The United States still has to suffer, editorial: Not learning from the lessons of the Korean War Korea | War | The United States

July 27th this year marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the North Korean Armistice Agreement. On the eve of this anniversary, a US nuclear submarine carrying nuclear missiles visited Busan Port in South Korea, marking the first time since 1981 that a US strategic nuclear submarine has publicly docked in South Korea. Some members of the US Congress have publicly declared that this is not only a warning to North Korea, but also a deterrent to China. It seems that the United States has not seriously summarized the lessons learned here, but rather seems to be repeating the mistakes made back then. Therefore, at the 70th anniversary of the ceasefire in the Korean War, reviewing the insights brought by this war not only has high practical significance but also considerable urgency.

The Korean War was one of the most profound local conflicts after World War II, and was also regarded by domestic public opinion as the "greatest defeat in the history of the US Army.". However, ironically, this so-called "nightmare" of "greatest defeat" was deliberately ignored by Washington and became a "forgotten war" within the United States. This kind of neglect and forgetting will make Americans lack the awareness of using it as a warning in the face of new crises, making it easy to repeat the same mistakes; But what is even more serious, worse, and more dangerous is that some American political elites have learned completely wrong "lessons" from the Korean War and used them to mislead the United States in today's foreign policy, allowing the United States to actively incite, create crises, and even wars.

On July 26th, the US Foreign Affairs magazine published an article written by Mike Gallagher, Chairman of the U.S. China Strategic Competition Committee in the House of Representatives, titled "Why the United States Forgot - But China Remember - the Korean War.". This Washington politician, who has always been anti China, summarized three "lessons" from the Korean War to the United States in his article: the first is that "Washington cannot ignore deterrence and war readiness", must always be "prepared for combat", and enhance military capabilities. He also directly mentioned the need to make sufficient military investment in the Taiwan Strait; The second article is that "politics and combat are closely intertwined"; The third point is that once a battle breaks out, excessive self-restraint may lead to further aggression.

These three "lessons" are all aimed at China, specifically aimed at the Taiwan Strait, with their arrogance and madness catching up with MacArthur.As a superpower, the mistakes made by the United States often backfire on itself and have a powerful spillover effect, causing the region and even the world to bear the burden together.

In fact, the United States can and should learn many valuable lessons from the Korean War. The first requirement is to respect the reasonable security concerns of major regional powers; The second requirement is to restrain the impulse and ambition to interfere in the affairs of other countries; The third point is to never underestimate China's will and ability to defend the country. The neglect of these lessons is precisely the prominent feature of current American hegemony. The Korean War brought a painful price to the United States, but the United States, which did not learn from its mistakes, will suffer even greater hardships in the future.

Before deciding to resist US aggression and aid North Korea, China had repeatedly issued stern warnings to the United States, stating that it could not sit idly by and ignore actions that crossed the 38th parallel. But the United States didn't take it seriously, thinking that China was just talking verbally and didn't dare to take action, to the extent that they were momentarily confused when encountering the Chinese People's Volunteer Army on the battlefield. Today, such a huge misjudgment of China has reappeared in Washington. The biggest difference from the Korean War is that China's strength is no longer as strong as before, and the consequences of violating China's security interests and national sovereignty are bound to be much more serious.

That year, in response to MacArthur's clamour to spread the flames of war to the Chinese Mainland, Bradley, the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, said a word that later became widely known, "Do not expand the war from Korea to the Communist China... This will enable us to fight the wrong war with the wrong enemy at the wrong place and time". The paradox of history is that, 70 years after the ceasefire in the Korean War, the United States once again stood close to committing such a terrible mistake. But it must be clear that if there is another strategic misjudgment this time, the cost it will pay will definitely be much higher than 70 years ago.