Talk:Korean War/Archive 8

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

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Edit request from 122.163.154.92, 25 June 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} The governemnt of India also sent troops with for the UN force in Korea. No mention of this has been done. Please rectify this error.

Regards

122.163.154.92 (talk) 10:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

has a limit been imposed based on levels of commitment?Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion.

I'm sorry, but requests to edit semi-protected articles must be accompanied by reference(s) to reliable sources. If you can supply appropriate references, please reinstate the request.

Also, I suggest you get an account, then you can help us improve articles. Chzz ► 14:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Not done

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)

I'm not letting the merger proposal die. It's either get the "Second Korean War" material into another article or kill it altogether. The "Second Korean War" article as a separate article has absolutely no support in the general literature. But instead of unilaterally killing it, I invited editors to comment. No one has come up with support for continuing the article.--S. Rich 13:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Was this article written by the US Army? inaceptable POV

it sounds like this and is an inacceptable POV. E.g. the areal bombardment of North-Korean towns, i.e. bombardment of civilians which was a major topic in this war - as in any US war. To claim an UN supported war in the introduction without explainig how this could happen the given veto power of USSR and China is also close to fraud. ... among many other statements --Smilosevic (talk) 17:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Your second point has some vadaility. I think maybe the lead should point out that the UUS and PRC were boycoting then UN. Your first point would need to be backed up by RS saying that the US dilliberatly targeted civilians.Slatersteven (talk) 17:48, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Please note that the PRC was not the representative of China on the Security Council at the time. The switch between the Republic of China (ROC) and People's Republic of China occurred in 1971. But the basic fact of the introduction, that the war was authorized by the UN, remains as a fact. And yes -- clarification as to why the USSR did not veto the authorizing resolution should be added by an enterprising editor.--S. Rich 18:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The article was in even worse shape back in March 2010, with people complaining about POV in the choice of photos (which were at that time exclusively of American GIs), photo captions, the text, and the choice of sources. See Archive 7 for specific examples. The article has improved a lot since then. The main obstacle for further improvements is the lack of RS from both sides. --Diannaa ^TALK 19:03, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Well -- I took on the role of enterprising editor and gave the UNSCR actions its own subsection. But the matter of how to address the isssue of civilian casualties is too much for me. We in the 21st century sometimes forget that KW was fought immediately following WWII, where total war meant that everything and everyone in the enemy nation was a legitimate target.--S. Rich 19:38, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I took out vitually every book at our library on this topic and other than photos and their captions none of them covered the civilian casualties nor the massive refugee problem, starvation, and so on that was endured. I think you are right that these sorts of problems were seen as business-as-usual in wartime, and were possibly still overshadowed at the time these books were written by the horrific casualties endured by all sides in WWII. Hopefully someone has access to more material? --Diannaa ^TALK 20:38, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

One time events aside, there are four huge topics on civilian sufferings that received some notice

Forced conscription by both North and South Korea due to manpower shortage.
Mass refugee exodus during the early Chinese intervention.
Sever famine in North Korea that starved the Communist to half death from winter 1950 to late 1951.
Systematic dehousing carried out by FEAF against the Communist.

The first two topics are routinely covered by US Army and South Korean government records, while the last two topics are present in US Air Force books. But they only deal with military side of the story, not the civilian side of the story. Jim101 (talk) 19:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Threat of Nuclear War

Newly released documents show Nixon considering a Nuclear attack on North Korea. Perhaps this should be added to Nuclear War section of this article. Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128337461 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.35.11.120 (talk) 00:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Except this is article is about the Korean War and Tricky Dick became president in 1969?--Ace Oliveira (talk) 18:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Non-English references and KO/JA Wikipedia pages

Editors are reminded that simply because information is in another Wikipedia article, even in a non-English version, the information is not necessarily reliable. See [CIRCULAR#Wikipedia_and_sources_that_mirror_or_use_it]. Also, recent edits show us the problems of using non-English resources. The translations of these sources, whether by Google Translate or real live human beings, leads to inaccuracy. In the most recent edit, the Korean language article talks about food & clothing being embezzled, which is a legal term most often referring to money. And the KO article says 90,000 people died, but the article came out sounding like 90,000 soldiers died. Thus I have put the ^{[dubious – discuss]} tag on the claim on the National Defense subsection as it is incredible how the food and clothing for 90,000+ people or soldiers could be stolen. --S. Rich 14:21, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Good work. Sadads (talk) 14:25, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I asked Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea.

양곡과 피복 등을 빼돌려 약 9만여명이 추위와 배고픔,질병 등으로 사망했다.this source

Google translation:Grain and cloth, and stole nearly 9 million people with a cold, hunger, disease, etc. were killed.[1]

My translation:Foods and clothes were embezzled, about 90,000 people died by hunger, cold and disease.--Syngmung (talk) 14:54, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

And this shows exactly how and why non-English sources plus a single translator causes problems. In the KO article, it sounds like the money in the budget for food and clothing was embezzled, but the wiki article said the food and clothing itself was embezzled. (That is why I attempted my poor editing to change "embezzled" to "stolen".) Likewise, the KO news article you cite says 90,000 people died, but the wiki article said 90,000 National Defense soldiers died. In the end, we have a Wikipedia article that is poorly done. Why? One, because of the difficulties in translating, and two, because of my poor efforts in editing to "improve" it.--S. Rich 15:21, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I found English source. See p224 The Korean War: no victors, no vanquished by Stanley Sandler. So the page name should be correct National Defense Force Incident to National Defense Corps Incident. I also found new source worked by National Archives of Korea that you can read in google translate. See this. The new source death toll is 50,000. And previous translation case is asking in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea now, please wait.--Syngmung (talk) 19:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I verify the sources. They are correct. Do Not Use Translator because it can led to much difficulties. Thank you, (Aerowikipedian (talk) 03:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC))

Fellow Editors, I quote the following Wikipedia Non-English sources guidelines:

"Because this is the English Wikipedia, English-language sources should be used in preference to non-English ones, except where no English source of equal quality can be found that contains the relevant material. When quoting a source in a different language, provide both the original-language quotation and an English translation, in the text or in a footnote. Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians. When citing a source in a different language, without quotations, the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors: this can be added to a footnote, or to the talk page if too long for a footnote. If posting original source material, editors should be careful not to violate copyright; see the fair-use guideline.ing guideline:

"Non-English sources Policy shortcuts: WP:RSUE WP:VUE WP:NONENG"

With this in mind, I request reliable original sources plus translations of the originals.

Thank you so very much.--S. Rich 03:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I added english sources by the help of AbbyKelleyite. Thanks.--Syngmung (talk) 15:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

"1,400 KPA POWs were secretly sent to the US to be atomic-weapon experimental subjects"

The sources attached to this claim in the section "Prisoners of War" provide absolutely nothing to substantiate it. Hence, I would suggest either adding proper ones or removing this part of the sentence. -- 91.11.190.117 (talk) 16:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

one source does indeadc make no mention of this that I can find. The other source gives no page numbers, and thus is suspect.Slatersteven (talk) 16:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I am boldly removing this unsupported claim of horrific U.S. atrocities. Tommy.rousse (talk) 21:34, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Oops, didn't realize this was semi-protected, came to the Talk page to see if there were any disputes about that fact. Can someone else with privileges justify or remove that sentence? Tommy.rousse (talk) 21:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Can I second that request? The unsubstantiated claim put forward by the North Korean news agency regarding UN attrocities carried out on KPA and PVA prisoners does not belong in this article. Unless a verified and objective source can be cited, this is simply drivel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jameswester (talk • contribs) 22:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

OK it's gone. Rjensen took it out. Good catch, guys. --Diannaa ^TALK 22:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I have reinserted it since I found the supporting reference. However, it does beg the question on whether a North Korean state sponsored source is fringe, or reflects the official position of a government - (or possibly both). I think it's useful to include, because it reflects the state of the North, and the relationship between it and the rest of thr world, which is relevant to the article - but it may need some more context. i.e. specifically mentioning that it is state sponsored, and is the only place these allegations are made. (Hohum ^@) 03:58, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

an editor should only include information he thinks is true. So the question is whether Hohum thinks the statement is true. Rjensen (talk) 04:09, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

No, WP:V is clear: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

The reference I provided is reliable in that it reflects what was said by the Korean Central News Agency, which is a mouthpiece of the government. What North Korea says is important to the article, even if it's likely a lie itself. (Hohum ^@) 04:30, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I do think that the section about North Korea's claims do need more context about how the North Korean government could be lying for propaganda purposes.--Ace Oliveira (talk) 18:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Would it not be sensible to explain the nature of the source in the article itself rather than forcing the dedicated reader to discover its source is propaganda? I would suggest something along the lines of "North Korea's state controlled news outlet 'Korean News' asserts"... Also, I actually couldn't find any reference to 'Atomic-weapons' experiments within the cited source. From what I can tell, there were assertions that 'germ' agents were tested on POWs with no mention of them being taken to America. If I am correct, then the criterion of verifiability has been violated and someone has managed to pervert a already perverted source to make a claim so unfounded, erroneous, and biased that it makes a mockery of Wikipedia. This must be addressed immediately! Dleclere (talk) 11:07, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Surely the existing entry: "The North Korean Government denied having POWs from the Korean War, and, via the Korean Central News Agency, reported that..." shows that it is a mouthpiece of the Government?

I too cannot see anything about nuclear tests, and have removed the passage. (Hohum ^@) 12:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Medical devices

Can someone explain what the medical devices mean in the infobox? Were these devices a scapegoat for sending soldiers? If so, this should be clearly worded. If not, these countries do not belong in the box. Sending some help does not make one a belligerent. Their medical aid can be mentioned somewhere else in the article. Sijo Ripa (talk) 21:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Removal of off topic quotes in the China intervene section...

Initially, frontline PVA infantry had neither heavy artillery nor air support, but this did not work to their disadvantage; in How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror (2003), Bevin Alexander reports:

The usual method was to infiltrate small units, from a platoon of fifty men to a company of 200, split into separate detachments. While one team cut off the escape route of the Americans, the others struck both the front and the flanks in concerted assaults. The attacks continued on all sides until the defenders were destroyed or forced to withdraw. The Chinese then crept forward to the open flank of the next platoon position, and repeated the tactics.

In South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, R.E. Appleman delineates the PVA’s encirclement attack:

In the First Phase Offensive, highly skilled enemy light infantry troops had carried out the Chinese attacks, generally unaided by any weapons larger than mortars. Their attacks had demonstrated that the Chinese were well-trained, disciplined fire fighters, and particularly adept at night fighting. They were masters of the art of camouflage. Their patrols were remarkably successful in locating the positions of the UN forces. They planned their attacks to get in the rear of these forces, cut them off from their escape and supply roads, and then send in frontal and flanking attacks to precipitate the battle. They also employed a tactic, which they termed Hachi Shiki, which was a V-formation into which they allowed enemy forces to move; the sides of the V then closed around their enemy, while another force moved below the mouth of the V to engage any forces attempting to relieve the trapped unit. Such were the tactics the Chinese used with great success at Onjong, Unsan, and Ch'osan, but with only partial success at Pakch'on and the Ch'ongch'on bridgehead.[41]

I remember the initial rationale for including those quotes is to counter popular perception of the squad level Chinese infantry tactics in the 1950s. While the popular perception of "huge Chinese horde that outnumber UN forces 1000 to 1 and winning by human wave" is incorrect, I believe this article is the wrong place to right great wrongs on Chinese infantry tactics. In fact, by looking at the big picture of the Korean War, how individual Chinese (or UN, for that matter) soldiers fight has little influence on huge Army vs. Army battles or the political maneuvering of the UN and Communist leaders. I believe that per policy WP:UNDUE, the above text should either be removed or reduce to just few sentences. If anyone here believes that squad level Chinese infantry tactics during the Korean War still need to be analyzed somewhere, I should remind people that the articles on human wave attack and the People's Volunteer Army have places that is devoted specifically for Chinese infantry tactics discussions. Jim101 (talk) 03:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

This article is of dubious scholarly merit

Please forgive any mistakes that might follow, as this is my first attempt to add a discussion section to any Wikipedia article...

As a mere student of history, and by no means an authority on this war, this article nevertheless seems to be nothing more than a "Howard Zinn" version of the Korean War, or perhaps what one might expect to find in a Russian textbook. It seems exclusively one-sided and therefore of dubious scholarly merit. I don't believe there is a single indication anywhere of any "atrocity" ever having been committed by the North Koreans. This may simply be because their secrets have yet to be revealed, but I suspect there is at least some evidence that they were not the only ones who can be claimed to be the "White Knights" in this tale, especially if their conduct post-invasion is any guide. Surely this article requires a more thorough examination of events leading up to and including the war. This article seems to be far short of the standard of a "good" Wikipedia article. ---- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edfranks (talk • contribs) 02:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Please explain. Without specific "errors" or missing statements, we cannot improve the article. I invite you to Be Bold and add any additional WP:Verifiable sources you can find.Sadads (talk) 11:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

My hypothesis is that there must be errors of omission, because it is implausible that only the South Koreans committed crimes against humanity prior to the North Korean invasion. If so, then the article can be improved even if only the South Korean "crimes" are removed, thus restoring balance. Of course it would be better to add examples of North Korean pre-invasion crimes, which no doubt are plentiful, but this is not my area of expertise. I will, though, see if I can document something. Edward Carr Franks, PhD 07:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC) Ed Franks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edfranks (talk • contribs)

I don't even see the purpose of placing undue weight on crimes against humanity committed both SK or NK. In the context of the Korean War, highlighting those crimes, which had little impact on the causes and the courses of the Korean War, only serve to justify invasions of both countries and to right great wrongs. Jim101 (talk) 01:14, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There may be a point here, either we cover both sides or neither.Slatersteven (talk) 12:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

It is not whether we cove both sides or neither, it is the question of how does the crimes against humanity committed both SK or NK government contribute to the history of Korean War. Scholars of Korean War history usually focus on crimes committed by SK before the Korean War broke out, but this is not because SK committed bigger crime than NK, it is because the mass killing committed by SK wiped out NK's Communist networks in SK, thereby made NK unable to take over SK without launching a formal invasion against SK. Now the question is, can anyone find more crimes that has this much impact on the course of Korean War? Jim101 (talk) 19:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

End of the war -- the END of the war

The armistice, which is available via wikisource, is the document (legal document if you will) which ended the fighting in Korea. As I understand from the article United Nations Command (Korea), ROK forces were placed under the authority of the UNC commander. (Although this article is unreferenced.) Thus, when the UNC commander signed the armistice, the ROK forces under his command were obligated to follow the armistice agreement and stop fighting. (The war was already dragging on in a stalemate at this stage.) Because the armistice has not been broken (except for the various skirmishes, tunnels, etc.) over the years, the war has ended. Moreover, ROK forces stopped fighting, regardless of Rhee's objections. He could not order the SK army to fight on, so whatever objections he had were meaningless. Also, the armistice called for the governments to begin peace talks, but those did not occur.

Since then, the two Korean governments have exchanged visits between the highest officials. This is akin to the UK and Argentina exchanging diplomatic visits even though a peace treaty has not been signed between them.

Now, to complete the comparison, simply because a peace treaty was never signed between Argentina & the UK, does that mean a "de jure" or "technical" state of war exists between them? Of course not. If you ask anyone -- ordinary citizen or government official -- in UK or Argentina whether a state of war exists, the answer will be no. The same analysis (and standards) should occur here.

The problem with denying that the war is over in all respects is that this view is purely personal, not factual or historical. Anyone who argues that the war is still "technically" or "de jure" going on is simply muddying the waters, and making for poor encyclopedia editing.

This is not to say that there are no skirmishes, incidents, intrusions, etc. going on in Korea. But more to put the end of the real Korean War into a proper perspective and to delete the various references to the meaningless and POV laden description of a "de jure" war in Korea. --S. Rich (talk) 06:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You are wrong. The cease-fire order was signed at Panmunjon by the NK delegate and the UN forces that ordered a halt to the fighting. You seem to be confusing an armistice with an official truce. The latter never happened because the South refused to take part in what Rhee personally saw as a stitch up. If you care to read anything about 1950 Korean politics Rhee was a hard line nationalist but one who was not a communist hence the USA's interest under the Truman Doctrine (Ho Chi Minh was arguably a nationalist too, but he was also a Marxist, so there was no way he was going to get Western aid like Sakarto did in Indonesia). BTW the ROK forces were under UNC orders but they were not politically under the UN umbrella as you suggest as they answered to Rhee's government not the UN. He hired and fired the commanders not Ridgway. The fighting may have ceased but the conflict never officially concluded (a stalemate developed in 1951 roughly along the 38th parallel and remained like that until 1953 when combat operations ended with an armistice- but the troops never left, because there was no official peace). Using your logic, would you care to take your opinions to the Cold War page and tell every editor there that there was no "war" as there was very little shooting and hardly any "hot" moments. Furthermore, and this is the problem with Wikipedia, where any one can have their say, you are quite, quite wrong about your claims that there was no war after 1953 because between 1966-1969 the ROK fought with the DPRK on the DMZ, despite the best efforts of the UNC to keep the gungho ROK marines in check. [Source: Sarantakes, Nicholas E., The Quiet War: Combat Operations along the Korean Demilitarised Zone, 1966-1969, The Journal of Military History (April 2000) 64, pp439-58]. Rhee ordered his representatives not to sign the armistice accords although DPRK, DPRC, and the UN did. Under international law, South Korea never officially concluded an official truce with the North. This is common practice, the conclusion of the Great War was actually concluded at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 when all the major powers signed the peace accords with Germany and Austria-Hungary. An armistice means that there has been a cessation of hostilities it does not mean that there is a peace unless all participating parties sign, this did not happen at the end of the Korean War, and therefore the only thing that stops the fighting starting again is international diplomacy and I hope, common sense!!217.35.224.229 (talk) 20:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

The following (SineBot and all) was added to my user talk page today by an IP user. Think it comes from the same person who left the above material on 3 September. I repeat it here for the benefit of all interested KW editors. (I intend to delete it from my talk page in the near future).

New Section to user talk page -- "Korean topic particular the war"

"I notice that you have taken an interest in making edits on pages pertaining to the Korean War. You are obviously not an academic as you are making conclusions that are not pertinent to the evidence. As I tried to address in the my reply to you [Talk:Korean_War#End_of_the_war_--_the_END_of_the_war here], the two states in Korea remain technically at war as no official truce was ever signed. Neither was an official truce agrees which would have led to a de-esculation of the tensions across the peninsular. However the stalemate on the 38th parallel that begun in the last two years of the Korean War has continued into the present day."

"Now I fear that I tipped you off about the Second Korean War and as such allowed your ill informed edits to grow. Speaking as someone who has a masters in Korean War Studies, is married to a Korean, and works in the ROK 3/4 months of every year, you are just pushing a personal agenda that bears little relevance to the facts. The UN wanted to make a treaty in 1951 but Rhee would not accept anything short of a single Korea, that legacy has left these two countries locked in a silent war ever since. Your "no war" view is just a theory that has the echoes of many hostile border zones e.g. Kashmir. You need to look at the primary evidence before making suppositions based on personal viewpoints. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.20.18 (talk) 22:16, 11 September 2010 (UTC) "

--S. Rich (talk) 02:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

And here is my response --

It is true that I am not an academic. But my arguments about the POV problems of these articles remain valid. One of my beefs is that little academic/encyclopedic work has been done in Wikipedia on this aspect of the war. Instead, we have articles that say there was a Second Korean War. Moreover, I am not saying that there is peace between the two countries, more accurately I am saying there is no active war going on. (And I wish someone could really give us a description or definition that covers all of the circumstances in which various wars end!)

Sadly, IP user has not provided any edits to the articles to substantiate her/his input, which, again, makes it difficult to argue. That is, s/he seems to take a position that a technical/de jure "state of war" exits (which is true), but does nothing to explain what this really means. (My gosh, what are all of those US armed forces family members doing in the war zone? Going to school or holding out in bunkers?) Let's get some precision into these articles and let's get more references to substantiate what the articles purport to say. (It would be wonderful if IP user would incorporate Sarantakes' material into these various articles and I encourage IP user to do so.)

Finally, there is sloppy thinking in IP user's comments. Terms like "official truce", "cease-fire order", "cessation of hostilities", "armistice" and "conflict" are used haphazardly. The argument that s/he spends time in Korea or is married to a Korean does not matter. Tens of millions of people are married to Koreans and tens of millions of people spend their entire lives in Korea. Are all of them experts? No.

IP user leaves out the fact that the Chinese signed the Armistice. Also, s/he seems to be saying that because the 1919 Paris Peace Conference officially ended WWI, that all wars require some sort of treaty to be officially ended. If that is the case, then very few wars have "actually" ended. Well, since IP user has a masters (in Korean Studies or in International Law), s/he must know more about this than I do, so his/her upcoming editing inputs should be most useful. I look forward to reading them.--S. Rich (talk) 03:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yalu River

You err in saying US troops "almost" reached the Yalu river. I was dug-in ther observing Chinese acoss the rive in November of 1950. Pete Petersen I&R Platoon 17th RCT 1950-51 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.54.48.25 (talk) 16:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

airplane

on the picture description it says aeroplane... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.197.76 (talk) 18:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

That is just an old-fashioned but still valid way to spell airplane. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 22:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

That's our Brit's way of saying airplane. I think wikipedia soes usually spell it airplane as opposed to aeroplane. I suggest reading Wikipedia:Engvar for information.--Cymbelmineer (talk) 01:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Article should be Good article nominated

I would like to propose a straw poll on this, opinions, please.--Cymbelmineer (talk) 22:52, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It will not pass in its present state as there are seven Citation Needed tags, and two cites that failed verification. There is also one Clarification Needed tag. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 02:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Other problems (basically stability ones) include the post war "issues" of DMZ border clashes, ROKS Cheonan sinking, the "end of the war" (which I've harped upon), "war crimes", etc.--S. Rich (talk) 04:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay,

Not done we should probably archive this discussion.--Cymbelmineer (talk) 09:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 66.25.58.115, 10 October 2010

Can someone please edit Casualties and Losses section to acknowledge the casualties from Thailand? http://eng.koreanwar60.go.kr/20/2003100200.asp

66.25.58.115 (talk) 10:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

DoneThe edit has been completed. I have also used the number of combatants shown in the source provided, as the previous info was different and had no source. Thank you for providing this information. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 16:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Request delisted. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 19:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

US jurisidiction, American Military Govt of Korea 1945-8

For those who may be interested, there's been a long-running and heated debate at World War II Aftermath current discussion page regaring contentious jurisdiction of American Military Government of Korea 1945-8. Discussion can be found commencing near end of this section, continuing through this section and continuing further here Feel free to join that talk and/or incorporate any relevant data found there into this main Korean War article. Communicat (talk) 16:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Objectivity

The objectivity of this article is currently very low.It stays about war crimes by the north, but not in the south where 150 000 innocent people was executed because they liked communism! They didn't even had to like the DPRK! Also, tens of thousands of other innocents was executed, intellectuals that was "missed" or murderered.

Isn't that a war crime?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.16.168.251 (talk) 17:21, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The massacre of Communists is covered in the section Korean War#Bodo League anti–communist massacre. I am not seeing any information in the article about South Koreans killing off intellectuals, though the article talks about North Koreans doing this. Any sources you can provide so additional material can be included would be appreciated. The article also has links to many events such as the Hangang Bridge bombing, Yongsan bombing, No Gun Ri Massacre, Geochang massacre, Sancheong-Hamyang massacre, Jeju Uprising, Ganghwa massacre, Hill 303 massacre, and others not detailed in this article as it is already quite large and takes a long time to load if the reader has a slow internet connection. Thanks for the feedback. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 18:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from SimonVAC, 22 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} I would just like to add the following link to the External Links http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/content/collections/korea/flash/index_en.html It is a great multi-media project on the Canadian involvment during the Korean War. It is called Land of the Morning Calm; Canadians in Korea 1950-1953. It contains more than an hour of Veteran Interviews divided by theme, an interactive conflict map, a great intro video, a Korean War timeline (focusing on Canadian involvement), all of it presented in a news show format (all in Flash) It was done by Veterans Affairs Canada (a federal ministry) and fully researched and approved by the historians of the Canadian National Defense. SimonVAC (talk) 17:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Done Thanks, Stickee (talk) 00:03, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

typical leftist slant at wikipedia

wow, i read the first few sections and its the usual leftist claptrap on here...apparently this all began because the U.S. decided that the 38th parallel would be the demarcation between the two Koreas and somehow this was "way too far north"(???)... i look at the map and it doesn't seem unreasonable....and then some b.s. about how the first South Korean gov't (wasn't communist) and this inspired rebellion and unrest in the south....that was enough for me...for you leftist stooges, just look at the current state of North Korea...that should tell you all you need to know about your beloved ideology...184.192.127.227 (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Just because something is crappy doesn't mean it's biased.172.190.179.98 (talk) 02:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, while I don't necessarily see any conspiracy to twist facts, he's more or less right. The intro states flat-out that Americans divided the peninsula, when in fact it was several parties following through with a prior-standing agreement similar to that regarding Germany. FFLaguna (talk) 14:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Hill 303 POW picture

Someone should probably move the picture of the two Hill 303 POW survivors at the bottom of the Bodo League anti–communist massacre section a little bit lower into the Prisoner of Wars section, the layout is a bit confusing and misleading.

Right now it looks like there were two white american survivors of the Bodo League anti–communist massacre; which is a bit odd to say the least.

Jorius (talk) 02:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

That was a good observation. I have moved the picture and edited the caption. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

such bias figures

for chinese causuality , it says "(Official data):" but for U.S. OR its allies, it only say the figures, is it not the official data too? if you doubt chinese figures, the others also can doubt your offical data!

wikiepidia is such bias place and it is probably run to only serve U.S. or its allies' interest, what a shame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrickworrier985 (talk • contribs) 03:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's funny as well. The Chinese have different estimates for U.S. casualties as well. There is little reason to believe that the American figures are more "accurate". Colipon+(Talk) 23:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The Chinese figures were recently added by a person with access to new information released by the Chinese government. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 02:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Give it a rest. In the end it is what the reader chose to believe, not what Wikipedia should force people to believe. Besides, in plain English the word "estimation" is synonymous with "half accurate guesses", so I don't think adding an alternative set of figure under the heading "half accurate guesses made by US" is actually that biased. Jim101 (talk) 06:54, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Legacy bias

Legacy section attributes the famine in the 1990's to part of the war's legacy, what a load of bollocks. Also it ignores that in the 60's and 70's it was the North that was the more developed of the two Koreas and tenuously links the later South Korean economic growth to the Korean War. This section is obviously just a propaganda section to stick the knife into North Korea which bears little relevance to the war whatsoever, needs revising. 95.144.191.74 (talk) 04:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

thank your for your comments. If you have access to some WP:reliable sources and want to edit that section, your help would be very welcome. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Unilateral Withdrawal from the Armistice

Why does the opening paragraphs and the infobox make no mention of North Korea's unilateral withdrawal from the armistice several years ago? That bit of information certainly provides a lot of context for the shelling today along with other events since the withdrawal. --Sephiroth9611 (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

There is no documentation that the nK government withdrew from the Armistice. Indeed, the terms of the Armistice do not provide for a withdrawal. Now some nK media has saber rattled over the years -- but nothing more in terms of ending the Armistice. Don't get to wound up about the shelling. Not a good event vis-a-vis world peace, but these events have often occurred. Probably nK is saying "don't mess with us!" in light of sK's recent announcement that they want US nukes in the neighborhood for security backup. See: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/South-Korea-Could-Seek-Deployment-of-US-Tactical-Nuclear-Weapons-109819069.html. Editors who have suddenly added new articles and edits about the shelling are transgressing WP:RECENTISM.--S. Rich (talk) 20:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

this article from 2007, indicates that they stopped recognising the armistice from 1991. (Hohum ^@) 21:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

But still

— Rickyrab | Talk 21:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Why aren't current events included in this article?

About the warship sinking and the recent attack? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.240.136.117 (talk) 00:44, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Nope, the war ended in 1953. This event happened a few years later and has nothing to do with the Korean War. In the US, we fought the Revolutionary War, and then we fought the War of 1812. Should the War of 1812 be considered part of the Revolutionary War? After all, the two wars involved the same parties and were fought in the same general area.--S. Rich (talk) 00:52, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

In a senece there is a differance, both the Colonial rebelion and the war of 1812 formaly ended whereas the Korean war did not. BY the same token the ar did effectivly end in 1953.Slatersteven (talk) 14:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Link on MASH Hospitals

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Mash —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.75.141 (talk) 14:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

nuclear update

In recent days the "History Channel" is showing some new footage "The Korean War in colour" and using some previously unshown footage. In this it is stated,

    "Harry Truman, who had authorised the use of the atom bomb on Japan announced
     that he would also authorise its use in Korea and also authorise Macarthur to
     use such weapons. Macarthur immediately applied for 26 such weapons".

It was at this stage that the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee and the other UN countries announced that if nuclear weapons were to be used they would withdraw their forces.

Macarthur became increasingly vociferous on this subject that Truman eventually sacked him from overall command for insubordination and he was replaced by General Ridgeway.AT Kunene (talk) 06:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Can we get a consensus?

Korean War was added a few days ago in the current events sidebar, although there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on whether the war ended in 1953 or if it continues to this day:

Articles such as Korean War and Division of Korea both mention 1950-1953 in several places and the former talks about "minor outbreaks of fighting continue to the present day" in passing;
North Korea – South Korea relations says 1953 was a "ceasefire agreement" and that the war ended in 1991 with the red link Basic Agreement. A quick google search reveals that the purpose of this agreement seems to have been about "promoting reconciliation and nonaggression" (see below).
The Korean War campaign box mentions the recent conflicts (albeit in the "after ceasefire" section and not, interestingly enough, in a "after end of war") and ROKS Cheonan sinking has an inline citation with "continuing war that has never ended".

This link has been given several times as a proof ("For several years now, however, the D.P.R.K. has been attempting unilaterally to destroy the armistice mechanism set up in the armistice agreement, which ended the Korean War"). The "armistice mechanism" refers to the Basic Agreement or the "Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, Exchanges, and Cooperation". However, an article on state.gov says the agreement "called for reconciliation and nonaggression" and that "in the fall of 1992 the process came to a halt because of rising tension over North Korea's nuclear program." This doesn't sound like a peace treaty to me.

Finally, I'm wondering if:

A statement from the US State Department has any particular value, and
Any statement by anyone has any value if the concerned states don't seem to recognize or abide by it.

I may be wrong (although Peace treaty seems to agree with me), but from my understanding, as long as both parties don't sit down and sign a peace treaty, the war is not ended. From armistice: "An armistice is a modus vivendi and is not the same as a peace treaty".

Thoughts?

Personalmountains (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

What we have is technicality Vs Actuality. Technicly the Korean war did not end in 1953, but it has for all practical purposes ended (There have been no major incidents sonce 1953). So both are correct and incorrect. For example Andora was still fighting WW1 in September of 1939 (thus simultainiously was fighting Ww1 and WW2) but I dounbt anyone would try to claim that WW1 did not end untill September 1939.Slatersteven (talk) 11:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Editors who look for a Peace Treaty to end the Korean War are overlooking the vastness of history. How many wars were ended by a peace treaty? More importantly, the Koreans themselves may be rejecting the notion of a Western style Peace Treaty between themselves because how can one country (which Korea has been and will become) have a Western style Peace Treaty with itself? Moreover, it is recognized that wars do end when the waring parties engage in diplomatic relations (formal or informal) with each other. Example -- Argentina and United Kingdom have not signed a peace treaty regarding the Falklands, but they have had diplomatic visits at a high level. In Korea's case, there have been much more profound visits between the heads of state and formal statements issued. The notion that the Korean War continues is an emotional one, and using the the ill-defined "technically at war" jargon only stokes the emotions.--S. Rich (talk) 14:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm honestly not very emotionally attached to the Korean war, I'm just trying to figure out whether it ended or not and if it did, when.

My understanding is that a war starts with an aggression or a declaration and ends with a treaty, complete destruction or time. Therefore, if the Korean war is over, it must be because of a treaty or time.

The 1953 armistice was not a peace treaty. It was an agreement between parties to stop fighting, not to end the war. Indeed, there has been a number of clashes afterward (such as the DMZ conflict and the Blue House Raid). This is repeated in various reliable sources.

Therefore, time, or "the vastness of history", has to be the deciding factor. From what I understand, it would if the fighting had completely stopped and diplomatic relations had been established. Granted, there was a period in the 1980s when both Koreas seemed to get along better, but this was already over by 1991 with "rising tension over North Korea's nuclear program".

There is an interesting list of extended wars (of which, funnily enough, Korean war is part of, probably by mistake since it is explicitly excluded in the lead) and those definitely look like wars that have ended with time: either the states don't exist anymore, the context has changed with time or no fighting whatsoever ever happened.

None of this seems to apply to Korea: no treaty was signed, both parties are still standing, both continue throwing rocks at each other, territories are still disputed, both nations seem to genuinely hate each other, one has nukes and the other is backed by the US.

As to the "ill-defined 'technically at war' jargon", I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I'm under the impression that treaties are intrinsically "technical" and that strictly speaking, unless the other guy was blown away, the end of a war is a technical matter.

Personalmountains (talk) 15:59, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Too many editors want to put their "WP:TRUTH" into Wikipedia regardless of WP:VERIFY. In this regard, we have ill defined truths such as the 'technically at war' verbage which justifies adding so many incidents, post 1953, to the Korean War article, category, template, and more. The logic of the "extended war" editors says: "You cannot have Peace if there is War. If a War ends without a Peace Treaty, then the War must still be going on. The Korean War ended without a Peace Treaty, therefore the Korean War continues on." By citing the different border incidents between the Koreans, these editors are promoting their own WP:OR to support this logic. Well, let's look at what the US Department of Defense said about who would be honored for serving in the Korean War -- after all, US service members did a lot of the fighting and dying in it. First, there is the Korean Service Medal, awarded as a campaign medal to those who fought from 1950-1953, and there are 13 particular campaigns listed in the article. The last campaign ended with the Armistice in 1953. (Albeit the KSM article does not have refs.) Next the United Nations established the United Nations Korea Medal, again with an end date in 1954 (why the unreferenced article has that date is uncertain). Besides the US & UN, we have the Korea Medal and Korean War Service Medal which have 1953-4 end dates. Back to the US DOD, the Korea Defense Service Medal has a start date in 1954 and is intended to honor those who served in Korea after the Korean War. The Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation was awarded for KW service (and service with the USMC in Korea 1999-2002 -- why, I don't know) and has an end date in 19553. I posit that these medals, established to honor those who fought and served and died in the Korean War theater, serve as WP:RS to establish an end date for the war. We should honor that service and be satisfied that the war -- the Korean War itself -- ended in 1953. (And if the extended war editors can establish that the War continued, then I want those medals awarded to me! I was there, only I was there after the war ended.) --S. Rich (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

As I said the war is and was defacto over in 1953.Slatersteven (talk) 18:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Too many editors want to put their "WP:TRUTH" into Wikipedia regardless of WP:VERIFY.

I don't understand. The reason I started this discussion was to be able to round up the various sources and get a consensus. I don't understand why you're giving me a WP:TRUTH.

we have ill defined truths such as the 'technically at war' [...] By citing the different border incidents between the Koreans, these editors are promoting their own WP:OR to support this logic.

It's not ill-defined. I'm not making this up. I gave you three sources up there, did you read them? The reuters one had "Koreas seek formal end to Korean War" as a title, in 2007. I'm not trying to do original research nor to push an opinion of mine. I don't care about the Korean war and I don't care whether it ended or not. I have no agenda. In fact, if nobody else comes to this thread, I'm pretty much done with it.

Well, let's look at what the US Department of Defense said about who would be honored for serving in the Korean War

Again, my original question stands: why would a statement from the US Department of Defense have anything to do with the end of a war between two independent nations?

We should honor that service and be satisfied that the war -- the Korean War itself -- ended in 1953. (And if the extended war editors can establish that the War continued, then I want those medals awarded to me! I was there, only I was there after the war ended.)'

Ah. Now I understand the bit about this being an "emotional" notion. I realize that having fought in this war, you have very strong views on it.

It is my opinion that medals do not decide whether a war ends or not and that we should still continue searching for reliable sources on both sides and get a consensus.

However, I feel that this discussion is very quickly becoming heated (and at a dead end) and I won't participate in it nor edit anything related, unless others join it.

Personalmountains (talk) 05:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Do your sources say that the Korean war continued, and that these incidents are part of the Korean war? That is what is meant by OR. All the sources I have seen say the war ended in 1953, do you have one source that says it did not (Note it has to actualy say it in that many words).Slatersteven (talk) 14:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

ABC News says: "While the armistice in 1953 established a demilitarised zone between the two Koreas, there has never been a formal peace treaty between them" and "The latest round of Korean hostilities represents a continuation of a long-running conflict that has simmered since the start of the Cold War."

Reuters says: "They will push for talks next month with China and the United States to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which technically is still going on because a peace treaty has yet to be signed" but because it was written in 2007, it does not include recent events.

Democracy Now! says, talking about the Cheonan sinking: "And this particular incident is just ripped out of context, the context of a continuing war that has never ended. Just an armistice holds the peace."

But like I said, I can find other sources that say the opposite. That's why I started this thread. However, I did not yet find a source that said "The Korean war didn't end in 1953. It still continues to this day and the recent events are but additional conflicts in it" in that many words. The three sources I just gave do come pretty close, I think.

Personalmountains (talk) 15:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Actualy those sources do say it in so many owrds. They say that the curetn round of hostiliites are part of a continuing conflict that goes back to the Koran war.Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Once again I ask, instead of S.Rich’s interpretation of a primary source (a United States document that has been opened to question on this and other talk pages; not even engaging on what the North and South Korean governments opinion is on the current state of affairs), what do the historians say? Shall we start abiding by wiki guidelines and answer this question once and for all?

As for this notion that peace treaties are “western” I would remind you the first recorded peace treaties come from the near and middle east; the Hitties and Egyptians – they are not “western” in any sense of the word. Should we look at the Treaty of San Francisco and the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty that highlight the “east” are not afraid of embracing these “western” ideas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.0.3 (talk) 11:14, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

As far as I am aware (please direct me to policy if I am wrong) we do not only use historians as sources. RS say that (and I quote) "end the 1950-53 Korean War, which technically is still going on because a peace treaty has yet to be signed" and "The latest round of Korean hostilities represents a continuation of a long-running conflict that has simmered since the start of the Cold War.". As such RS say recent events are part of a long running conflict that was not halted by the cease fire.Slatersteven (talk) 16:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

You are quite correct that anything can be used as long as it is a RS, however the line is drawn at intrepredation of primary sources; i have noted some here (and on other related talkpages) discredit the above position since it appears to be used by the media hence the call for RS that are secondary sources wrote by reptubal historians. But the more evidence the merrier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.81.225 (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm -- I see where Sweden fought a war with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the war ended with the Treaty of Stuhmsdorf. But 30 years later the parties were fighting again during the Second Northern War. That war ended with the Treaty of Oliva. What gives? If a peace treaty is required to end a war, does the fact that fighting breaks out again mean that the first war actually continued? In the example I cite here, there were a series of Polish–Swedish wars. So if we follow the logic of the extended Korean War editors, who say the recent and continuing clashes between the Koreans are all part of the same Korean War (because no peace treaty exists), then the "Polish-Swedish wars" article is misnamed -- it should be titled the "Polish-Swedish War", even though the conflict/s was/were spread out over 200 years. (And not all of the conflicts ended with peace treaties.) But, "Oh, wait!" the extended war editors will exclaim. That was [a] war between two countries, so it is possible for one war to end and another to start up later. In the Korean War we have this single, protracted war between the North and South, albeit with US/UN & PRC/USSR involvement, and the Armistice did not end it. Well, again history can assist. If we look at the Three Kingdoms of Korea we see lots of fighting going on within Korea. (Indeed, not just in this period, but before and after.) With this in mind, according to the logic of the extended Korean War editors, all of the wars within Korea should be considered one war because none of them ended with a peace treaty. And with this logic in mind, we can, we should add Goguryeo–Tang Wars to our [Category:Battles of the Korean War] and Template:Campaignbox Korean War templates. --S. Rich (talk) 18:20, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The issues is that no peace treaty ended the Korean war. It was a cease fire only.Slatersteven (talk) 18:28, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Please look at the differences between an Armistice and a Ceasefire. One is a formal agreement, which we have here, and one is an informal, and by nature, temporary agreement. Every time we ignore the difference, we lapse into sloppy analysis. ("Wars end with peace treaties. An armistice is not a peace treaty, therefore the war continues. Moreover, an armistice is a type of ceasefire, therefore the Korean War did not end with the Armistice because it is only a ceasefire and ceasefires are only temporary.") My latest comment (above) demonstrates how such sloppy logic leads to ridiculous results; e.g., to include Goguryeo-Tang Wars into the recent Korean War. And looking at history, we see that many wars have ended without a peace treaty, ceasefire, truce, or anything else. --S. Rich (talk) 18:45, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

A cease fire is a formal (but temporary) ceastion of conflict. The key is that it is temporary "A ceasefire (or truce) is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions.".Slatersteven (talk) 18:54, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there was a "ceasefire" in Korea. But, more importantly and more formally, there is an Armistice. (Moreover, ceasefires are sometimes informal -- see Christmas truce etc.) By implication, ceasefires will end, often, but not always, with renewed fighting. Armistice Agreements do not have any implications in them that they will end with anything other than peace. --S. Rich (talk) 19:28, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I see where Sweden fought a war with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the war ended with the Treaty of Stuhmsdorf. But 30 years later the parties were fighting again during the Second Northern War. That war ended with the Treaty of Oliva. What gives?

I'm in no way knowledgeable on the subject of the Polish-Swedish wars, but from what I can see, the patterns closely follow what I expected. I'll repeat what I said earlier: "My understanding is that a war starts with an aggression or a declaration and ends with a treaty, complete destruction or time."

Note that I'm simplifying by talking about "Poland" or "Sweden" when in reality they are part of an alliance with other states. They may not even be the major belligerents.

Livonian War: Sweden and Poland seem to be allies. The war starts with a Russian invasion in 1558 and ends after two treaties are signed. It is however quite interesting that both treaties are considered ceasefires, not peace treaties. Fighting resumed in 1590 between Russia and Sweden and is called the Russo-Swedish War (1590-1595), which ended with the Treaty of Teusina. Fighting also resumed between Russia and Poland in 1605 and is called the Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618), which ended with the Truce of Deulino.

Here, we indeed seem to have different names for different periods of an ongoing war separated by ceasefires. However, my guess is that this is because the two subsequent wars were not overlapping, between different states and for different reasons.

War against Sigismund: Sigismund invades Sweden in 1598. A treaty is signed at the end of the year, but fighting continues until Duke Charles reclaims lost cities. The war ends when "he crushed the last remnants and, by September all of Sigismund's followers were gone." Sigismund was later deposed from the throne. This seems to correspond to what I said earlier about complete destruction.

Russo-Polish War (1654-1667): Russia invades Poland in 1654. An armistice is signed in 1655, which does not end the war. Fighting resumes in 1658. War ends in 1667 with a ceasefire that is confirmed in 1686 with a peace treaty. I could not find the exact rationale for considering the armistice instead of the peace treaty as the end of the war, but my guess is that it is because no there was no fighting after 1667.

Second Northern War: Sweden invades Poland in 1655. The war ends in 1660 with the Treaty of Oliva.

Great Northern War: Poland invades Sweden in 1700. The war ends in 1721 after a series of peace treaties.

War of the Fourth Coalition: France invades Prussia in 1806. The war ends in 1807 with the Treaties of Tilsit.

War of the Sixth Coalition: France invades Russia in 1812. The war ends in 1814 with the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

What is certainly interesting in these wars is that things are never that simple and bluntly saying (as I did at first) that a peace treaty is needed to end a war is wrong. There are other ways, other circumstances.

The closest link I can make between the Polish-Swedish wars and the Korean war is the Russo-Polish war of 1654-1667, where the armistice ended it. I think two important things happened:

No fighting between 1667 and 1686, and
A peace treaty in 1686.

If I was asked to guess, I'd say people in 1680 did not consider themselves at peace, but living in a ceasefire period. Indeed, one of the terms of the armistice was a 13.5 year truce to prepare for the "eternal peace". Only when that treaty was signed did the war really end. Since no fighting had happened, the 1686 stuck. (edit: typo, I meant "the 1667 year stuck")

Note that the same thing happened after WW2. Different armistices were signed throughout the war, such as with Italy in 1943 and Germany in 1945, which is the usual end-of-war date. However, the war did not technically end until the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947 and the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951. The reason we're using 1945 is that it corresponds to the end of the fighting.

Now compare this with Korea. If the 1991 agreement goes through, I'm of the opinion that the 1953 date also sticks, like 1667 and 1945 did. But it doesn't. If North and South Korea declare war next year, my guess is that history books will talk about "intense fighting for 3 years, followed by 60 years of skirmishes and diplomatic attempts only to be ended by another all-out campaign in 2010." Or maybe not. 60 years may be too much.

the "Polish-Swedish wars" article is misnamed -- it should be titled the "Polish-Swedish War", even though the conflict/s was/were spread out over 200 years

No. All the different wars ended with peace treaties or destruction.

all of the wars within Korea should be considered one war because none of them ended with a peace treaty. And with this logic in mind, we can, we should add Goguryeo–Tang Wars

Please, do assume good faith on my part. Although the Goguryeo–Tang Wars did not end with a peace treaty, I have the impression that the three wars are really campaigns in an ongoing conflict which ended with destruction or, at least, assimilation.

Armistice Agreements do not have any implications in them that they will end with anything other than peace.

But they sometimes do.

Personalmountains (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Instead of trying to decide whether the war is over by drawing your own conclusions, find sources which deal specifically with the Korean war. This is what wikipedia relies on. (Hohum ^@) 00:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

On a practical note, it's worth mentioning that the article is already a lengthy 141 kilobytes long. At the very least, everything I've read on the subject, while not specifically declaring that the war 'ended' in 1953 marks this as the conclusion of major hostilities. It seems a little awkward to include events after 1953 as part of the 'Korean War', except perhaps as a short paragraph explaining that border conflicts continued to occur. If hostilities begin again, I'd recommend dividing the articles into 'Korean War 1950-1953' and 'Border conflicts in Korea following 1953' or something of the like. But that's merely my two cents. Iciac (talk) 01:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Sources for the end of the war in 1953:

This chronology from the U.S. Army Center for Military History
This chapter from the Army's official history of the U.S. Army in last half of the Korean War, with a helpful quote: "...the guns fell silent across Korea and the shooting war was over." (pg. 491)
James L. Stokesbury, A Short History of the Korean War - Describing Armistice Day: "....then the truce came into effect, silence fell along the hills and valleys of central Korea, and the war was over." (pg. 250)
Korea Institute of Military History: The Korean War, vol. 3, pg. 689 "....around 2200 firing ceased throughout the Korean theater, finally putting an end to the heated war."
The Korean War: No Victors, No Vanquished, Stanley Sandler, pg. 261 - "As provided in the Armistice agreement, at 2200 hours, 27 July 1953, the overt combat of the Korean War ended."
China Internet Information Center - Chinese pov article stating that "The Korean War was fought from June 25, 1950 until July 27, 1953."
From the KCNA, North Korea's state-controlled news agency: U.S. Provoker of Korean War - dates end of war to July 1953

So, it is clear that in most authoritative sources, the war is considered to have ended in 1953, and the incidents after that are not considered part of the Korean War. I think it would be good to have a separate article on post-1953 incidents, linked at the top of this article, to stave off confusion. We have a good list of incidents at Division of Korea#Infiltrations, incursions, and incidents, and also the admirable Korean DMZ Conflict (1966-1969), which could easily be renamed and expanded up to the present day. --Cerebellum (talk) 02:50, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, regarding Slatersteven's comment, "The issues is that no peace treaty ended the Korean war. It was a cease fire only." That seems like OR, unless you can present reliable sources stating that a cease fire cannot constitute the end of a war. You and I are unqualified to make conclusions one way or the other: we have to rely on the documentary evidence provided by historians and the countries involved in the war. --Cerebellum (talk) 02:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems clear that I'm not handling this the right way, and I apologize.

My goal was to round up sources for both sides and take a decision. Not because this decision is important to me (or to anyone in particular), but because some articles were inconsistent, such as Korean War, the campaign box and the current event sidebar.

When I saw Korean War in the ongoing conflicts, my initial thought was to remove it. However, I decided to look around to see if there was a consensus and realized there were some debates here and there. I then started this thread to try and clear this up.

I never wanted to try to promote my opinions (if it interests anyone, my opinion is that there are far more sources that say the war ended in 1953, which is what should be on Wikipedia). However, I agree that the discussion has evolved into some kind of unnecessary argument that is leading us nowhere.

Therefore, if we agree that a consensus has been reached, then this debate is over. I see Korean War was already removed from the current events and the campaign box has been modified from "After ceasefire" to "Post Armistice Agreement". This satisfies me.

I hope this clears up a few things.

Personalmountains (talk) 03:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

RS have said that the peace treaty did not end the Korean war. So I do not need to prove wars are not ended by cease fires, just that thre are RS that claik this one was not.Slatersteven (talk) 13:02, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Am a little confused of the point of several of the sources posted above; some support the idea that the fighting ended but the war wasnt over i.e. "the shooting war was over" and "the overt combat of the Korean War ended." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.0.3 (talk) 13:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thats what a cease fire does, it stops the fighting but is not actauly an end of hostilities. That is also the germ of this debate is the Korean war over. It seems that the wider consensus amounst sources is that it defacto is over and its just a techniclaity that it is not. A few sources seem to try and make the point (I wonder what NK view is?) that the war is not over. Perhasp the easiest way forward is to ahve single line mentions a a few incidetns with links tov all of them.Slatersteven (talk) 13:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I have added this in the discussion above but will repeat it here for completeness, the North Koreans say the war is over and that they won. See the book The US Imperialists started the Korean War, by Ho Jong Ho, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, 1993, ASIN B0000CP2AZ at page 230, www.korea-dpr.com/users/uk/US started Korean War.pdf. Mztourist (talk) 14:15, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Which at least rells us what tey think. So we have to aknowledge in the artciel that they claim to have won.Slatersteven (talk) 14:22, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Legal mumble jumbo aside, all Korean War histories, including official histories from South Korea, Commonwealth, US and China ended their Korean War narrative with the Geneva Peace Convention, so I believe it is against scholar consensus and WP:OR to expand the scope of this article beyond the April 1954. All other border skirmishes should be put into Korean reunification article, since this is how the South Korean official history frames those conflicts. Jim101 (talk) 21:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It should also be noted that there are two definitions of Korean War...Korean War as an international/Cold War conflict happened between 1950-1953, but Korean War as a civil/reunification war happened between 1946-present. The trick is how to assign proper weight between those two different POVs. Jim101 (talk) 22:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps creating a seperate article about the greater long term korean war would be a good way of settling the issue then.XavierGreen (talk) 00:06, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

XavierGreen as you know from Talk:Bombardment of Yeonpyeong, I have been saying for some time that there is an ongoing Korean conflict and that the Korean War (which ended in July 1953) and all subsequent incidents are part of that conflict. I have suggested that all these events are made part of the Division of Korea, which could be renamed the Korean Conflict (although for some this is the same as the Korean War). Mztourist (talk) 02:50, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

It is also quite counter-intuitive to be talking about the "korean war" while referring to current events. For most people and most sources, this is a long-over, half (and more) forgotten conflict. However, we do need to be careful about labeling current events. Unless a clear war breaks, a proper label will probably be created some years from now and we should follow what contemporary sources are saying. Since most of them talk about a vague "korean conflict", without citing dates or using a common name, I think the safer course would be in a North Korea – South Korea relations. None of Division of Korea, Korean War or Korean reunification sound right to me. There would be some merging to do between Division of Korea and North Korea – South Korea relations. pm (talk) 03:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above. We must consider the Korea-Korea conflict and the UN-Communist war as two completely separate issues. It would be a factual error to say the war is really over - technically it is not. At the same time, almost all sources say the real war, strictly speaking, ended with open hostilities in 1953. If nothing else, we can look at the 1950-1953 Korean War as one phase in the 1946-present Korean conflict. Incidents occurring after the 1953 ceasefire are generally few and far between. They should go into their own article, and the incidents should be given their own camaignbox. Finally we could have a short sectionafter the ceasefire section linking to North Korea - South Korea relations or Post-Korean War conflicts between North and South Korea or something like that. The post-1953 era is inherently its own conflict which needs to be treated as such. —Ed!^(talk) 05:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems a fair compromise. This artciel remains as is (perhaps re-named, maybe not) with a new articel about the longer term conflcit. With a shot passage in this one linking to the other articel.Slatersteven (talk)

If division of Korea were renamed to Korean Conflict (1946-present) or a seperate Korean Conflict (1946 - present) were created i might support that. It might be better to create a seperate article for the military conflict so as to avoid a lengthy article.XavierGreen (talk) 19:08, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there a naming convention for an unnamed/irregular war? The new article is unsuited to be called a "war" given that most of the battles are irregular warfare, black ops and terror campaigns. Nor can the article be called "post-1953" conflict, since pre-1950 conflict is identical and related. "Reunification Conflict" is a no-no since South Korea dropped the terminology after turning democratic. Korean Conflict (1946 - present) is somewhat better, but the starting date of 1946 needs a very strong scholar consensus. I'm looking for a article title similar to something like Conflict between North and South Korea or North Korea – South Korea Conflict. Jim101 (talk) 23:54, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

There was a communist insurgency in south korea that started i believe in 1946 or 1947. The start date of that insuregency would be the start of the conflict as there was no combat before it. Calling it the North Korea - South Korea Conflcit is problematic because there were more beligerents besides those two nations. The US was involved from the start of the insurgency, and also engaged in combat well into the 1990's i believe. I think that Korean Conflict (insert start date - present)) would be the most accurate and is easily backed up by scholarly sources. I dont believe milhist has a convention for unnamed wars, but Korean Conflict is definately sourcable as a name.XavierGreen (talk) 01:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Korean War already has lots of background information leading to the war itself. I don't think this new article needs to go before 1953. What about a plain Korean Conflict (currently a redirect)? Neither Balochistan conflict nor Siachen conflict have start dates, and they've been going on forever. edit: Korean Conflict could have a summary of the Korean War and a description of further events in prose linking to the timeline, followed by more fleshed out information about events in the last few years. pm (talk) 02:21, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If the new article is going to be complete in its scope it should cover the entire conflict from its beginning. The Korean war article covers almost no information about the communist insurgency that occured in South Korea in the late 1940's, so i doubt there will be much duplication beyond the events of 1950 - 1953 which will need to be sumerized to some degree.XavierGreen (talk) 06:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The entire Korean conflict stems from the partition of Korea following the Japanese surrender in 1945. There was an ideological conflict from the time of partition, becoming a communist insurgency and counter-insurgency in the South, then border skirmishes, then the Korean War. I have previously made a proposal for the consolidation/rationalization of the various pages dealing with the Korean conflict. The Division of Korea page is renamed Korean Conflict and becomes the overarching page dealing with the entire North-South Korea issue (similar to the Arab-Israeli conflict page). All incidents and incursions are removed from that page and placed in one of the following:

Korean maritime border incidents and all the incidents listed on the Northern Limit Line page are moved there
List of border incidents involving North Korea is changed to Korean DMZ incidents and all Korean Demilitarized Zone incidents are moved there
a page is created of other non-DMZ and NLL North-South incidents (espionage, submarines, terrorist bombings etc)

All the various specific incident pages e.g Korean DMZ Conflict (1966-1969) would be unchanged other than being stated to be part of the Korean Conflict or the relevant subpage. This would hopefully mean that each incident would be located on only one of the 3 pages (and on their specific page if they have one) and not duplicated across numerous pages. Mztourist (talk) 12:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Well we would need to cover the incidents or groups of incidents to some degree in order for the article to be complete in its scope, such as sumerizing the dmz conflict, the spyboat campaign in the 80's and the nll campaign today. That doesnt mean we need to detail every engagement, just sumerize the major ones.XavierGreen (talk) 18:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I really like Mztourist's plan. It makes sense, mirrors existing solutions (Arab-Israeli conflict), and can encompass stuff like the Axe murder incident where the U.S. was involved, and can also deal with pre-1950 incidents. I'm not sure what you mean about the 1966-1969 conflict - would it still be linked and summarized on Korean Conflict and Korean DMZ incidents? Either way, I think a central Korean Conflict article, linked at the top of this article, will eliminate a lot of confusion. --Cerebellum (talk) 19:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I wish "Korean Conflict" would work, but it is too closely tied to the actual war. In many ways, Korean Conflict as a euphemism came into disfavor along with the Korean "Police Action" description that President Truman used attempting to explain US action. I've retitled the "Legacy" section in KW with "Aftermath" (in part because a legacy is a legal term). With this in mind, I hope we can parse out the events after (may I WP:SHOUT AFTER) the war into a coherent article along Mztourist's suggestion. Perhaps "Aftermath of the Korean War" would work, but it it not a common usage. In any event, "Korean Conflict" does not work because we do have some 19th century events vis-a-vis US & Korea which come under that description. See United States expedition to Korea, General Sherman incident, and some of the popular media which uses "Korea Conflict" to describe realistic/non-realistic and historical/non-historical stories and computer gaming background. --S. Rich (talk) 01:42, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Thats why its being called Korean Conflict (1946 - present) and not simply Korean Conflict, Korean Conflict should be a disambiguation page. If created as such there will be no confusion. It is common practice in wiki milhist to add dates at the end of conflict titles to avoid confusion. For example see [[2]]XavierGreen (talk) 05:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

See comments I added in a section above regarding Library of Congress classification and cateloguing for the Korean War. (Shall I post it here?) The idea of creating a new article for Conflict 1946 etc. is not a good one. The very title conflicts with WP:COMMONNAME etc. Please keep in mind the 531 books listed by the LOC which give us 1950-1953 dates! (Aside: Thanks, Xavier, for the 1946, opps, 1948 insurgency reference. It is an interesting one.)--S. Rich (talk) 20:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)20:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

PS The insurgency info should go in the Background section for the Korean War.--S. Rich (talk) 20:15, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the idea was about creating an article that describes the entire conflict from 1946 until today, avoiding the issue of whether the actual war ended or not, which is in fact not that important. It's about having a place to write about events that are currently scattered (and duplicated) in several articles with no clear link between them.

With a Korean Conflict (1946 - present) (or an equivalent name), we can:

round up sourced events that are not important enough to warrant a new article (currently in various forms and articles)
have a better info box to replace the dubious "Post Armistice Agreement" section in the current template
have a better link to replace the inaccurate Korean maritime border incidents in the current events
have a place to describe a long-standing conflict that doesn't seem to fit any kind of definition

Whether the Korean War itself ended is irrelevant. We need an article with a larger scope than the ones we currently have. pm (talk) 22:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

An Idea... Frame in in the context of a "Hot war" (aka shooting war) or a "Cold war'" (aka continuing state of political conflict & military tension)... Since it fits with the overall theme of Korean war being a proxy war between the ideological giants, within the context of the Cold War. Phead128 (talk) 05:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Nuclear addendum

It was also stated in the same "History Channel" Broadcast that Stalin had convinced himself that WW3 was inevitable. It was only after the death of Stalin in 1953 that the communist belligerants began to relax the tension. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AT Kunene (talk • contribs) 07:16, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Did the Korean War ever actually end?

Armistice is not necessarily a peace treaty. Otherwise how would we explain all those daredevil pranks on the part of the north such as tunneling, border shooting, ship shooting, and island bombing? And why is there still a DMZ? 198.151.130.69 (talk) 20:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. The US State Department says the Armistice ended the war. See: US State Department statement regarding "Korea: Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission" and the Armistice Agreement "which ended the Korean War." --S. Rich (talk) 20:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Um, ok, but then why is North Korea not really behaving like it ended the war? — Rickyrab | Talk 21:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

If the State Department says the Armistice ended the Korean War, then editors should admit that the Korean War has ended. Saying otherwise, and alluding to thousands of news stories, is letting news media lead readers around by the nose because the media tends to sensationalize each event for their readers. Moreover, a few years ago the nK & sK leaders met and issued joint statements about the situation between the two sides, and they sought to set up a scenario where they could reunite. In the perspective of history, and with inevitable fall of communism, their goal of reunification will come about soon enough. (Indeed, the Koreans were united, briefly, in the Olympics.) Moreover, perhaps the Koreans don't want a peace treaty because that sort of (very much Western) concept would interfere with their eventual reconciliation and uniting. E.g., how can a united nation accept a Peace Treaty with itself? Indeed, such a Peace Treaty might only serve to postpone and complicate the reunification. (And then, without a formal peace treaty, do the parties remain "technically" at war until the moment of reunification occurs? And what if Korea reunifies and never says "this is a Peace Treaty", or what if the nK government simply dissolves so that no Peace Treaty can be signed? Then how does the "technically at war" crowd determine when the war ended?) So, for us (mainly) Western editors to demand a Peace Treaty in order to "super-officially" end the war, especially in our encyclopedia, is to impose cultural values and POV into the articles. And our so doing our POV contaminates the articles --why? It happens simply because we editors say these various post-war incidents are all part of that great big Korean War which we want to continue. Again, State Department says the war ended and so should we.--S. Rich (talk) 00:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Surely there is more firm evidence than that? An armistice stops the fighting it does not end a war (i.e. look at the First World War, it technically ended in 1919 (1920 for certain powers iirc) with a peace treaty although the fighting stopped in 1918 due to an armistice) and granted this is what the article currently states.

The document brought forth specifically states no state of peace exists between the two countries and that one party was, at the time of writing, attempting to destroy said armistice that stopped the fighting. While granted while it does state "the armistice agreement, which ended the Korean War", it seems undue weight is being attached to that particular phrase; the entire document reads of no peace treaty and an agreement that ended the fighting not a war. Peace treaties have been around since the time of the Hitties so its not exactly a western phenomenon.

Considering the document is a US government primary source (although not linked to a US government website?), what is the North and South Korean position on the war; surely their opinion is more valid - is it still ongoing or not in their view? Furthermore and most importantly what do the secondary sources say i.e. historians; it is their view we should accept per the rules and guidelines of the project not editors interpretations of primary sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.0.3 (talk • contribs)

The North Koreans say the war is over and that they won. See the book The US Imperialists started the Korean War, by Ho Jong Ho, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, 1993, ASIN B0000CP2AZ at page 230, www.korea-dpr.com/users/uk/US started Korean War.pdf. I haven't seen any official statement from the South Korean Government that they believe the war is continuing. Mztourist (talk) 13:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Well I doubt that any one will want to use that as a source.Slatersteven (talk) 13:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Any book published in North Korea is the official government position, so however much you may dislike the propaganda, the official North Korean position is that the Korean War ended in July 1953. Mztourist (talk) 14:02, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It also says they won it, so according to this source we have to change the outcome section to NK victory. Of course the objection would be raised that its propaganda and that its a self serving primary source that cannot be relied upon (which was the point I was making). Certainly the NK claim its over, and that it ended with their victory, that tells as nothing about the actual situation. ut we should at least say in the article that according to NK the war is over and they won.Slatersteven (talk) 14:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

So, it our editing effort guided by "us" and "them"?--S. Rich (talk) 14:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

No but we do not use sources that we suspect are suspect if they back what we want and refuse to use them when they do not. Do you consider this document RS? Do you belive its RS for the events (and outcome) of the Korean war? If its just being used to show what NK view is fine, but then we should include that view. If we have a conflict of sources we use all of them, not just those we agree with.Slatersteven (talk) 14:50, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I was using it to prove that the NKs say the Korean War is over. Their claimed victory is laughable (as the title suggests, they also claim that the US started the war), but that is what they say and so I guess it should be included in the article. Mztourist (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The Library of Congress Classification system [3] gives us "DS918-921.8 War and intervention, 1950-1953" to designate books related to the Korean War. Under a LOC "Browse Subject 'Korean War 1950-1953'" search, we get 531 entries "Browse Subject 'Korean War 1950-1953'". (Note, LOC lists the subject as 'Korean War 1950-1953'.) With this in mind, WP:SOURCES says "Where available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, . . .." and "Other reliable sources include university-level textbooks, books published by respected publishing houses, magazines, journals, and mainstream newspapers." So there is the RS guidance -- these hundreds of books listed by the LOC tell us the war ended in 1953. Also see Google search books Korean War. So, while media sources like to talk about the continuing "Korean War" (especially when writing up a hot new story), I submit we should follow WP guidelines and go with the best RS for the end of the war -- all 531 of them.--S. Rich (talk) 20:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

PS -- I feel like I'm at a Peace Demonstration "Stop the War! Stop the War NOW!" Ahhh -- the 1960's live on!--S. Rich (talk) 20:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that one cannot truly say that it has ended but at the same time open fighting has. For this reason, the citing of the ceasefire date works in place of an end date, in my opinion. Bennyj600 (talk) 21:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Wars do not usually start with a declaration of war and end with a peace treaty. Wars start and end when countries start fighting and stop fighting. Sometimes fighting starts before a declaration of war, and continues afterwards. The Korean war ended in 1953. There has been some fighting since. The Israeli-Arab "war" has continued since 1948, if one takes the same logic as the journalists who constantly bandy about the myth that the Korean war has not ended. Does anyone believe that - or that the First World War continued until 1919 (the treaty of Versailles)?

However I do not agree that just because "the State Department says the Armistice ended the Korean War, then editors should admit that the Korean War has ended". The US State Department is very often wrong, is not a party to this war, and expresses the views of only one of many players. Sorry, but the USA does not rule the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 00:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Ex-KMT soldiers

According to Mao:Unknown Story, many PVA soldiers were ex-KMT soldiers captured during the Chinese civil war? Arilang ^talk 15:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Which formation you are talking about? The 30th and the 50th Corps were the Ex-KMT formation, but most of the 13th Army and the 9th Army were rated as elite formations composed of die-hard Communist fanatics. The 30th was disbanded before entering Korea, so the only point of contention is whether 50th Corps was deliberately sacrificed in defense of Seoul during UN counteroffensive in February 1951. Official Chinese explanation on why 50th Corps was used to hold off overwhelming UN forces was because it is the least used/damaged formation in PVA at that point, and this explanation also makes sense because as the least ideologically reliable unit, 50th Corps was never used for front line combat until January 1951. Besides, Jon Halliday's research into Korean War has been noted as revisionist and not really a mainstream opinion. Jim101 (talk) 01:21, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

What about Chinese POW? Many did choose to go to Taiwan, this fact at least worth a mention. I saw somewhere that more POW chose to go to Taiwan instead of going back to China; does it mean these POW were ex-KMT troops? And the fate of the Chinese war veterans, how they lived after returning to the motherland. Should have at least one or two sentences. Arilang ^talk 02:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

It can wait. I hate poorly sourced and mediocre materials added in an article. It would be pointless and POV pushing if someone did not bother to study the book Stories About CPV POWs (志愿军战俘记事) published in 1986 when adding materials. Jim101 (talk) 02:52, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

From what i understand most former KMT personell were liquidated or dispersed after their units capitulated. Throughout the 1950's the nationalists were still very active in parts of Yunann, Fujian, and several other provinces so it wouldnt bode well for the PRC if they had large numbers of nationalists integrated into their front line divisions.XavierGreen (talk) 04:22, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

POW

http://hk.epochtimes.com/6/1/27/17119.htm 長篇連載中共「志願軍」戰俘真相（一）

"中共所謂「志願軍」一詞本身也是謊言之一，其在韓戰中強行投入的兵力包括大量在國共內戰中收編的前國民政府軍隊，這也是為何大量戰俘執意回歸台灣的原因之一。"

Arilang ^talk 02:19, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The relevant work would be George, Alexander L. (1967), The Chinese Communist Army in Action: The War and its Aftermath, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, OCLC 284111. The Chinese forces in Korea has been rated one of the most politically reliable unit in China. The ratio between Communist and KMT soldiers are no more than 3:1 to maintain political control. The main reason for a lot of Chinese chose to go to Taiwan has more to do with the ritual humiliation in Thought reform programs and the mass starvation of Chinese soldiers than due to the fact they are KMT soldiers. Also read Pease, Stephen E. (1992), Psywar: Psychological Warfare in Korea, 1950-1953, Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, ISBN 0811725928 and the conclusion that most Chinese soldiers defected because of starvation and the lack of medical care rather than political motivations. Jim101 (talk) 02:45, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

：I admire your extensive knowledge on the topic; however, would be good if there is an wiki like Chinese Korean War Veterans, as it is a well known fact that communist China ignore and neglect most of their war veterans, unlike western nations? Arilang ^talk 05:15, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Human wave attack

Human wave attack 人海战术 had been used by the PVA extensively, and it had been well documented in many Chinese publications. Arilang ^talk 02:32, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Please read the human wave attack article and where the myth of human wave is coming from. Chinese rarely used "human sea" attacks. Relevant works on Chinese tactics are US IX Corps (1951), Enemy Tactics, Techniques and Doctrine Korea 1951 (PDF), Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Combined Arms Center, retrieved 2010-07-27 and McMichael, Scott R. (1987), "Chapter 2: The Chinese Communist Forces in Korea (part 1, part 2)", A Historical Perspective on Light Infantry, Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Combined Arms Center, ISSN 0887-235X {{citation}}: External link in |title= (help). Jim101 (talk) 02:45, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

How about a new wiki like:Chinese PVA Tactics, Techniques and Doctrine, considering this is the first military encounter between an Chinese army and a modern western army since Boxer Rebellion? Arilang ^talk 05:24, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The Chinese army had experience fighting westernized armies prior to the Korean War via fighting the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War Two. Virtually all warfare in Asia began to be based along western technologies and tactics starting well before the First Sino-Japanese War. The only polities that did not adapt to western tactics such as precommunist mongolia and Tibet, were easily overrun by Western armies in the early 1900's.XavierGreen (talk) 04:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry XG, I shall take back my statement. What I really meant, was the PVA in Korea was the first time in a long time a Chinese Army had engaged a Multi-Nations Western Army full scale, and forced them into a stalemate, though the cost was very high, is it fair? Arilang ^talk 04:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

You could say that. Although it is besides the point and most used for nationalist propaganda. The key point however, it the vindication of the Maosist belief that "power grow out of the barrel of gun" in dealing with border disputes, such as Taiwan or Korea. Recent studies on Chinese strategic thinking during the Korean War is that Mao throw thousands of Chinese troops in Korea just so that the third world countries will worship China as the center of revolutionary movement against imperialism. He doesn't care whether how many Chinese troop will die as long as Americans body counts is going up with it. The only reason why the Korean War stopped was because Stalin died and Khrushchev refused to ship any more ammo to Mao.

But of course that does not mean Mao was stupid enough to launch human wave attacks. One of the biggest reason why China transformed into a modern military power was because Mao complained that PVA was not efficient enough in killing Americans in order to impress the third world countries. Mao need the military to kill the Americans more efficiently in case he need to call the US bluffs again. Jim101 (talk) 06:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis JIm101, this is the exact reason why Mao is viewed as THE National Chinese Hero by ultra leftist Chinese. Arilang ^talk 07:08, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Etymology

Does anyone in the United States seriously call this was "The Forgotten War" or "The Unknown War"? These are not, as far as I can see, serious contenders for names of the war. It may be forgotten or unknown to ignorant youth (and the not so young), but that is a matter of national education standards, not naming conventions.

Similarly, President Truman was correct in calling the war a "police action", but that isn't a name for the war!

It surprises me that anyone could say that "the issues concerned were much less clear than in previous and subsequent conflicts, such as World War II and the Vietnam War". Were the issues in these other wars clearer? I think not. Korea was simply a Communist invasion, followed by UN-sanctioned police action to enforce order. The causes and reasons for the Vietnam War, and even who the enemy was, was much less certain. WW2 was straightforward as far as the war between the US and Japan was concerned - Japan attacked America as a result of US cutting off oil supply. US retaliated. But then the reasons for the other players fighting each other was much more complicated.

I suggest removing the sentence "the issues concerned were much less clear than in previous and subsequent conflicts, such as World War II and the Vietnam War". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 00:05, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

it is called that in history books, but I do agree with the issue of clarity. the remark about US educational standards is unnecessary. It is not called the "forgotten war" because students don't learn about it in school, but because compared to other conflicts it receives less attention. compare the amount of films made about Vietnam and WWII with those about Korea. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 09:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

English usage

Why is this article written in American English, rather than standard English? It is about a war in Asia, not North America. I vote for changing this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 00:07, 12 February 2011 (UTC) there is no such thing as Standard English, or rather there is more than one standard English, American English being one of them. please read Wikipedia policy on the matter. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 09:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Films section removed

I have removed the FIlms section. All this material was moved to the new article, Korean War in popular culture, in May 2010. The rationale is that the article was getting too long for people to load who are on dial-up or have slow internet connections. I will copy over to the other article any films which are not already listed there. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 16:12, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

why it's always said north korea invaded south korea ?

.... not something like "korea independence war against invader who occupied their country? ...or something like that? pls wikipedia community, i'm not a scholar nor educated, can someone explain about "bias" ??? and the difference of "propaganda" and "factual event"?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.244.49.79 (talk) 05:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Date of Wars End

Perhaps instead of "25 June 1950–Ceasefire signed 27 July 1953", maybe we could change it to "25 June 1950 - Present (Ceasefire signed 27 July 1953), as a way of saying that the war didn't legally end by any means, except that the two Koreas have signed at temporary ceasefire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.126.216.230 (talk) 13:37, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I like your version better, and in fact it used to say just that. But people keep changing it. I will insert your version and see what happens --Diannaa ^(Talk) 15:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC) Oh I just realised we can't include the word "present" as there are no active battles going on --Diannaa ^(Talk) 15:09, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

belligerent

what is a medical belligerent? 98.206.155.53 (talk) 09:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I was gonna ask the same question, I've never seen such a section in the belligerents list before. I'd assume that those countries provided only medical supplies and/or personnel but if they were non-combatants would they be belligerents? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.19.42 (talk) 16:39, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

horrible bias...everything is always the US's fault or South Korea's fault

Everything in this article seems to be about how everything is the US or South Korea's fault, infact I can't find one thing in the entire article about any of the atrocities the DPRK has commited, but it isn't short on [debatable] 'atrocities' the South or US has commited. For example, from what I understand (and I just came back from the South Korean Korean War museum), It wasn't "the russians were mad the US didn't honor the arrangement", it was the US that wanted democratic elections to elect a democratic government (with the approval of the UN), and the soviets didn't want that...they wanted the entire peninsula to be communist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.102.142.8 (talk) 12:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately it appears this is a pro communist article. It is mere propaganda. Regretabbly the author is too much of a coward to sign his or her name. There were 1,000,000 Chinese casualties. This article is one reason alone why I will not donate to wiki. It is like the craven reply below given to your post. My guess it was wwritten by a NYC Trostskyite pretending to be a historian. This article is garbage — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.41.157.189 (talk) 18:09, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

You appear to be very confused about how wikipedia articles are written. This one has had over 3,800 contributors, making over 9,000 edits between them since 2001. See this.

If you have WP:RELIABLE sources, and wish to improve the article, do so; preferably after reading WP:Introduction (Hohum ^@) 18:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Guys, if you don't sign your posts, your arguments about the cowardice of an anonymous author(s) seem to ring hollow. 124.149.50.83 (talk) 07:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Wild Swans as a reliable source?

A recent edit said: 'Jung Chang in her book Wild Swans states that "American planes had bombed and strafed towns in Manchuria" during the Korean War, ref Chang, Jung (2003). Wild Swans (pp. 172). New York: Touchstone /ref'. A similar version was added today. I've reverted both edits based on WP:RS. The story from Jung Chang is purely narrative and no academic sources support it. --S. Rich (talk) 05:36, 2 April 2011 (UTC)05:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Jung Chang is not a recognized Korean War historian, 'nuff said. Jim101 (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, one would think that if American planes were in the business of strafing and bombing Manchuria, they would have taken the opportunity to destroy some of the hundreds of Soviet and Chinese MiGs based there. It would certainly have been in their interest to do so.172.190.106.134 (talk) 02:42, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

it's callled civilized... bias :)

 THEY both committed atrocities,  it's not who's to blame

it just like.. if British win the war against American in the America independence war and they write in wikipedia ... "American invasion of America" or "American people voted against independence because they really love to be ruled by British." 220.244.49.79 (talk) 08:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

This article is pro-communist and needs sever editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hhfjbaker (talk • contribs) 17:23, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

dear editor...do you mind to revise your article please

..........The surprise assault resulted in the UN forces retreating back to the Ch'ongch'on River, while the Chinese unexpectedly disappeared into mountain hideouts following victory. It is unclear why the Chinese did not press the attack and follow-up their victory. Isn't very clear....? The Chinese waited the next move.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by JustGideon (talk • contribs) 13:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I intentionally left it ambiguous because the motive is still a subject of polarizing debate between several historiography traditions. From purely military stand point, a typical Chinese offensive (from 1st to the 5th Phase) usually last no more than a week because that is how much ammo and food Chinese soldiers can carry on their back, but this explaination is rarely invoked by historians in this context. Histrorians from all camps would rather argue from the political view point, and two conflicting two school of throughts emerged are a) China is giving peace a chance by giving an early warning; b) China is purposely covering their involvement in the Korean War. Since in this debate taking one arguement would normally mean rejecting the other, I prefer to just stick to the facts instead of getting involved in a hypotetical debate. Jim101 (talk) 20:49, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

...Like you've said, to just stick to the facts, and hypothetical debate is for something unclear. The fact is the Chinese at that time,they've just

finished the civil war and didn't have any heavy arm industry, depending only from Soviet supply,they just a battered nation. On the other side the Americans is one of the richest country and one of the biggest manufacturer of modern war machines in the world and still peaking toward the cold war. Isn't it obvious the Chinese avoiding the war where their position overwhelmingly at disadvantage ? but for US decisions maker that facts is what make them decided it was the right time to push forward , how far they planning to push forward ? that's hypothetical . Anyway thanks Jim101 :) ,i really like your articles , just hope you could improve it. Sorry for my bag engrizch :)JustGideon (talk) 10:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Got word on GDR involvement

At least in sending medical teams to assist the DPRK and the PRC during the war. Not sure if this can work but I got a reference here (http://books.google.ca/books?id=5gYCm0bM68sC&pg=PA528&dq=east+germany+korean+war&hl=en&ei=rPnaTc5SweOIAuzK9YEI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=east%20germany%20korean%20war&f=false). Ominae (talk) 00:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Canada's role in the Korean War

According to this article 25000 canadians went to fight in Korea.Jonathan Francoeur (talk) 23:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)Jonathan Francoeur

SOURCE FOR KOREAN WAR "6-2-5" COLLOQUIALISM

Regarding the citation required for the Korean War being referred to as the 6-2-5 or 6.25 war, it is common knowledge as my mother is Korean and has confirmed this but I have also found a source defining it as a noun: http://krdic.naver.com/detail.nhn?docid=29857800

Can this be used as a citation? It's kind of pedantic to require sources for colloquialisms that others aren't familiar with but I am hoping this can be included because its far too important to discard from the article in my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.193.159.178 (talk) 14:58, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Child soldiers in the South Korean army during the Korean War

"한국전쟁 때 2만9597명의 소년병 징집됐다". Kinda interesting 29,597 child soldiers from the South Korean side. We need some official sources on this. Komitsuki (talk) 14:10, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Characteristics?

I may be being stupid here, but I don't get the meaning of the section heading "Characteristics"...... Is it meant to be "Statistics"? NickCT (talk) 14:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Another term might be "Distinguishing features", but Characteristics works well. --S. Rich (talk) 15:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Can you point to another war article with a "Characteristics" section heading? NickCT (talk) 16:01, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting question, and yes. See: Wars_involving_Israel#Characteristics_of_the_wars. Perhaps other war articles could be improved with a Characteristics section. Besides the Israel example, Comparison of World War I tanks looks at characteristics, as does Guerrilla warfare in the American Civil War. (Here is my search on WP: [4].) --S. Rich (talk) 16:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC) PS: Portal:War uses the term in the intro. 16:53, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, ok. So it doesn't seem as though "Characteristics" as a section heading is really used that frequently. It's a very awkward somewhat ambiguous word to be using as a heading. I'm guessing it was put there by someone who didn't have the greatest grasp of English.

Running my eye over the section, I think a lot of the subsections need to be reorganized..... Causalities should probably go under "Aftermath", no?

One way or another, some pretty significant section reorganization/renaming seems called for.... I'll give it a go if and when I get a chance. NickCT (talk) 17:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't think of another word which would fit the section as written. Perhaps reorganizing to a format similar to other wars would work. Here is the Project Military History guide: WP:WikiProject_Military_history/Content_guide. And here is where you can join the project: add your name Re Casualties, they occurred during the war, not in the aftermath. (Two examples of aftermath-casualties related topics would be how casualties were cared for post war or did the Korean casualties disrupt the male-female ratio?)--S. Rich (talk) 18:11, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the links to Military History. You know, it's interesting reviewing WWI and WWII. The formatting seems completely different. Gross causality stats in WWII come under section Impact, subsection Casualties and war crimes. In WWI causality stats seems to be under section Aftermath, subsection Health and Economic effects. It seems to me that Aftermath is the correct term. Aftermath literally refers to the math you do after the event (i.e. you look back on the event and tabulate the cost). It's basically synonymous with "consequence". You can say "The aftermath of the famine was 2 million dead" as you can say "The consequence of the famine was 2 million deaths". Saying the deaths were "aftermath" doesn't infer they occur "after" the event.

P.S. I love debates about semantics.

P.P.S. I'm not wed to the idea of putting Causalities under Aftermath. I just think that Characteristics is definitely not the right place for it to be. NickCT (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

For the world wars, the casualty rates were so high they had definite impacts on entire societies involved in Europe. Duh -- the US did not suffer nearly the same consequences. In Korea, the impact on Korea was utter destruction in many areas; but the US casualty rate (as a percentage of the civilian population) was much, much less. For US centric comparisons, see United_States_military_casualties_of_war#Wars_ranked_by_total_deaths. --S. Rich (talk) 19:32, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Agree with all that. But I think it's fair to say that all three wars in question could be called "major conflicts". It would be nice if "major conflicts" all had some kind of semi-standard article format. Perhaps I'll read through Wikiproject Military History, for guidance. NickCT (talk) 21:01, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Proxy war?

I wonder if it was really a proxy war as the article states? From the standpoint of material aid from the Soviet Union yes but otherwise the forces of "Red" China and the U.S. were engaged in direct combat most of the time (once China entered the war); to me a proxy war would have been if the (North and South) Koreans had done all the fighting, but been supported by their respective allies. (I don't know what the correct term would be, but it doesn't seem entirely accurate the way it is w now.) Historian932 (talk) 14:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - it's more of a war of limited objectives largely limited to the confines of the Korean peninsula than a full scale war between primary actors China and US. I think it stopped being a proxy war when US/China intervened on behalf of their proxy states.

Stalemate

The result section should be like stalemate, since there are people who keep on saying "oh, America won the war, because it kept SK alive and NK lost because it failed to unite the peninsula under Communism..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.7.2.108 (talk) 15:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from , 27 October 2011

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Section 3.4 (Naval warfare) reads: "Because neither Korea had a large naviey," ...needs spelling correction from "naviey" to "navy"

Done Thank you. Zidanie5 (talk) 02:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Andrewinca (talk) 23:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

UN in infobox

I think including the United Nations as a belligerent in this case is somewhat misleading. Perhaps a note should be added regarding the protest/absense of the veto-wielding USSR when the resolution was passed. 129.100.192.122 (talk) 03:00, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Not really. The joint forces of ROK-UN was under the United Nations Command. Kadrun (talk) 03:22, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Nationalist Chinese involvement?

There's a list of "offers of military assistance to the United Nations" reproduced in JSTOR 2704072; interestingly, it includes a number of "acceptance deferred" entries. Most of these were presumably declined as they thought to be not worth the cost of support (El Salvador, for example, offered volunteers if they were trained and equipped by the US), but one stands out - the Republic of China apparently offered three divisions and a number of C-47 transports!

The reference given is S/1562, presumably some form of Security Council report; New Zealand's naval contribution, which was ordered to sail on 29 June, is referenced as S/1563, suggesting that ROC made the offer within the first few days of the war. After the involvement of the PRC later in the year, and with US forces in the Taiwan Strait, the prospect of a Chinese-Chinese war must have proven something of a political minefield - do any of the sources discuss this? It's an interesting facet to the history, and one I've not encountered before.

On a more general note, while we have various flags etc in the infobox, there doesn't seem to be a section in the actual text discussing the "multinational" forces in Korea. There's a main article at United Nations Command (Korea), but it's not very clearly linked from here. One for the future worklist... Shimgray | talk | 20:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

There was no Nationalist Chinese involvement. The only clear reference to the incident was that after the Chinese intervention in December 1950, MacArthur did fancied the idea of shipping few divisions to Korea since a significant portion of the Eight Army was destroyed, but the Joint Chiefs and Ridgway rejected the idea because it was too politically sensitive and they (correctly) guessed that MacArthur was overestimating the Communist fighting strength. There was a detailed discussion on the decision process in Appleman's book Ridgeway Duels for Korea. Jim101 (talk) 04:30, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Very Little on Non US UN forces.

Adding up by eye it looks as though almost a third of UN forces in Korea were not American and towards the top implies the Common wealth had a simillar number of soldiers near by at the out break yet the article doesn't really do much to describe the make up of forces on the ground or mention much about these other UN forces. 106,791 Common wealth soldiers are listed in the info box (about 10 times the, they must of done something. Also did UN forces fight as National groups or were they fighting in integrated units and if the latter at what level?(Morcus (talk) 22:44, 26 October 2011 (UTC))

The number of troops listed on the original article (before I edited) was wrong; for example, UK, Canada, and other Common Wealth nations' number written there was the entire number of troops that fought the war between 1950 to 1953. Then, US should be counted as more than 1 million if you follow the original number. And UN forces fought as both isolated(national) and integrated(multinational). Kadrun (talk) 03:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Number of Philippine troops in infobox

I think the number of PHL troops in the Korean War was wrongly encoded. The PHL is recognized as the 4th largest UN contingent in the War with 7,420 personnel. You can in the PHL military attache to Korea and other links to verify. Kindly correct. Thanks. :http://www.philembassy-seoul.com/dafa.asp — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkheatmaster (talk • contribs) 08:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Huge changes on the article (please read)

The Korean War is the first and the biggest war involved the United Nations, and the involvement of the United Nations is very simbolic. Therefore I made some edits to:

Cramped every nations that participated to the war into the United Nations.
Every nations are correctly named by the era of 1950 to 1953.
Added more nations that supplied ROK and UN, and also added nations that helped ROK to reconstruct after the war.
Added Secretary Generals of the United Nations to the commander's list, since the force was under the command of the United Nations.
The war is still ongoing, but in different situation. Thus, I separated into two box for afterwar information.

For feedbacks please. Kadrun (talk) 03:17, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Including the Secretary Generals isn't at all warranted. The UN did not command the war or its aftermath in any meaningful sense. I think that this infobox is way too complicated. Nick-D (talk) 09:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The Commander of the United States Forces Korea holds two titles: the Commander of the Republic of Korea - United States Combined Forces Command and the Commander of the United Nations Command. Kadrun (talk) 18:44, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree the SGs certainly shouldn't be in there - the war may have been fought under the UN "flag", but to say that Trygve Lie was in some way a commander of forces in Korea is a bit strange. As to the list of countries, the article really needs a section discussing the UN forces (and "support"), but dumping them all into the infobox is quite confusing to the reader. "Belligerents" means active participants in a war; it's a hard word to use to describe a country which provided rice to one side. Shimgray | talk | 18:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Done I will remove the SGs. Kadrun (talk) 18:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request for Stalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)

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"At the meeting it was decided to accelerate the construction of railways and airfields in the area, to increase the number of trucks available the army,"

is missing a 'to' and should be changed to

"At the meeting it was decided to accelerate the construction of railways and airfields in the area, to increase the number of trucks available to the army,"

MichaelDCMack (talk) 23:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Done Baseball Watcher 01:06, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

List defined references

It is my intention to do some improvements on the citations in this article, with an eye toward converting to list defined references, which entails moving all the citations out of the text and into a separate section at the bottom of the page. Please see Ted Bundy for an example of an article that has been converted to this style. If there are no objections or concerns, I will complete the change iin the next week or so. See WP:LDR for more information. --Dianna (talk) 15:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

My main concern here would be that an article of this size will have so many references from such a variety of sources that such a change might make the references unwieldy. As-is, the cites aren't very consistent. —Ed!^(talk) 05:17, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Dianna has done pretty much this to Adolf Hitler and it's been well received and the article is just about through a GA review. She taking refs in progressive directions and I feel this sort of effort improves the maintainability of references. Support. Alarbus (talk) 05:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I see. That does clear things up a bit. I wouldn't be opposed to it. —Ed!^(talk) 18:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I concede that articles are easier to read in edit format with citations below.

But refs get stranded. When editing subsection, have to exit subsection to check actual ref. While conceding that readability is an issue, I oppose defined references. Student7 (talk) 18:33, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Once an article gets as large and complex as this one, it is important to standardize the article's references, and I prefer the way that you describe. If you are up to attempting such an edit, I wish you good luck.Ferox Seneca (talk) 06:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your supportive words. I have found that articles that show an internal sense of order are a lot less likely to be vandalised, as they show that they are being tended. The article is not heavily edited at present, so it's a great time to introduce improvements of this type. Student7, references are often cited multiple times in the same article, especially in history articles, which tend to rely more heavily on the printed word and less on internet resources. So checking citations when section editing would be the same either way, one would think. --Dianna (talk) 06:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Planes lost

Shouldn't planes lost be mentioned in the box (and text). I realize they are a bit hard to come by, but so were the other statistics. Here's one http://b-29s-over-korea.com/MIG-15/Perf_Mig-15_Combat_3.html Student7 (talk) 00:36, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Comfort Women

The practice of comfort women continued during the Korean war and through the 1980s. Durring this period the US Government regularly screened prostitutes for potential STDs[1]. According to Professor Kim, "the comfort system during the Korean war was an exact copy of the Japanese one."[2]

Despite this very few Koreans are aware that it ever happened.

[1] - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/asia/08korea.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=comfort%20%20women&st=cse

[2] - http://www.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/View/at_pg.aspx?CNTN_CD=A0000067635

In many countries in the 1950s, (houses of) prostitution were either tolerated or legal (inspected). This is different than enslavement. Countries included: Canada (specifically Quebec), France, Portugal, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Mexico and others. Trying to redefine Japanese forced slavery to include common prostitution is WP:SYNTH IMO. Nor does the NY Times article say that. Student7 (talk) 23:39, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Yugoslavia supplying North Korea and PRC in the war

http://library.thinkquest.org/10775/yugoslav.htm 68.202.26.86 (talk) 02:02, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Since when people fight for their freedom, called the invader?

The United Nations, particularly the United States, came to the aid of South Korea in repelling the invasion....?????? I'm not well educated nor finished my junior school, so please enlighten me . This is wikipedia or americantpedia? How can we say native american indian invaded america ? How can we say philipino attacking america ? How can we say mexican peasant invaded mexico ? How... (it's many thing you don't wanna hear ) ? Did you smell hatred toward america ? , no you wrong ,it's a disgust toward hypocrisy. ohh? anyone to tell me what is definition of freedom?JustGideon (talk) 13:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC) ~~Just hope wikipedia not become nazipedia~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by JustGideon (talk • contribs) 13:02, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say, but it sounds like you're concerned with the neutrality of the article. It's well sourced with plenty of quality, neutral sources to back up its claims about North Korea. —Ed!^(talk) 13:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

JustGideon, I believe the Union army is called an invader when attacking Confederate states during the American Civil War. (Hohum ^@) 14:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)