?

I was reading the article about the Battle of Osan and it seems to contradict the casualty statistics in this article.Patriot Missile33 (talk) 22:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I changed the Battle of Osan statistics. I don't know how a force of 500 could have 1,500 killed. Seems like someone is inflating the number of US casualties but don't have the time to check the other questionable statistics at the moment . Patriot Missile33 (talk) 13:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Opinion versus facts

Back up your claims from reliable sources or cut it out. Example, "[the Korean war] is culturally forgotten." The Korean war is frequently the focus of modern documentaries and TV shows--MASH, for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.226.104.225 (talk) 20:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the wording was a little strong there (obviously the entire culture has not forgotten it) but we do have reliable references for that statement, and the number of documentaries and TV shows on the Korean War is far less than on WWII or Vietnam. Cerebellum (talk) 02:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that as an encyclopedia the wording could be less direct (for example, "the Korean War is widely referred to as 'the Forgotten War'...) but I would defend the inclusion of that term here. Though it took place only five years after the end of WWII it is much less known or understood in American culture. As Cerebellum says it has been much less covered than even single battles of WWII. And I would hardly cite MASH as an example of how it is 'remembered'. MASH was not even about the Korean War, that was just its setting. I doubt most people would even know that MASH took place in the Korean War. In any case, bottom line, this is not a place for us to do our own interpreting but to use other reputable sources. I think there are enough out there to back up the point that the Korean War has been largely forgotten/misunderstood. It's simply a matter of wording your contribution carefully and citing. Straitgate (talk) 04:47, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

Why can I not edit the infobox 89.240.179.50 (talk) 19:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes are usually stored elsewhere and we just view them on pages like this, if you want to edit the infobox clicking on the small "e" in the upper left hand side will take you to the template and allow you to edit it. - Schrandit (talk) 20:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Commanders

They've changed again. With no references. Flosssock1 (talk) 21:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Where is Tahsin Yacızı? ha was the most important commander in the war. wikipedia is full of jerks i think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.54.249.168 (talk) 18:57, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, an Turkish officer is much more important than all the American and Korean commanders. You know, the commanders of the troops who did most of the fighting.--Ace Oliveira (talk) 17:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Tahsin Yazici was one of main commanders of the war. This missing is a big mistake for neutrailty. --94.54.249.168 (talk) 23:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Using North Korean news as sources

Why are we using the Korean Central News Agency as a reliable source for war crimes commited by UN forces? I can't really think of an news source as unreliable as the KCNA. Maybe Fox News and even then, maybe.--Ace Oliveira (talk) 16:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for your interest in this article. God knows it needs all the help it can get! The KNCA issue was discussed here and no real consensus was reached. I personally regard the KCNA as an utterly unreliable source of information and would support removing it, and in fact an outright rewrite of that entire section might not be a bad thing. Cerebellum (talk) 02:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, At least we won't need to worry about Nierva/RJ and his North Korea fetish since he's blocked. I can't believe people think the KCNA may be an reliable news source. It's not goddamm rocket science. Anyway, I don't think the section needs a rewrite. Just the removal of the claims made by the North Koreans. If we want to put war crimes committed by UN forces then we should put reliable sources in there.--Ace Oliveira (talk) 16:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not so much the "reliability" of the KCNA (in my opinion, it's not), but rather the view point it represents. WP:NPOV describes that an article should give due weight to each view points represented, and like it or not, the North Korean view on the issue is significant. That said - I'm not going to stand in the way of these frankly absurd claims being removed from the article, but I would ask that the editor do a quick google search simply to see if a more reliable source can be found. It's been a while since I've read it, but Australia in the Korean War 1950–53 by Robert O'Neill goes a way in questioning the morality and actions of the UN coalition. Iciac (talk) 07:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That book seems like it could be a pretty good source for Australian War Crimes.--Ace Oliveira (talk) 19:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Despite the title, the first third at least regarded the war in a more general sense :) Iciac (talk) 06:57, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Canada in the Korean War

on the main Korean War page on that sidebar that talks about the numbers of troops etc. there is no mention of the Canadian Armed Forces. Why is this? They also fought in the Korean War. It would be nice if someone would add them to that page, as I am not sure how. Thank You. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.132.57.171 (talk) 20:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me like they're there, by name in the "Belligerents" section, by their flag in the "strength" section, by name again in the losses section. Am I missing something? Cerebellum (talk) 21:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

~~Canada fought with the 27th and the 29th Commonwealth Brigade, and all Canadian numbers are mixed with the British, Australian and New Zealand numbers I believe...~~ NVM Jim101 (talk) 22:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you cerebellum,they are on the losses chart but either someone took them off the belligrents and strength page or for some odd reason my monitor isn't showing them. So no, I don't believe you are losing your mind.:o) Also thanks to Jim 101. Your answer makes sense but I still think they should have there own flags on the side chart. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.132.57.217 (talk) 16:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

They are and have.Slatersteven (talk) 15:08, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

G-suits

A minor point in the section on air combat: the Korean War did not see the first combat use of g-suits. They were used in the latter stages of World War II by the USAAF and the RAF.63.3.21.129 (talk) 00:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

NPOV

Many parts of this article are seem to be biased towards North Korea. In many cases, abuses by South Korea are cited while similar or worse ones in North Korea are not mentioned. For example:

"The resultant anti-communist South Korean government promulgated a national political constitution (17 July 1948) elected a president, the American-educated strongman Syngman Rhee (20 July 1948), and established the Republic of South Korea on 15 August 1948.[56] Likewise, in the Russian Korean Zone of Occupation, the USSR established a Communist North Korean government[38]:26 led by Kim Il-sung.[37] Moreover, President Rhee's régime expelled communists and leftists from southern national politics. Disenfranchised, they headed for the hills, to prepare guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK Government.[37]" (bolding is mine)

No mention of similar North Korean actions are to be found in this paragraph.

Similarly, in the section where this paragraph is located, comparable Soviet actions in North Korea are not mentioned:

"As the military governor, General John R. Hodge directly controlled South Korea via the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48).[51]:63 He established control by first restoring to power the key Japanese colonial administrators and their Korean and police collaborators,[31] and second, by refusing the USAMGIK’s official recognition of the People's Republic of Korea (PRK) (August–September 1945), the provisional government (agreed with the Japanese Army) with which the Koreans had been governing themselves and the peninsula—because he suspected it was communist. These US policies, voiding popular Korean sovereignty, provoked the civil insurrections and guerrilla warfare preceding, then constituting, the Korean civil war.[39] On 3 September 1945, Lieutenant General Yoshio Kozuki, Commander, Japanese 17th Area Army , contacted Hodge, telling him that the Soviets were south of the 38th parallel at Kaesong. Hodge trusted the accuracy of the Japanese Army report.[44]"

In addition, some sections seem to be arguing that the invasion of South Korea by North Korea was justified due to US actions. For example:

"These US policies, voiding popular Korean sovereignty, provoked the civil insurrections and guerrilla warfare preceding, then constituting, the Korean civil war.[39]"

or

"The USAMGIK declared martial law to control South Korea; in controlling the Koreans with Japanese colonial administrators and Korean collaborators, the US discredited its declarations of a “Free Korea” ".

In the first case, there is no mention of civil insurrections and guerrilla movements being funded by North Korea in an attempt to overthrow the South Korean government, as per the very source attached to it. In the second case, the sentence carries an unsourced opinion.

These seem to be violations of NPOV.

201.208.3.112 (talk) 05:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, there certainly does seem to be some unbalance there. If you have any ideas on how to fix that section, please do so. Cerebellum (talk) 13:05, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The real problem is systematic bias. How many historians actually tried to focus the Korean War history away from the United States? Even if we tried to balance the points you pointed out, the RS would all be in Korean and extremely hard to find. Jim101 (talk) 22:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Not-your-main-stream-Chinese opinions

苏联代表却“因故”缺席！故意把联合国军放进朝鲜

To be translated into English:

A、唆使金日成侵略南韩，在二次大战刚刚结束五年，人们享受和平还很短暂的时候，1950年6月25日，北朝鲜突然打破国际公认的划分南北朝鲜的三八线，进攻南朝鲜，并且长驱直下，几乎灭了南朝鲜。当美国纠集联合国军准备军事干预时，苏联作为安理会常任理事国完全可以一票否决，可是偏偏到了投票的关键时刻，苏联代表却“因故”缺席！故意把联合国军放进朝鲜。

B、唆使中国出兵朝鲜，满口答应中国一旦出兵，苏联立刻提供强大的空军支援。可是等中国三个军的首批部队进入朝鲜后，却又说要顾及到和美国的关系，不便派空军参战。联合国军的组成是美国、希腊、法国、埃塞俄比亚、丹麦、哥伦比亚、加拿大、英国、泰国、瑞士、南非、南朝鲜、菲律宾、挪威、荷兰、新西兰、卢森堡、印度、意大利、澳大利亚和比利时，中国出兵朝鲜，等同于宣布自己完全投靠苏联、与世界为敌。

C、中国出兵后，联合国马上讨论决议，定义新中国为侵略者、并对中国的侵略行径进行严厉谴责。苏联仍然可以一票否决，可是苏联代表却又在最后投票时“因故”缺席！致使该决议顺利通过，从这一天开始，新中国背上侵略好战的骂名，在国际社会陷入十分孤立的境地，同西方接触的大门被彻底关闭，失去了国家发展之良好国际环境达几十年之久。

D、第四次战役后，联合国军已经完全站稳了脚跟，战争的天平已经开始朝相反的方向倾斜。可是斯大林和金日成又开始忽悠毛澤東，要志愿军发挥大无畏的革命精神、不怕牺牲，把美国人彻底赶出朝鲜半岛。毛澤東被忽悠得脑袋发热，指示发动第五次战役，结果从36线到38线，志愿军被打得损失惨重、溃不成军。

E、斯大林提供给金日成的武器全是苏军的现役装备，而且是免费的；提供给志愿军的武器全部是苏军的淘汰装备，而且是高价的。在所谓三年自然灾害期间，中国农民饿得啃树皮、吃泥巴，苏联却趁火打劫、逼迫中国偿还沉重的抗美援朝军火债务。 http://www.china-week.com/html/3561.htm

The above extract is what I found in Chinese blogosphere, which stress the role of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in the war. It claimed that Stalin and Mao plotted together, with Chinese supplied the manpower, the Soviet supplied the hardware. I am supprised that this view had never being presented in this article? Arilang ^talk 20:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Another Non-main-stream Chinese blog:

http://blog.ifeng.com/article/3012334.html

那麼中國主動參加朝鮮戰爭的主要目的是甚麼呢？據一些歷史學家分析，中國是想借助蘇聯的援助，讓軍隊取得現代化戰爭的經驗，並用蘇聯的武器裝備換裝，建立中國自己的技術兵種和軍事工業。學者們查閱前蘇聯政府的檔案文件發現，在斯大林於1953年3月逝世之前，他與毛澤東之間的大部份通信是關於中國請求蘇聯給予武器裝備的。中國出兵朝鮮一舉，使斯大林及其繼任者不僅用嶄新的蘇造武器替中國裝備了100個步兵師，並幫助中國建立了能有效作戰的空軍、海軍、炮兵、坦克兵等技術兵種，而且還援建了300多項大型工程項目，使中國得以形成獨立的軍事工業體系。

Roughly translated: According to some historian's analysis, Chinese(Mao)'s real intention was using the war as an excuse to (1) gain some experience in modern warfare, (2) to obtain better Russian war equipments. According to declassified KGB files, Mao's main volumn of telegrams sent to Stalin was requests for supply of new weapons. Arilang ^talk 20:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Too bad that to quote academic sources, "the exact reason why China entered the Korean War is still debated." There is no doubts between historians that Mao approved Stalin's idea before Kim invaded, but the million dollar question is did Mao actually wanted to send army into Korea...and by judging how millions of Chinese soldiers send into Korean without winter coats and how Chinese general are scrambling to get food for their troops, I doubt Mao is that smart. Jim101 (talk) 03:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The fatal flaw of this article is that it neglacts the role of Mao and Stalin completely, and according to Professor Shen Zhihua, Mao Zedong single-handly made the decision of sending Chinese troops into Korea: 斯大林、毛泽东与朝鲜战争再议, amid all the opposition party such as Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, and most importantly, Stalin, who had looked down on Mao all the time. And Pang Dehuai had to obtain instructions from Mao before any important decisions were made. All these historical facts need to be incorporated into the article somehow. The fundamental points about Korean War is:Soviet Union provided the weapons, and Mao provided the manpower. As simple as that. Also, the main theme of the War is: The power of Free World, led bu USA, had a showdown with the Communist World. Arilang ^talk 05:15, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

At least provide a book, most conclusions on research on the role between Mao and Stalin are inconclusive. And you also forgot that the general academic consensus on Chinese role in the Korean War is that China entered the war on her own motive, and labeling things between Communist and Free World like in the 1950s is wrong and also caused the defeat of the UN forces during 1950-51. I cite the books written by USMC Patrick C. Roe, Dr. Carter Malkasian, historian Allan R Millett as the starting point to examine China's motive, followed by the book Zhang, Hong (2002). The making of urban Chinese images of the United States, 1945-1953. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313310017. Please do not dumb down history without at least reading 4 or 5 books. Jim101 (talk) 05:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Finally, you said "Mao Zedong single-handly made the decision of sending Chinese troops into Korea: 斯大林、毛泽东与朝鲜战争再议, amid all the opposition party such as Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, and most importantly, Stalin, who had looked down on Mao all the time. And Pang Dehuai had to obtain instructions from Mao before any important decisions were made."

That is just one interpretation of the event (without peer review for that matter). The other more established POV was that Kim asked Stalin on whether to invade, Stalin asked Mao the same question. Mao says he trust Kim, so Stalin give Kim the go ahead. Kim promised that he can take over South Korea before UN can intervene, and Mao and Stalin take his word for it. After Kim got crushed, both Stalin and Mao are panicking and bickering, so the last ditch effort was to use the PLA to intervene. Most of the Chinese general oppose to intervene because they believe US air power and atom bomb can destroy them. Only Mao and Peng Dehuai want to fight in Korea, so Mao replace Lin Biao with Peng Dehuai to lead the North East Frontier Force. It wasn't until the Battle of Unsan, when Chinese and US forces first met, did the Chinese leadership actually stop fearing US forces. Jim101 (talk) 06:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

==

Russian declassified file

俄国不久前公布的一份十分重要的档案，即10月11日斯大林和周恩来给毛泽东的联名电报，其全文如下: 　　　　绝密　　第4784号密码电报　　优先拍发　　驻北京的苏联使馆立即转告毛泽东同志　　贵国代表已于今日到达，我们联共(布)的领导同志与贵国代表一起讨论了贵国已知的那些问题｡　　我们交换意见后，弄清了以下情况: 　　1计划派出的中国援军没有做好准备，装备差，缺少大炮，没有坦克，执行掩护任务的航空兵至少两个月后才能到位，用于装备和培训上述军队的时间至少需要六个月｡　　2如在一个月内不用相当数量的､装备精良的部队提供直接援助，那么由于三八线以北的朝鲜军队无力支撑，朝鲜将被美国人侵占｡　　3因此，为朝鲜人提供的像样的援军只能在半年后，即在朝鲜被美国人占领，朝鲜已不再需要援军的时候才能到位｡　　基于上述原因并考虑到周恩来同志报告的因中国参战而给国内带来的不利因素，我们一致决定: 　　1尽管国际形势有利，但中国军队因目前尚未做好准备，就不要越过朝鲜边境，以免陷于不利局面; 　　2如果部队已经越过边境，也只能在靠近中国边境一带的山区而不应深入; 　　3一部分朝鲜军队应在平壤和元山以北的山区组织防御，另一部分军队要转入敌后打游击; 4把战时应征入伍的朝鲜人中的优秀分子及指挥员分批悄悄地调入满洲，在那里把他们整编成朝鲜师团;

　　5要尽快对平壤和北朝鲜山区以南的其他重要据点进行疏散｡　　至于中国同志所需的用于重新装备中国军队的坦克､大炮和飞机，苏联将充分予以满足｡　　　　等待您的决定｡　　签名:菲利波夫　　周恩来　　1950年10月11日　　报告执行情况　　打印1份送斯大林同志[注：РГАСПИ，ф.558，оп.11，д.334，л.134-135// Новая и новейшая история，2005，№5，с.108-109.] 　　　　这份档案解答了以前不知道或不确定的问题:第一，周恩来一行在莫斯科时间11日抵达黑海斯大林的疗养地，并立即与斯大林进行了会谈;第二，斯大林答应向中国提供武器装备，但苏联空军至少要待两个月后才能出动——这是周恩来拒绝中国先出动陆军的主要理由;第三，文件只打印一份，说明斯大林不想让其他苏联领导人知道事情的原委;第四，斯大林和周恩来已经商定中国军队不再开赴朝鲜作战，但最后的决定要由毛泽东做出｡过去，人们都知道毛泽东在13日政治局会议上决定中国继续出兵，而不知道毛泽东此前也曾接受了不出兵的意见｡俄国的新档案披露了这一情况｡　　北京时间10月12日15时30分，罗申拜会毛泽东并向他转交了斯大林和周恩来的联名电报｡毛泽东当即请罗申转告斯大林:“同意你们的决定｡”22时12分罗申又收到毛泽东要求转发给斯大林的第二封电报: 　　　　“致菲利波夫同志和周恩来同志　　　　我同意10月11日电报的意见｡　　我方军队还没有出发，我已命令中国军队停止执行进入朝鲜的计划｡　　关于朝鲜同志应根据形势重新部署兵力并执行新的计划一事，我已委托高岗向朝鲜同志进行解释｡”[注：РГАСПИ，ф.558，оп.11，д.334，л.140､141// Новая и новейшая история，2005，№5，с.109.] 　　　　实际上，未等高岗做出解释，斯大林在接到毛泽东的第一封电报后就立即向金日成通报了会谈的结果，并开始安排撤退和疏散，而做出如此令朝鲜人沮丧的决定的责任，自然推到了中国身上: 　　　　什特科夫和瓦西里耶夫同志: 　　请向金日成宣读下列内容: 　　“昨天联共(布)中央政治局代表同中共中央代表周恩来和林彪就派中国军队援助朝鲜问题召开了会议｡　　从周恩来的报告中得知，原计划赴朝支援的中国军队尚未做好出兵准备，没有坦克，只有为数不多的几门大炮，对陆军的空中掩护大概至少要两个月之后才能提供，还需配备坦克和大炮，培训坦克兵和炮手也至少需要六个月时间｡　　鉴于周恩来通报的情况，会议一致认为，中国只有在六个月后才可能出兵援助｡　　因为这样的援助已为时太晚，那时美国军队可能已占领北朝鲜，所以会议得出结论:中国军队在装备差和准备不足的情况下，目前不可能在朝鲜取得胜利，相反，会陷入危险境地｡　　鉴于这些情况，由中苏双方的中央代表召开的这次会议建议: 　　立即开始对平壤等重要据点进行疏散，不要惊慌; 　　朝鲜人民军边作战边向北方撤离，牵制敌军，防止它迅速向北方深入; 　　一部分军队在元山和平壤以北的山区集结，在那里构筑坚固的防御阵地，另一部分军队要组成小分队进入敌后打游击;为组建新的后备师而应征入伍的朝鲜人要分批经中国边境进入满洲，在那里组建师团(中国同志对此表示同意); 　　利用已到货的､朝鲜军队尚未使用的苏联武器来装备在满洲组建的朝鲜师团; 　　派所有在苏联学习过飞行的朝鲜人去执行飞行任务并在满洲把他们整编成航空兵部队，所用飞机由苏联提供; 　　对于所有苏联顾问，要么派他们回苏联，要么利用他们在满洲组建新的朝鲜师团——一切都由金日成酌定｡　　还要向您通报的是:毛泽东同志同意并赞成这次会议形成的意见｡” 　　冯西　　1950年10月12日[注：РГАСПИ，ф.558，оп.11，д.334，л.142-144// Новая и новейшая история，2005，№5，с.110. 此前笔者认为，斯大林发出要金日成实施撤退的指示，是因为13日收到海军的情报，称咸兴海面发现美国特混舰队和两栖作战部队(《毛泽东､斯大林与朝鲜战争》，第243-244页)｡现在看来这个推断是错误的，其实斯大林在12日就已经通知北朝鲜实施撤退方案了｡]

就在平壤接到莫斯科关于组织撤退的指示后，北京的情况又发生了重大变化｡13日下午毛泽东在中南海召集了中共中央政治局紧急会议，再次讨论出兵的问题｡讨论的结果是，中国再次决定派兵入朝作战｡有关这次会议的详细讨论情况，目前尚无文献证据——很可能根本就没有会议记录，但俄国公布的档案，即10月13日罗申致斯大林的第2406号电报，披露了一个重要事实: 　　　　菲利波夫: 　　10月13日21时毛泽东把我叫去宣布了下列事项: 　　中共中央再次讨论了菲利波夫同志的最近一封电报和我的决定｡我们的领导同志认为，我们应当帮助朝鲜人｡　　鉴于上述原因，毛泽东同志马上把周恩来拦在了莫斯科，给他下达了同您讨论朝鲜问题的新指示｡　　现将谈话的详细内容随本电报一起发出｡[注：РГАСПИ，ф.558，оп.11，д.334，л.145// Новая и новейшая история，2005，№5，с.110-111. 电报中提到的“谈话的详细内容”，见《朝鲜战争解密文件》，第597-598页｡] 　　　　这里特别值得注意的是，毛泽东称中共中央再次讨论了“我的决定”，然后认为“应当帮助朝鲜人”｡这说明，本来力主出兵的主要就是毛泽东本人，而在苏联已经表明不能及时出动空军，中苏领导人也已经一致决定放弃北朝鲜的情况下，又是毛泽东个人做出了不惜与美国人孤军作战的“决定”｡

Draft for new subsection

The role of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong:

Professor Shen Zhihua, who had used his own private fund to pay for large quantities of ex-USSR declassified archives, had translated large numbers of telegram exchanges between Moscow and Beijing before the war started. The following is a brief rundown of a number of telegrams between Mao and Stalin.

On 1st/October 1950 Kim Il-sung sent a telegram to China asking for military intervention. On the same day, Mao Zedong had received a Stalin's telegram, suggesting China to send troops into Korea.
On 5th/October 1950, under Mao Zedong and Pang Dehuai's pressure, the Chinese Communist Central Committee had finalized the decision of military intervention in Korea.
On 11th/October 1950 Stalin and Zhou Enlai sent a joint signed telegram to Mao, stating:

Proposed Chinese troops are ill prepared and without tanks and artillery; requested air cover would take two months to arrive.
Within one month, fully equipped troops had to be in position; otherwise, US troops would step over the 38 parallel line and take over North Korea.
Fully equipped troops could only be sent into Korea in six months times, by then, North Korea would be occupied by the Americans, any troops would be meaningless.

On 12/October 1950 15:30 Beijing time, Mao sent telegram to Stalin through Russian ambassador:I agree with your (Stalin and Zhou) decision.
On 12/October 1950 22:12 Beijing time Mao sent another telegram: I agree with 10/October telegram, my troops stay put, I have issued order to cease the advance into Korea plan.
On 12/October 1950, Stalin sent telegram to North Korean Kim, telling him that the Russian and Chinese troops are not coming.

On 13/October, Russian ambassador's telegram saying Mao Zedong had informed him of Chinese communist central committee had approved the decision of sending troops to Korea.

From the above time-line, it is very clear that Mao Zedong single-handedly made the decision of sending Chinese troops to Korea. Arilang ^talk 09:43, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

First of all, those telegrams are from Nikita Khrushchev's memoir published in 1970s, so no great surprise here. Second, the date is just after the Battle of Inchon, so all it showed is that China only made the decision to enter the war after it deemed that UN will cross the 38th Parallel. But I believe what you were trying to say is that Mao started the Korean War by gaining control of Soviets' decision making, even against Stalin's wishes...that is an extremely large leap of logic that no historians managed to make even today. And third, please don't discount the role of Peng Dehuai and Nie Rongzhen, since those two were instrumental in helping Mao to persuade the rest of the Chinese leadership to enter Korean War. Most books I have claimed that it is this trio, not just Mao alone, that made the decision. Jim101 (talk) 14:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

User Jim101, on talk page, we can make any assumption. Yes, I am saying Mao made the most important decision in Korean War, he singularly made the decision of sending troops into Korea. But that is as far as I can go on talk page, if I do the same thing on the article, it would be Original Research. Since the above telegram exchange between Mao and Stalin is verifiable, and the content helps other readers to understand more about the history of Korean War, I suggest we add the content into the main article by creating another new section. What you think? Arilang ^talk 11:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with you except that would be crossing the line on WP:PSTS regarding primary sources. I'm not stopping you on putting those materials in, but you should chose a secondary sources that interprets those telegram instead of just posting the telegram itself. See my previous recommendations on authors that had tried to interpreted the above telegrams. If your are serious on rewriting the Chinese involvement in the Korean War, please use this book as the baseline since it is the most authoritative history on Chinese politics during the Korean War. Jim101 (talk) 14:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Hahaha, you are wrong about the Primary Source.

I am not translating from the original Russian telegram(by Stalin or the Russian diplomat)
I am translating from an article in 史学集刊中华人民共和国教育部斯大林、毛泽东与朝鲜战争再议沈志华　《史学集刊》 2007年第05期 writtn by none other than Shen Zhihua, and no one can claim that Shen Zhihua's article is Primary Source.
I would not insert any silly statement such as Mao started the war, but just let readers to come to their own conclusion.

By the way, what do you think of the story of zh:黄继光 ?

I apolopize for misinterperting the source, I just want to point out that the issue on why and how China entered the war is complex enough that by just reading into telegrams or one scholar's opinion is not enough (which explains why no one could write here on how both Mao and Stalin got involved). So far the only work that is generally accepted by the Western scholars is this book. All other researchs on Chinese leadership's mentality points back here one way or another. I'm not saying the Shen Zhihua's opinion is not valid, but so far I haven't seen much scholars take notice of his findings (Only two papers found with 9 citations total). Here is one of Shen Zhihua's work in English.

As for 黄继光...I could write an article on him if only I can find any secondary sources to confirm his exsitance, and believe me I tried. So far the only Chinese cultural stuff I managed to confirm by using secondary sources is Wei Wei's work Who are the Most Beloved People? Jim101 (talk) 21:36, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Refer to your comment:by just reading into telegrams or one scholar's opinion is not enough, though you may be right, in most occasions, but in this case, these telegrams speak the mind, and the soul, of Mao and Stalin, without any cosmetic makeup or whitewash. And between memoir and telegrams, memoir does carry doubts, as memory does fade with time.

On 黄继光, if you read this internet blog:窥一斑而知全豹黄继光事迹的几个疑点, there were three versions of "dead body", and the whole of PLA just could not get the story right, remind me of the assumed fake 雷鋒. The zh: 黄继光 of course, could not touch the fake topic, as zh:wiki is swarmed with mainland China Wumaodang 五毛党, who would delete any content criticising the communist regime, as if they own the zh:wiki. What can we say. Arilang ^talk 23:53, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, I can't stop you from making changes, although I'm bit more on the cautious side due the complexity of the topic at hand. As for 黄继光 — if there are no neutral secondary sources on him, he does not exist. On the other hand, after spending months in doing researchs on Battle of Triangle Hill, zh:上甘岭战役 is full of bullshit. Jim101 (talk) 00:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Talking about Bullshit, the original, and the biggest ever in 3000 years of Chinese history, is here:s:zh:作者:中國共產黨中央委員會 and hare:s:zh:作者:共產國際. If you could spend some time and read through all these(I did put together all these as well as reading them), you shall know who were the biggest bullshit artists ever. Arilang ^talk 01:33, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

黄继光

File:1953 Huang Jiguang.jpg

PVA soldier Huang Ji Guang blocks an enemy heavy machine gun with his chest. His sacrifice allowed his comrades to capture the enemy position.

It is wrong to say that he does not exist. 黄继光 was, and still is, big deal in mainland China. In school text books, in movie, etc. There was really such a person, the question is, did he really do what the communist propaganda machine claimed what he did? We have to consider we are lucky here in en:wikipedia, as there aren't that many communist Wumaodang 五毛党 here to delete content. Arilang ^talk 00:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, apprently the only sources that I can find him is in Chinese government source, or sources that reference Chinese government source...after plowing through all researchs and studies on the War to Resist America and Aid Korea propaganda campaign, even with his celebrity status, his name only come up once in passing. Jim101 (talk) 00:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Mao's telegram to Stalin

http://www.360doc.com/content/090217/20/79442_2573438.html

中国出兵支援朝鲜困难重重苏联开空头支票

11月7日，毛泽东致电斯大林，就军火问题向苏联提出要求，并附详细清单：菲利波夫同志：由于人民解放军陆军的武器装备主要是从敌人手里缴获来的战利品，因此造成步兵武器口径种类繁多的情况。 / 这一状况给弹药生产特别是步枪和机枪子弹生产带来很大困难，此外，我们的工厂目前所能提供的这种子弹为数甚少。 / 志愿军部队直接参加朝鲜军事行动的为12个军，计36个师，仅有6步枪和机枪弹药基数。今后，随着军事形势的发展，我们在保障军队弹药方面势必出现很大困难。如果军工生产方面不出现变化，那么，改装工作可能要到1951年下半年方能开始。 / 为克服目前困难，我请求您研究一下关于在1951年1月和2月这一时期给36个师供应步兵武器装备的问题，其具体品种名称和数量如下：1、苏式步枪14万支；2、步枪子弹5800万发；3、苏式自动枪26000支；4、自动枪子弹8000万发；5苏式轻机枪7000挺；6、轻机枪子弹3700万发；7、苏式重机枪2000挺；8、重机枪子弹2000万发；9、飞行员用手枪1000支；10、飞行员用手枪子弹10万；11、梯恩梯炸药1000吨。请你们对我的这一请求的研究结果告诉我。祝您身体健康。毛泽东1950年11月7日

List of weapons requested by Mao:

140,000 rifles
58 millions rounds of bullets
26000 automatic rifles
80 millions rounds of automatic rifles bullets
7000 Russian light machine guns
37 millions round of light machine bullets
2000 heavy machine guns
20 millions rounds of heavy machine gun bullets
1000 pistols
100,000 rounds of pistols bullets
1000 tons TNT

Mao Zedong 1950.11.7 Arilang ^talk 21:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, since this telegraph is cited in just about every Korean War books (including the ones edited in China), just one question that no historian managed to answer adequately...did Soviet deliver? Jim101 (talk) 03:49, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

User Jim101, to answer your question, no need to look very far. (1) China's steel production. Steel production pre-1949, that is KMT era, did KMT produced their own weapons, or imported them? (2) The communist took over China in 1949, and the War bagan in 1950-1951, you ask yourself, did the Communists had the time, and the expertise to prodoce tanks, machineguns, cannons, and bombs? Elementary, Mr.Watson, elementary. Arilang ^talk 05:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

To bad you forgot factor three — Chinese prisoners revealed that two third of Chinese soldiers has no firearm; UN found that almost all Chinese soldiers are armed with US M1 Garand, Tommy gun, US 60mm mortar and Japanese rifles; UN intelligence on Chinese combat capability revealed that China did not mass equipe Soviet weapons until the end of the Fifth Phase campaign, just when Chinese had no chance of taking over Korea...if that is call Soviet "support", I would say that is very bad quailty indeed.

If you need source, please read:

Shrader, Charles R. (1995). Communist Logistics in the Korean War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29509-3.
Spurr, Russell (1988). Enter the Dragon: China's Undeclared War Against the U.S. in Korea 1950-51. New York, NY: Newmarket Press. ISBN 1-557-04008-7.
Roe, Patrick C. (May 4, 2000). The Dragon Strikes. Novato, CA: Presidio. ISBN 0891417036.
Appleman, Roy (1990). Escaping the Trap: The US Army X Corps in Northeast Korea, 1950. College Station, TX: Texas A and M University Military History Series, 14. ISBN 0-89096-395-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Thank you. Jim101 (talk) 05:39, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Only two rocket launchers in the entire PLA 13th Army is called not poorly armed...? Anyway, like all histories, there are rare exceptions to the rules (39th Corps did managed to sneak two rocket launchers into Korea at the start of Chinese involvement), but generally speaking, Chinese generally were not armed with anything bigger than the 120mm mortar until the end of the Fifth Phase Campaign, when Mao finally smarten up to let the supply line to catch up with the front line. Jim101 (talk) 14:21, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Ahum...I said after the Fifth Phase Campaign, which means only at summer-fall 1951 did China got Soviet weapons, but by then the war was already going nowhere. Jim101 (talk) 02:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Psychological Warfare

I'm not understanding the reasoning behind removing the psywar section I started. It was referenced. This is an important aspect of the Korean War and deserves a section.Straitgate (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a heads up before people getting funny ideas...Chinese "psywar" is not psywar, it is their way of communicating since Chinese units don't have radios at battalion level...and I haven't heard anything about UN psywar. Jim101 (talk) 03:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

a psychological warfare section would discuss that aspect of the conflict from all sides: North Korean, South Korean, Chinese, UN. the chinese certainly did use "psywar". i'm talking about leaflets/broadcasts directed against South Korean/US forces as well as civilians. of course it's all about "communicating" at some level.Straitgate (talk) 14:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Chinese propaganda slogans

抗美援朝保家卫國. Translation:To resist the USA, to aid Korea, to protect our home, to defense our country. This is the most popular, and the most used slogan.
最可爱的人. The most lovable person, advocating all the Chinese to "love" the PVA soldiers. At some stage, many young school girls were sending "love" letters to the frontline soldiers. Arilang ^talk 19:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Communist China produced a lot of propoganda posters, here are some examples:

USSR military aids

沈志華：1950年代蘇聯援華貸款的歷史真相 Shen Zhihua:1950s Historical truth on the USSR loans to China.

1951年9月5日周恩來審改毛澤東致史達林電，電文說，今年2月1日中蘇關於軍事貸款的協定所規定的貸款和4月10日來電所增加的軍事貸款，至6月均已用完。鋻於“目前我國財政赤字甚大，戰費極巨”，請蘇聯政府考慮按照2月1日軍事貸款協定的條件，再增加6億盧布的軍事貸款，並希望新的軍事訂貨能于1951年底以前全部交付。12日史達林復電說，同意按以前規定的條件給中國增加6億盧布的軍事貸款，但追加的軍事訂貨最早也要在6個月內交付。這就是說，除2月1日貸款外，4月10日還有一筆補充貸款，此外，毛澤東又要求新的軍事貸款，而且已得到史達林同意。Rough translation:On 5/9/1951 Mao's telegram to Stalin asking for extra military loan of 600 million Russian rubles.
1951年9月20日毛澤東致電史達林說，“您1951年9月12日發來的電報已收到。感謝您滿足我們提出的給我們提供6億盧布軍事補充貸款和向駐朝中國人民志願軍部隊派遣軍事顧問的要求”。這就是說，史達林已經同意再提供一筆新的軍事貸款。 Rough translation:On 20/9/1951 Mao's telegram to Stalin:12/9/1951 telegram received. Thanks for your approval of our request of military loan of 600 million Russian rubles...

1952年3月28日毛澤東致電史達林說，“按我們計算，從1951年2月1日開始，你們按提供軍事貸款協定條件三次提供的軍事貸款總額的剩餘額是 4億多盧布。我們打算用這4億多盧布購買我們的空軍所必需的飛機、設備和彈藥”。這就是說，1951年總共有三筆同等條件的軍事貸款，即2月1日根據周恩來與扎哈羅夫協定的貸款，4月10日和9月12日史達林電報追加的貸款，而且這些貸款已經在使用過程中。 Rough translation:28/3/1952 Mao's telegram to Stalin:...we intend to use the remaining 400 milions plus Russian rubles to purchase the airplanes, equipements and ammunitions needed for our airforce.

抗美援朝貸款在貸款總數中所佔比例也不是《外交史》計算的60%以上，而是大約48%.

According to Shen Zhihua, USSR made 13 loans to China in the 1950s, total amount about 6600 millions Russian rubles, and 48% of that was allocated to the financing of the Korean war, which amounted to about 3300 milions Russian rubles. Would any editor care to make a rough calculation, to work out the amount in 1950s and 2009 US dollars? Arilang ^talk 22:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

如此計算的結果，1950年代蘇聯給中國的貸款應為13筆，而不是11筆，總金額大約是66億舊盧布， Arilang ^talk 03:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

New info from South Korea

This article from the New York Times has some information on the Bodo League massacre that I'm pretty sure we don't have. I'm not going to add it because I really don't know much about the war crimes side of the war, but if someone who has done some more research in this area wants to look at this, that would be great. Cerebellum (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Text from zh:wiki

在韓戰爆發之前，中國將第四野戰軍和第一野戰軍中的朝鮮族和朝鮮人為主的部隊以師為單位按金日成的要求轉交給北韓，構成北韓人民軍步兵主力。Above text is from Chinese wiki zh:韓戰, translation:Prior to the beiginning of the Korean War, the main body of the Korean People's Army was formed by the soldiers of the Chinese Fourth Army and Chinese First Army who were either Chinese of Korean ethnicity or Koreans, following request from Kin Il Seng.

At the same time, a school was established near Yenan for training military and political leaders for a future independent Korea. By 1945, the KVA had grown to approximately 1,000 men, mostly Korean deserters from the Imperial Japanese Army. During this period, the KVA fought alongside the Chinese communist forces from which it drew its arms and ammunition. After the defeat of the Japanese, the KVA accompanied the Chinese communist forces into Manchuria, intending to gain recruits from the Korean population of Manchuria and then enter Korea. By September 1945 the KVA had a 2,500 strong force at its disposal. Text from:Korean People's Army#History

If we add the above text together, one would assumed that the main force of the Korean People's Army were Chinese, then the whole of the Korean War was fought between Chinese and the UN, the Koreans(from Korea) had little to do with it. Any comments from other editors? Arilang ^talk 21:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not correct, it is half and half...half of the KPA is from China, another half is from the Soviet Union. The main fist of the KPA, the armor and mechanizing infantry are from the Soviet Union. Not to mention Kim Jung-sung and the top KPA leader were all from Soviet Union.

As for the Chinese release of the Korean from their army...they are not Chinese, but Korean anti-Japanese fighters recruited into Communist Manchurian Army (a.k.a Fourth Field Army). In fact they were released by China in 1945, but the Soviet Union was busy installing their own puppets in Korea, thus won't allow them to cross the border. So those Korean exiles were forced to stay during the Chinese Civil War until early 1950, when the Chinese army was doing massive downsizing.

But it is correct to say that those Korean exiles with their 20 plus years of combat experience returned as officers and trainers, which created the backbone of the new KPA. Jim101 (talk) 23:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Jim101, I sort of agree with you. But please remember 朝鮮族, which means Chinese of Korean ethnicity, these Chinese who speak Korean, are actually Chinese that live alongside the China-Korean border. For a westerner, it is very hard to tell the difference. And the Fourth Field Army did have a lot of 朝鮮族 soldiers, and were they Chinese or Koreans, who can tell? And throughout Qing and Ming dynasty, Koreans came and went between Manchuria and Korea anyway. My point is, without Chinese(and Russia, of course) aids, there would not be any Korean War. There shall be a sentence or two, saying that the active combatens of the KPA were either Chinese, or Koreans trained by the Chinese and the Russians. Arilang ^talk 02:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

No documents or studies on KPA even hinted that they are Chinese with Korean ethnicities, all sources just state they are Koreans who escaped from Korea under Japanese rule and joined Communist underground resistance in Manchuria. As for the role of helping to start the Korean War...the connection is a bit thin, especially when the Communist tried to unload the Koreans in the 1945. I can't really see more than one or two sentences mention on the amount of Koreans served with Communist during the Sino-Japanese War and gained extensive combat experience before returning home. There really is no evidence that the Chinese trained the Koreans for the Korea War, otherwise the KPA would follow a Chinese army structure, not a Soviet model. Jim101 (talk) 04:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

One more thing, the South Korean government are also from Korean exiles based in China... Jim101 (talk) 05:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Sentences need to be tidy up

During World War II, Japanese utilized Korea's food, livestock, and metals for the war effort. Japanese forces in Korea increased from 46,000 (1941) to 300,000 (1945) soldiers. Japanese Korea conscripted 2.6 million forced laborers controlled with a collaborationist Korean police force; some 723,000 people had been sent to work in the overseas empire and in metropolitan Japan. By January 1945, Koreans were 32% of Japan’s labor force; in August 1945, when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, they were about 25% of the people killed.[39] Japanese rule in Korea and Taiwan was not recognized by other world powers at the end of the war.

To start with, this is bad English. Especially:Koreans were 32% of Japan’s labor force is not English. And Japanese rule in Korea and Taiwan was not recognized by other world powers at the end of the war. Sentences like this should not be tolerated. Arilang ^talk 22:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

NPOV: Biased casualty number

The article is quite biased about the casualty and vastly underestimate the loss of UN force:

According to America's US Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, the official casualty are listed as:

KIA (Killed in Action) US force: 54246, UN force: 628833

Wounded: US force: 103284, UN force: 1064453

Missing: US force: 8177, UN force: 470267

Captured: US force: 7140, UN force: 92970

So in summary, UN force suffered a total loss of 2.3 million men, including 0.7 million dead, 1.1 million+ wounded, 0.57 million missing/captured

Anyone can pay a visit to US's Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington DC to see these official numbers, this is from the mouth of the Americans.

Casualties do not include prisoners, by infernace they have not been killed. But it does say that more were killed then the articel says, thee is a discrepancy here.Slatersteven (talk) 16:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, in the article they obviously count missing as casualty, and besides missing and POW, the totally killed/wounded is around 1.7 million for UN force according to US's Korean War Veterans Memorial, still far far more than the 0.7 million number shown in this article, so I recommend at least provide these numbers from American's own Korea war memorial as another source of UN's total casualty.

In this article you only told one-sided story and only citied the US's estimation of China/NK's casualty number whilst completely ignore the other side's story, not only that, the casualty number selected in this article seems to be the lowest estimation among all your own sources, so I think this article is quite bias and POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.67.174.151 (talk) 17:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Actualy it says casualties and losses. And missing and POW's are listed there, as are wounded. The article says that ayound 778,053 were killed, if we total up WIA that gives us around 550,000 (not all seperate KIA from WIA, or even list WIA) or around 1.3 million. Now this figure does seem low (according to the memorial (and I have not disputed that)). But you cannot lump missing and POW's into this figure. The more commonly used number–36,516–only includes the deaths that occurred as a direct result of the Korean War. Slatersteven (talk) 18:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

According to the article:

North Korea: 215,000 dead, 303,000 wounded, 120,000 MIA or POW[12] China (Official data): 114,000 killed in combat 34,000 non-combat deaths 380,000 wounded 21,400 POW[23] (U.S. estimate):[12] 400,000+ dead 486,000 wounded 21,000 POW Soviet Union: 282 dead[24] Total: 1,187,682-1,545,822 Body Johns: 1325 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.36.49.1 (talk) 09:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

dead: NK listed as 215k, China listed as 150k or 400k(US estimation), Soviet listed as 282

The total dead should be 0.33 million to 0.61 million (US estimation), instead of 1.18 million to 1.5 million listed in the article.

Appearently 1.18-1.5 milion number includes dead, wounded, Missing and POW, you can do the math.

I would say this part of the article is very POV, not only the aritcle only cited one-sided sources, but also it seems like it tend to pick the smallest possible numbers of UN's loss among all the one-sided sources they cited.

So I recommend to improve it through at least put the figures from the US's Korean War Veterans Memorial as another source of figures.

I agree that the totals should use the same maths.Slatersteven (talk) 15:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I have now done the mmaths and the 770,000 odd figure of rthe UN total; is also for all casualties (there were around 180,000 UN dead (according to the article), and around 550,000 woinded. So the only question is should we use the UN memorial in Washingtoon DC as a source, thoughts please.Slatersteven (talk) 15:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Crimes Against Civilians Article

This article only cites from the AP article as if the claims were not disputed and the numbers given there are accurate without at least hinting that their is some controversy. While it does link to the article about No Gun Ri, might it also not be a good idea to put something about that in the article here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.52.232.163 (talk) 16:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

MLR

MLR stands for the Main Line of Resistance in the Korean War. I've run across this term several times over the years. It's nowhere in Wikipedia, including on the disambiguation page for 'MLR'; I found the definition of MLR through Google. Can someone who's knowledgeable about the war include a reference to MLR, and say what it was and its significance? AmateurHistorian000 (talk) 14:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The United Nations divided Korea after World War II along the 38th parallel, intending it as a temporary measure. However, the breakdown of relations between the US and USSR prevented a reunification. During the U.S. occupation of South Korea, relations between the U.S. and North Korea were conducted through the Soviet military government in the North. Because of North Korea's submission to Soviet pressures, and because of mass opposition to the lenient U.S. occupation of the mortal enemy Japan, North Koreans in this period denounced the United States and began to form a negative view of the U.S. However, several American ministers and missionaries remained active in this period, reminding Koreans, before they were uprooted by the communist regime, that American individuals could be very helpful to the cause of Korean independence. On September 9, 1948, Kim Il-sung declared the Democratic People's Republic of Korea; he promptly received diplomatic recognition from the Soviet Union, but not the United States. The U.S. did not extend, and has never extended, diplomatic recognition to the DPRK. After 1948, the withdrawal of most American troops from the peninsula actually intensified Kim Il Sung's anti-American rhetoric, often asserting that the US was an imperialist successor to Japan, a view it still holds today. In December 1950, the United States initiated economic sanctions against the DPRK under the Trading with the Enemy Act[1] which lasted until 2008.[2]

Yes when we have gotten into war we were justified>> Nobody wants war, but you can't allow some half-civilized case to simply take over a large hunk of the middle east and much of the world's oil supplies. Saddam himself caused his country to be invaded. Regardless of whether or not our intelligence was accurate, could we just ignore a leader who bragged about his WMDs. When did we come to accept the idea that a foreign leader could order the murder of one of our ex-presidents, and we would not react ? Many people came to hate Bush for invading Iraq,but how many more would hate him if he failed to act and our people and our interests were later attacked by Iraq's WMDs? History will judge him more fairly than those who are wimping out today.

We learned many lessons in Vietnam one of the most important is that fighter jets like the F-4 do not do well for low level ground attacks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.95.165.194 (talk) 04:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Army flag

Can someone find out what military flag was used by the communist side? Arilang ^talk 14:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Army flag

Could anyone tell me exactly what kind of military flag the Chinese volunteer army was using during the war? They couldn't have used the PLA's flag, because officially they were not PLA. And if they did use PLA's flag, then they couldn't call themselves "volunteer". Arilang ^talk 05:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

G-suits

The Korean War did not mark the first combat use of G-suits. They were used in the latter stages of World War II by the USAAF and the RAF.--172.191.196.115 (talk) 03:04, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

NPOV

Korea, Like Vietnam: A War Originated and Maintained by Deceit
An article by S. Brian Willson December 1, 1999

At the conclusion of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States occupied previously undivided Korea in order to expel the defeated Japanese who had ruled the entire Peninsula for decades. A temporary demarcation line separating the Russian and U.S. forces was created approximately along the 38th parallel. This line was not intended to create two separate countries. But as the Cold War deepened, both powers insisted that re-unification of North and South be carried out according to their own ideological bias. The U.S. supported an extremely repressive ruler in the South, Syngman Rhee, while the North was led by Kim Il Sung, a fiercely independent man greatly vilified by the West. The two sides increasingly clashed across the parallel for several years. The North Korean government claimed that in 1949 alone, the South Korean army and/or police committed over 2600 armed incursions into the North. Subsequently, documents have suggested that, at a minimum, there were a number of attacks by South Korean forces into the North, and that many, if not all, of the attacks on the South had been reprisals. Syngman Rhee’s public pronouncements throughout 1949 and early 1950 consistently spoke of his desire to order his forces to attack the North. Whatever happened on June 25, 1950 remains unclear, but the fighting on that day is considered by some scholars to have been no more than the escalation of an ongoing civil war provoked by the Cold War. Long before the Korean War broke out in June 1950, there was another civil guerrilla war being waged within parts of the South between Koreans aligning themselves with their American occupiers, and those desiring clear independence from outsiders. Repression by Syngman Rhee’s security forces against perceived dissenters with the protection of the U.S. presence was systematically brutal. The success of the revolution in next door China in 1949 greatly increased U.S. anxieties and contributed to firm support of the tyrannical, but anti-Communist Syngman Rhee. The United Nations was not a neutral organization in 1950 any more than it is in 2000. The Security Council’s June 27, 1950 resolution to defend South Korea was reached with little accurate information and it was clear there was no interest in acquiring such information. The United States exerted great pressure on the other members. The Soviet Union was absent due to its boycott of the UN over refusal to seat Communist China in place of Taiwan. Yugoslavia’s request that North Korea be invited to present its perspective was dismissed out of hand. Token military forces from sixteen other countries took part in one way or another which technically enabled the war to be fought by "United Nations" forces. But it was to be an "American" show, a fact finalized on July 7 with a UN Reolution that, in effect, made the United Nations’ forces subject to U.S. General Douglas MacArthur without making MacArthur subject to the UN. The brutal war that developed was fought in defense of the Syngman Rhee regime, not for the benefit of an undivided Peninsula benefitting all Koreans. It continued ruthlessly until an armistice ending the hot war was signed on July 27, 1953. To this date there has been no peace treaty signed, even though talks technically continue at Panmunjom on the northern side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Officially the U.S. is still at war with North Korea. Everything we learned about Vietnam had its forerunner in Korea: U.S. support of a corrupt, tyrannical ruler; regular atrocities; mass slaughter of civilians; torture and imprisonment of dissidents not assassinated; cities and many agricultural areas bombed to total destruction; intense and calculated management of the news about the war; and consistent sabotaging of peace talks throughout the war’s duration. Earlier suppressed reports of atrocities committed by U.S. ground and air forces were re-affirmed in 1999 by eyewitness accounts of Korean survivors and American military veterans who had been ordered to kill large numbers of civilians, as well as declassified U.S. Air Force documents. In one case some 2,000 Korean civilians were forced into an open mountain area near Yongdong and slaughtered from the air. In other cases hundreds of civilian refugees were blown up as they fled across detonated bridges or machine-gunned as they sought protection under viaducts The death and destruction inflicted, especially in the northern part of the Peninsula, defies imagination. It is now believed that more than four million people died in the war, perhaps as many as three million of whom were from the North of a population, at the time, of about nine million. All major cities, about five dozen, were totally destroyed in the North by U.S. airpower. At the beginning of the war, U.S. General Curtis LeMay asked the Pentagon "to turn SAC [Strategic Air Command] loose with incendiaries" on North Korea. Though Truman rejected such a blitzkrieg, SAC was ultimately authorized to bomb urban and rural areas anyway, "piecemeal." Most villages were destroyed as well, especially if they were "suspected of aiding the enemy." Most dams and dikes were destroyed, wiping out most rice crops. Saturation bombing and scorched earth policies were commonly used throughout the war. U.S. extensively used napalm in Korea long before it became a household word in Vietnam. There is growing evidence to support North Korea’s accusations that substantial germ and biological warfare was utilized during 1952 bombings as some U.S. pilots had originally confessed while in captivity. Over a period of about three years, LeMay remarked: "We killed off – what – twenty percent of the population of North Korea." The truth is that the figure may be a staggering one third of its population. In summary, the war wreaked destruction hardly equaled in the worst battles of World War II in Europe. It has left bitter memories. After the Armisitice was signed in July 1953, a Military Demarcation Line was created continuing to use the 38th Parallel as a general guide. A DMZ exists two kilometers on each side of the Line. The families of some 10,000,000 Koreans have been permanently divided since. In the 1970s the United States constructed a wall across the 150 mile long DMZ, 16.5 feet tall and up to 30 feet wide at its base, bolstered by razor wire and regular gun towers. There has been virtually no mention of this wall in the western press even though it made the Berlin Wall look small in comparison. Nonetheless, reunification has remained a passion among virtually all Korean people. In the past, the South Korean government, supported by the U.S., has vigorously opposed reunification efforts, though that stance has been softening since the first democratically elected government in the South recently came into power. There remain about 37,000 U.S. troops in the South. Until recently the U.S. had an estimated 1,000 nuclear weapons pointed toward the North, even though the latter had no nuclear capability whatsoever. Historically, there have been no religious, ethnic nor other minorities on the Korean Peninsula. Out of its 5,000 year history, the Peninsula has been divided for only the years since 1945. Washington bears the brunt of responsibility for bringing the Korean War to a close, to replace the 1953 ceasefire with a permanent peace agreement, and to extricate itself, once and for all, from the Korean Peninsula. Then, and only then, can there be hope that the Koreans can once again be rightfully united. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.162.30.222 (talk) 04:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Another Philippine film

The movie Korea (1952) should be included in list of films about the Korean war. It is a notable film because it was directed by Lamberto Avellana and its sreenplay was written by Benigno Aquino. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.52.227.200 (talk) 10:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Done --Diannaa ^TALK 03:03, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

non neutral pictures

The images in this article are clearly non neutral. Almost every picture shows american soldiers and never chinese soldiers. We can also see two chinese propaganda posters but none on the US side ! This article should be more balanced. Yinghuo 1 (talk) 22:12, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

we could for example add this file (chinese soldiers) :

Yinghuo 1 (talk) 22:15, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Dear Yinghuo,

I completey agree with you. Almost every one of those picture are of US soldiers and military operations. It is true that they helped out a lot and South Korea might not have won without their aid. It seems to me that whoever edited the page is clearly biased towards the US. They tried to make it seem as though the US did everything, although South Korea did just as much, if not more. I mean, it was the KOREAN war. There is ONE picture of a Korean soldier, but it looks as though a US officer is telling him what to look at etc. This further goes to make it look as if the US is superior.

Please, don't use wikipedia to try and spread your ignorant beliefs of "America is #1"

Someone fix this... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.99.197.52 (talk) 20:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Done I have added this pic and some others from the Commons to try to get a better balance. I am also working on bringing the article to a more neutral point of view. --Diannaa ^TALK 03:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

western pov

good gracious folks. when will the obviously western/english language pov be recognized in this article? time and time again the pov of so many korean people is ignored since the authors and readers are overwhelmingly 20 to 40 year old white, western authors. indeed, the entire concept of npov is silly. (if you have no life and wish to see more, please see my page, hongkyongae for a far more detailed explanation of the fallacy and fantasy of this wiki belief.)

again, where are the many and disparant voice of the korean people in this article? again and again we see western tales of military prowness, military technology, military deeds...but where are the peasants, farmers, women, children, average korean voices in all this? to position this, or any, article so heavily within the intellectual confines of the western hegemonic cold war is blatantly pov...and then how often do i read complaints about pov from these authors? Hongkyongnae (talk) 01:17, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Two of the best English books on Korean POV has been available for more than a decade, yet it is amazing that no one bother to read it.

Chae, Han Kook; Chung, Suk Kyun; Yang, Yong Cho (2001). Yang, Hee Wan; Lim, Won Hyok; Sims, Thomas Lee; Sims, Laura Marie; Kim, Chong Gu; Millett, Allan R. (eds.). The Korean War. Vol. Volume I, II, III. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803277953. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
Paik, Sun Yup (1992). From Pusan to Panmunjom. Riverside, NJ: Brassey Inc. ISBN 0028810023.

And before people assume that a scientific study of the Chinese POV does not exist, the most authoritative Chinese POV in English was published 15 years ago.

Shu, Guang Zhang (1995). Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0700607234.

Take it or leave it. Jim101 (talk) 05:33, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Hongkyongnae , I understand the issues you have with the article re western POV etc. However if you are going to make additions can you please include references? I have now removed your recent additions as they were completely unsourced. Wikipedia policy states that all information must be verifiable. ChoraPete (talk) 07:44, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not have access to any of the texts recommended by Jim101. What I do have on my desk is Halbertstam ISBN 9781401300534; Stein ISBN 0894905260; Granfield ISBN 1550050923; and Cumings ISBN 0393327027. After I finish copy editing the existing material in the article, I intend to comb through these texts for stories of civilian suffering and Chinese and Korean tales from the front lines to help offset the USA side of the story. Hongkyongnae, I do sympathise and relate to what you are saying. The situation is even worse in articles about India where so much of the history and religious traditions are word-of-mouth. It is very important that this article show a well balanced set of facts as it is getting 10,000 views a day. But we do need to cite sources for everything that is added, please. Diannaa ^TALK 19:43, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

thank you for your explanation. in past revisions i did use citations. but they were all removed over time and it gets incredibly tedious to have redo the same thing time after time after time. the citations can be found in "origins of the korean war" by bruce cumings, "Korea: the unknown war" by holiday and cumings, and "하나의 역사 두 개의 역사학" ("one history, two historiographies") by jeong duhui. also, for accounts of massacre by the US of koreans and pre-war politics also see "korea: politics of the vortex" by gregory henderson.

if you check my history of revisions to this article you will see numerous citations. this time around i could not see the point when people are accepting propaganda and faulty assumptions, but it is "ok" if they provide some sort of citation.

and you might want to tell the folks who stand guard over the philippine war article that my students are about to redo that article and improve it. Hongkyongnae (talk) 01:52, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Hongkyongnae repeatedly added references years ago (without page numbers) to books by Cumings, who is strongly disputed by other historians, and the subject of strong criticism on this articles talk page Talk:Korean_War/Archive_5#Cumings_as_a_reference here. Additionally, "warning us" that an unrelated (and not specifically named) article is about to be edited is worse than useless, and also shows a bizarre understanding of wikipedia. (Hohum ^@) 19:51, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 216.252.45.208, 16 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} On the korean war article there is something that does not belong near the top. It needs to be removed.

216.252.45.208 (talk) 21:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. --Darkwind (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Vandelism

Suggest removing the following from intro: "it never happened!!!!!!!!!! JERROD RESMONDO WAS HERE!!! from penssacola florida" 192.45.72.26 (talk) 23:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the report, but ClueBot removed the vandalism within one minute of it being posted. If you are still seeing it, try refreshing your screen or clearing your cache. Diannaa ^TALK 23:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

pictures of dead people

this is imoprtant but it could also be triggering, warning should be added and/or images made optional to viewers. just like certain section topic boxes are hidden by default.

blah —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.19.225.248 (talk) 15:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 99.242.144.219, 17 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

Hi,

I noticed on the Korean War article that someone posted "it never happened!!!!!!!!!! JERROD RESMONDO WAS HERE!!! from penssacola florida". Just a little fix below the main synopsis. i.e. the first paragraph or so. Just erasing it will be perfect. Thanks!

99.242.144.219 (talk) 19:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Done ages ago. You must be looking at a cached version or something. Algebraist 20:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

400000 + dead and wounded - equal numbers for dead and wounded chinese doesn't make a lot of sense

I'm guessing that the Chinese estimate is better considering that they could simply refer to their enrollment records and cross off those who have not reported themselves in after the war ... in addition to this data - which was acknowledged as being tentative by the source - the number of dead being virtually equal to the wounded is statistically implausible.

86,000 more wounded then dead is neither equal nor implausible. What's far more plausible is that neither number is accurate (for psyops reasons) and so we put both to at least show the range. Jklharris (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Pre-war date for a US atomic threat?

"On 5 April 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The President ordered the transfer of nine Mark-IV nuclear capsules "to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets", which he never transmitted.[42]..." gwgoldbGwgoldb (talk) 13:49, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. I almost think that we should split off the current "US threat of atomic warfare" section into Nuclear weapons in the Korean War or Threat of nuclear weapons in the Korean War -- your information should be included, but the current nuclear section in overly long already, and there is a lot more information on this topic. --Cerebellum (talk) 14:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. What are the verifiable, reliable references for this information? --S. Rich 16:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srich32977 (talk • contribs) Please note that I'm citing a section entered by someone else and questioning the date. gwgoldbGwgoldb (talk) 18:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see. You are quoting from the article, not suggesting an addition to it. In that case, I would also question the date, but note that there were hostilities between North and South before the June invasion, troops moving around and such, so I wouldn't be surprised if the President was getting ready for a war that he suspected was coming. Also note that the citation is to Origins of the Korean War, a controversial book. --Cerebellum (talk) 19:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Understood. (I missed the reference.) Thanks.--S. Rich 14:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Geneva Conference of 1954

Should this article include reference to the Geneva Conference of 1954? The meeting was mandated by the armistice (to happen within 3 months though it happened almost a year later) to address the Korean question. At the conference different proposals were offered by the different parties to the conflict, and in the end no deceleration was adopted for a unified Korea. Perhaps this can be added in an aftermath section.. 211.228.53.158 (talk) 12:39, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Exchange between Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong

Previous discussion here

I just don't get this section, what is the conclusion of those telegraphs? What are the effects of those telegraphs on established Korean War researches such as the book Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War and the book China's road to the Korean War: the making of the Sino-American confrontation? And finally, just how important is those telegraphs in Cold War historiography? It just seem to be stretching WP:UNDUE by devoting an entire section on a list of telegraph with unknown importance. Jim101 (talk) 23:00, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore, the telegraphs appears to be the paperwork explaining the second paragraph of the China intervene section...should I suggest just delete the section and move the reference to that paragraph? Jim101 (talk) 00:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you recall this discussion and this discussion? User:Arilang1234 seems to be saying the reason for inclusion is he wanted to show that Mao and Stalin were plotting the invasion. But he can't say so, as it would be WP:OR, as he hasn't got a scholarly source for this conclusion. So his idea was instead to list these telegrams and let the reader make up their own mind as to the degree of collusion.

I can tell by your user page that you are an expert on the Korean War. And I have read through the discussions from December. If you favour removal I would not object. I did not understand the inclusion of the material when I did copy edits on the article a while back. Are there any other editors out there with views? Diannaa ^TALK 00:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I removed the section and moved the reference to the second paragraph of the China Intervene section. Jim101 (talk) 13:40, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Frankly, I was shocked to see an article on the "Second Korean War". I discovered it while looking at biographies of different US military personnel. They had listed it under the battles/wars they had been engaged in. Well, I was in South Korea in 1973-1975, and while lots of events were going on, we GIs never thought that THE Korean War had restarted. In fact, the many events which the Second Korean War refers to are events which continue on to this day. Just a few days ago a South Korean warship sank, perhaps due to a North Korean mine. Many sailors died. Not that I'm being crass about the loss of life -- I've had personal friends die in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but designating this quite undefined and certainly unofficial time period as a "War" is too much. Let's merge it into a new subsection in the Korean War article. Call the section "On-going Hostility"--S. Rich 06:05, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you, and I've never heard anyone else use "Second Korean War" to describe that period; we should either merge the article with this one or maybe with Legacy of the Korean War, or move it to a more appropriate name, maybe something like Conflicts in Korea (1966-1976), although that doesn't specify the belligerents. --Cerebellum (talk) 02:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it should be brought into the Korean War article as it will make it too long (the present article is already 133 KB). I was having trouble loading the thing as it was when I had to do full-page edits to get the photos aligned. People with slow internet connections or older computers would have trouble looking at the article. I would prefer merging with Legacy of the Korean War, or the name change idea suggested by Cerebellum. Diannaa ^TALK 03:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Good points. I found the Legacy article later and think it is the best avenue of approach. The "Second Korean War" could be added as a subsection. As a topic itself, it only had one resource -- the military.com article. As a section within Legacy, it could note that an upsurge of incidents occurred in the particular time frame. But the use of the term "upsurge" really needs some empirical analysis. That in turn mean original research, which I understand is a no-no within Wikipedia.S. Rich 04:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srich32977 (talk • contribs)

this is the werst thing i ever read —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.138.171.140 (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Some idiot added something....

Hi, some guy added "this never happened, ______ was there!" and then signed his name.

Yeah, just wanted to let you know so you can take it off

Adilrye (talk) 18:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC) adilrye

Vandal already reverted and blocked indefinitely. Elockid ^(Talk) 18:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I support Merging it into this article, the combat never stoped after the ceasefire (there have been dozens of naval battles between the north and south over the years) the intensity just droped to a much lower level.67.84.178.0 (talk) 14:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, I urge moving this info into the Korean War article. Leaving this as an independent article only serves to overlook the bigger picture. Here is more support for the my argument: 1. A CRS summary (http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL30004.pdf) gives us instances of clashes in 1958 and 1965 -- dates before the purported 1968 date in our article. 2. This summary does not include 1966 & 1967 incidents listed in the article. (Adding to the point that the article is composed of unverified material.) 3. The summary includes many incidents which occurred after the supposed 1976 cutoff date in the article. 4. The assertion that US (and KATUSA) soldiers conducted combat patrols are part of the "War" is misleading -- the DMZ has been and is patrolled by armed forces from both sides regularly since the armistice. 5. Just because a recommendation is made to declare a hostile fire zone does not mean a war has broken out. Congress and the President did not act on the recommendation. The recommendation was probably more for the benefit of the soldiers serving there. E.g., they may receive additional pay and/or tax free pay for serving there, and they may receive privileges of status such as wearing a "Combat Patch" on their uniform or the Combat Infantryman's Badge.--S. Rich 21:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll continue my diatribe to get KWII moved. One, here is info on the "combat patch" http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Combat_patch#Former_wartime_service; Two, the Combat Infantryman's Badge (http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Combat_Infantryman_Badge) may be worn by soldiers who were engaged in combat in the DMZ, but it is also authorized for service in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador -- but do we want to call those deployments "War"? Three, there was a constant drumbeat by ROK politicians (and generals) about the treat from DPK. The threat was sometimes used to justify coups d'tat and oppressive crackdowns on dissidents (e.g., Gwanju -- http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Anti-American_sentiment_in_Korea#Gwangju_massacre). By putting up a Second Korea War article, we give tacit support to those actions. --S. Rich 07:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Spinning off the "depictions" section into a new article

For a while now, I have been thinking that we should spin off the Korean war#Depictions section into a separate article. The Vietnam war has an article called Vietnam War in film and World War II has World War II in contemporary culture. This would make for a more manageable article size that would be quicker to load. Current file size is 489 KB with 60 KB of readable prose (9750 words). Guidelines are at WP:SIZE. Anybody care to comment? I would call the new article Korean War in contemporary culture. Diannaa ^TALK 03:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Good idea...and the list has to be incorporated into proses IMO. Jim101 (talk) 15:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good call. Maybe leave a brief lead-in in the article giving a generalization about the depiction and mentioning 2 or 3 famous works. - Schrandit (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

OK done. I did not transliterate into prose though; I am busy with the GOCE Backlog Elimination Drive right now. --Diannaa ^TALK 20:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Not over

could it be said that the war is still going, because a peace treaty was never signed, so we technicly this is just a cease fire, right? Chard513 (talk) 00:48, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

CASUS BELLI?

There is a time and a place for a dead language, I don't think this is it. Who are we trying to impress with our personal mastery of the written languages. Why put Latin in when it will cause someone, like me, to be distracted from the text at hand to go look up the meaning of the Latin phrase? I think we should try to keep the writing as simple as possible for people. I vote to remove the Latin phrase "casus belli" and say in English what we mean, 'justification for the war'. Meyerj (talk) 11:30, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

CASUS BELLI is a fairly widely used term for 'reason a war started'.Slatersteven (talk) 13:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Slatersteven, etc. Our language is alive and well, and it includes lots of Latin phrases, etc. For more, see Marina Orlova.--S. Rich 13:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

QEDSlatersteven (talk) 13:10, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I work for HQ of a major US Army command, and nobody in our IT office knew what it meant. Not even the PHDs. And yes our language is alive and well, we should stick to it so the 9th grader will read the article and not be distracted. Semper Fi Meyerj (talk) 13:44, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone was trying to impress anyone with their personal mastery of the written language: casus belli is a perfectly understandable and normal phrase to use here. The way ninth graders learn the more interesting permutations of English vocabulary has always been by reading encyclopedias; they'd never learn any of it if encylopedia's dumbed themselves down. Adults too. Just think: you work for the Army, and now you know what casus belli means. You added to your professional vocabulary! -jackbrown (talk) 16:40, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

We are Wikipedians! Come on, my "etc." joke was there -- doesn't anyone give me a "ha-ha" et cetera for being a little clever? We look up things, and 9th graders should as well.--S. Rich 02:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

"There is a time and a place for a dead language" ... "Semper Fi" - Meyerj. MMLOL. (Hohum ^@) 22:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

United States is not even mentioned as a belligerent in the first paragraph

Isn't it kind of mealy-mouthed and double-talky to start the article by saying that the war was fought between the United Nations and North Korea/China? As basically everyone knows, it was a war between the United States/South Korea and China/North Korea, with some British Commonwealth allies on the US side. Calling it a United Nations conflict in the opening sentence seems to me to be taking sides, even if it is technically true in the sense that a lot of modern wars are fought with one side claiming a UN mandate.

I'm sure at the time, the North Koreans, Chinese and Russians had a fancy name for their side too, like the People's Self Determination Coalition or something. Just because the article is written in English by the conationals of the American side doesn't mean we should just adopt their terminology and point of view unquestioningly.

Let's call a spade a spade. Here's my proposed adjustment:

The Korean War (1950-53) was a military conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations; and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and People's Republic of China, with air support from the Soviet Union.

Its only disadvantage is that it doesn't acknowledge the significant expenditure of troops by the British and their Commonwealth running dog allies (just kidding!). But that can be addressed in the same paragraph.

I am open to discussion on this (and even to being convinced I am wrong)which is why I brought it up here instead of unilaterally crossing the 38th Parallel and changing the first sentence. -jackbrown (talk) 16:32, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think its really fair to say it was the US behind this. The high number of American troops is noted when assessing the troop contributions, as it the fact that many of the leading allied Generals were American and that's probably all that is called for. - Schrandit (talk) 19:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree with changing this either. Some of the wording was changed a month or two ago as per requests on the talk page. Before March 2010 the article was very US-centric to the point that complaints were being posted there. Look at Turkey, for example. They did not send a lot of people but 51% of their troops were killed or wounded. Their contribution cannot be passed over lightly. South Korean people in particular are sensitive to any implication that they could not have managed on their own. One person made the point that you cannot assume everyone reading the article is a US citizen. Look through Archive #7 of the talk page for more examples. Diannaa ^TALK 21:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Actuaky this is the only war that had a clear UN mandate for mi9llitary action, and the US commander was also the UN commander. Its also true that more non-US personel were part of the UN command (including the Sk's of course)Slatersteven (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, as far as I know, it is not true that the Chinese, North Koreans, and Russians had a fancy name for their coalition. North Korea was really the face of the coalition, and Russia and China tried to keep their contributions on the down-low. Of course, with China that changed once they came over the Yalu. And no, I don't have anything to back my assertions up. I do support the current wording though, or else changing it to something like the lead of Iraq War - perhaps, "...supported by a United States-led United Nations force." --Cerebellum (talk) 02:19, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it, all or nothing. If you specifically ID US, then the Commonwealth will complain, if you add Commonwealth in, then the Turks will complain, after that, the Filipinos and the French, and all the other 30 odd countries that send battalion sized formations or voted in UN. To stay neutral and international, just UN will do.

Although to be factually correct but not neutral, we could also use "ROK supported by US led UN coalition". Jim101 (talk) 05:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

The fact was that Japan invaded North korea during World War II. You may not think of much here, but the atrocities committed by japan gave korea a right to invade in 1948. Korea, like Poland, was the beating ground of two armies committing atrocities. Now, if you look at history from a wide perspective you get chain reactions hundreds of years later with rival enemy states. Here though, you get an abuse of power, for instance Japan invades NK, millions die...immediately after USA invades NK and millions die..AGAIN. NK has every right to avoid this propagandistic bullshit, its actually a healing nation like Russia once was during the cold war. On top of that, there is a big karmic problem on your hands because korea was invaded many times before by Japan even before imperialism. The Mongols for instance, invaded Japan and loss. Japan cant be beaten and in my eyes it wasnt, just occupied because it hasnt changed its culture by invasion, only its economy. Basically Korea is not afraid of Japan, and its war crimes far exceed NK's expectations of this imperialist war. If you count wwI this is a large karmic punishment mainly because of the Chinese Civil War. Its all based on the old phrase, an Eye for an Eye. Japan and South Korea are just using the failed Mongolian invasion as a consensus as opposed to recent events I bet. If a nuke war were to break out here, it could kill our planet, spiraling it into infinite. The Aliens helped the Japanese defeat the Mongols, but who knows what nuclear war or really invasion could bring. This is a fact though, Korea never invaded the South but occupied it with special intentions and in WWII Korea lost as much if not more civilians than Japan alone, as a neutral country (given the precipice by the reader that Communism doesnt exist on the opposing side and people elect or choose their own governments over time eg I myself find it confusing that China is a Republic as South Korea is called instead of Democratic) I would improve the article by stating North Korea came to liberate the South from its oppressors in the North Korean War. The civilians that died during wwII were being liberated by war or war mongers so I agree that skirmishes in the south lead to direct intentions by the North due to past events. This or these events on the start of the war should be expanded if not compromised. --murriemir (talk) 18:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.9.237.159 (talk)

Edit request from 137.95.1.4, 26 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} As reads "eventually ceased with an armistice that restored the border between the Koreas at the 38th Parallel" should read "eventually ceased with an armistice that restored the border between the Koreas at a line running near the 38th Parallel" or words to that effect. The MDL does not lie on the 38th parallel, although it does run near it, and crosses it at one point.

137.95.1.4 (talk) 15:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Useful info, thanks. For now, I've changed it to an armistice that restored the border between the Koreas near to the 38th Parallel. If you can provide a reliable source we could add some further clarification. Hope that is OK for now. Chzz ► 16:43, 26 May 2010 (UTC) Done

Removal of vandalism in opening section

As the header suggests, I removed a section of inflammatory content from the opening section that read; "North Korea unilaterally withdrew from the armistice on 27 May 2009, thus returning to a de jure state of war." As it is only May 25th today, (As of 2:15pm local time in Newfoundland) either someone is extremely prescient or has a clever sense of humour. If they read this, nice try. Sixer Fixer (talk) 16:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Its a year ago, we are now in 2010. But it does need a source.Slatersteven (talk) 17:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

This Guardian article from said date states: "North Korea has declared itself no longer bound by the armistice that ended the Korean war more than half a century ago, and threatened to attack South Korea if it took part in US-led checks on vessels suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction." -- 91.11.182.237 (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

This has again been fixed and the supporting cites now match a date of May 27, 2009 for North Korea withdrawing from the armistice. Someone added a recent CNN citation regarding this year's events, causing more confusion. Diannaa ^TALK 00:33, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

A reunion Korea

Willr recent military activities of North Korea get full expansion to create a war ? after this ,the Korea will be reunited Like German after the world war II. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.33.23.94 (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Removed content from opening section

I removed the following from the opening section, as numerous land and naval skirmishes have occured since the Armistice was signed. It can be re-added later if it is corrected and greatly expanded, by editing this comment to copy and paste back, though I really don't think this particular content really belongs here.

"; as of this date, only a small naval skirmish has occurred.^[2]^[3]" 76.195.1.197 (talk) 23:07, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Can we make a strength by year instead of at one point? Because often times in Wikipedia the MIA, Killed and wounded together of a particular country outnumber the strength the article says. Take the North Korean killed wounded and MIA add it together and it will be more then the strength

The END of the war!

Let's face it. The Korean War ended in 1953. The effort of Elisa Woods to rewrite history does not help anyone seeking to learn about the subject. IF there was a war going on, the mission of the United Nations Command and US Forces, Korea would certainly change. My gosh, the US military (and other UN components) sends family members to ROK for years at a time! What nation sends the spouses and children of its warriors into a combat zone? Again, the war is over.--S. Rich 04:19, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

It is of course an add situation, technicly the war did not end in 1953, that was a cease fore. But for all practical purposes it did.Slatersteven (talk) 14:24, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

A recent Thomson Reuters new story (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TOE64L00Q.htm) says NK is "ready to tear up" the armistice agreement with the UN/South. Moreover, the UN is looking at whether the North's recent attack on the SK ship was a violation of the agreement. What all this really means is political rhetoric is the driving force when it comes to describing the situation vis-a-vis the two sides. Moreover, the cited article does not support any contention that the two sides are "de jure" at war with each other. (Even that is a meaningless assertion.) China recently indicated they were not backing NK in this latest tragic skirmish. Does a country put itself in a de jure state of war when its only ally says cool it? No, all of this is too much a geo-political game for Wikipedia to keep up with in a NPOV manner. (Also, I understand we are not a political/topical debate forum.)With this in mind, I am deleting the de jure sentence as unreferenced.--S. Rich 05:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

??more dangerous tone

"With Communist China's entry into the conflict, the fighting took on a more dangerous tone." what does this line mean? what purpose does it serve? dangerous tone to whom? the chinese people? the korean? the US? either way it does not sound neutral.

suggest simply removing this line.

minor edit requests

Characteristics - Armored warfare - second paragraph, last sentence: 'cannon' should be replaced with the more generic 'gun' to more accurately describe the howitzers meant —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.230.97 (talk) 05:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If you mean "howitzers" why don't we say so? Do you have a source we can use as a citation? --Diannaa ^TALK 14:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

did you look at the paragraph? there is a source cited and the term 'howitzer' is used already in the same sentence; imorived diction is the main purpose of the edit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.60.108.228 (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I see it now. I have made the suggested edit. --Diannaa ^TALK 06:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

^ http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/korea/kwar.html
^ Kim, Hyun (November 10, 2009). "N. Korea claims clash occurred on routine duty, demands apology from South". Yonhap. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
^ NKorea warns of attack, says truce no longer valid.

[1] ttp://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/korea/kwar.html

[2] Kim, Hyun (November 10, 2009). "N. Korea claims clash occurred on routine duty, demands apology from South". Yonhap. Retrieved 2009-11-10.

[3] NKorea warns of attack, says truce no longer valid.

[1]

[2]

[3]