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https://www.history.com/news/korean-war-stalin-soviet-union?cmpid=email-hist-inside-history-2022-0 [login to see] 2&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-inside-history-2022-0406
Isn't it funny how easily knowledge is lost?
I always approach the work product of contemporary intellectuals with a jaundiced eye. For example, why didn't the "scholar" who produced this article mention the one causal fact that seems most directly linked to the North Korean invasion of their southern neighbor: President Truman's reassurance to the American people (via his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson) that the United States would not become embroiled in another war in Asia, specifically on the Korean Peninsula? North Korea launched their invasion across the 38th Parallel while that statement was still echoing across the Pacific.
Isn't it funny how easily knowledge is lost?
I always approach the work product of contemporary intellectuals with a jaundiced eye. For example, why didn't the "scholar" who produced this article mention the one causal fact that seems most directly linked to the North Korean invasion of their southern neighbor: President Truman's reassurance to the American people (via his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson) that the United States would not become embroiled in another war in Asia, specifically on the Korean Peninsula? North Korea launched their invasion across the 38th Parallel while that statement was still echoing across the Pacific.
Why Did Stalin Support the Start of the Korean War?
Posted from history.comPosted in these groups: 
Cold War
Korean War
Cold War Korean War
Posted 2 y ago
Responses: 2
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"The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first armed conflict of the Cold War era, and historians agree that communist North Korea would not have invaded South Korea in 1950 without the approval of Joseph Stalin, the ruthless and autocratic leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1953.
But what was Stalin hoping to gain from a war in Korea? According to a letter dictated by Stalin himself months after the 1950 invasion, and discovered in Soviet archives in 2005, one of the main reasons that Stalin backed a communist invasion of South Korea was to “entangle” the United States in a costly war in East Asia and “distract” America’s attention away from Eastern Europe, Stalin’s real concern.
“Does it not give us an advantage in the global balance of power [to have America entangled in Korea]?” wrote Stalin. “It undoubtedly does.”
But while Stalin clearly wanted to portray himself as a chess grandmaster playing two steps ahead of his opponents, some historians are skeptical of the dictator’s account. It’s true that North Korea, a Soviet creation, needed Stalin’s approval to invade the South, but it’s doubtful that Stalin really intended to draw the Americans, a nuclear superpower, into the war."...
But what was Stalin hoping to gain from a war in Korea? According to a letter dictated by Stalin himself months after the 1950 invasion, and discovered in Soviet archives in 2005, one of the main reasons that Stalin backed a communist invasion of South Korea was to “entangle” the United States in a costly war in East Asia and “distract” America’s attention away from Eastern Europe, Stalin’s real concern.
“Does it not give us an advantage in the global balance of power [to have America entangled in Korea]?” wrote Stalin. “It undoubtedly does.”
But while Stalin clearly wanted to portray himself as a chess grandmaster playing two steps ahead of his opponents, some historians are skeptical of the dictator’s account. It’s true that North Korea, a Soviet creation, needed Stalin’s approval to invade the South, but it’s doubtful that Stalin really intended to draw the Americans, a nuclear superpower, into the war."...
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CPT Jack Durish
The only thing more suspect than a scholarly dissertation is a pronouncement by a dictator. That paper appears to have been written after the fact and reflects an attempt to excuse what came to be a loss for the Communists
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SGT (Join to see)
CPT Jack Durish - that wouldn't surprise me in the least. Politicians are trying to re-write Jan. 6th, 2021, right now.
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From what I have read, he mis-judged our reaction, and didn't think we would do anything.
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