Maybe it wasn’t clear, but I think the comment is explaining the importance for superpowers of keeping their immediate surroundings politically aligned - china wants NK on their side for the same reason neither the US or the URSS wanted nukes on their doorstep.

It was still a fascinating aside, and it's not like HN stays on topic in a thread. I learned something today.

You can’t separate colonialism and imperialism from Korea. As if any of us know what Korea would be doing if the west didn’t invade then sanction among other things.

> The topic is cybercrime and espionage, not nuclear brinksmanship or colonialism.

Those are all closely related topics in geopolitics.

From Khrushchev's own words (27 October 1962) [1]:

> Your missiles are located in Britain, are located in Italy, and are aimed against us. Your missiles are located in Turkey.

> You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is 90 miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But Turkey adjoins us; our sentries patrol back and forth and see each other. Do you consider, then, that you have the right to demand security for your own country and the removal of the weapons you call offensive, but do not accord the same right to us? You have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Turkey, literally next to us. How then can recognition of our equal military capacities be reconciled with such unequal relations between our great states? This is irreconcilable.

According to General Boris Surikov [2]:

> 'Khrushchev and his Defence Minister, Rodion Malinovsky, were at Khrushchev's estate on the Black Sea. They went for a walk and Malinovsky pointed in the direction of Turkey and said: 'That's where the American rockets are pointing at us. They need only 10 minutes to reach our cities, but our rockets need 25 minutes to reach America.' Khrushchev thought for a while and then said: 'Why don't we instal our rockets in Cuba and point them at the Americans? Then we'll need only 10 minutes, too.'

This article goes on to quote the Soviet Ambassador to Cuba, Alexander Alexeyev, who was a direct witness and a go-between between Khrushchev and Castro:

> 'On 14 May 1962 I was called to a meeting of the Defence Council at the Kremlin. Khrushchev said, in effect: 'Comrades, I think it would be a good idea to instal rockets in Cuba. Do it clandestinely. I don't want it known in the US until November (after the mid-term Congressional elections). Alexander Alexeyev, how will Fidel react when we present him with our decision?'

[1]: https://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct27/doc4.html

[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-cuban-missile-crisi...

> ... the US preying on its neighbors the way Russia and China are currently doing

Well, that's a matter of perspective isn't it? Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Chile, El Salvador, Venezuela, the list goes on. There's a Wikipedia page dedicated to all the US backed coups since 1945 [1] it happens so often.

We've had a post-WW2 history of deposing democratically elected countries (in the Americas and elsewhere) to suit the interests of Western corporations. Who exactly are we protecting?

> ... it was a policy aimed at keeping wars between European colonial powers away from the newly independent countries in the Americas

Where is Moscow?

> ... people in the Americas shouldn't have to die in wars just because one European king insulted another.

Ok, but what about American belligerence? Pinochet and Noriega spring to mind.

Aso, I reject the contention that colonial wars were the product of European kings insulting one another. The interests were and always have been material. Even the Crusades (which were sold on Christian conflict with Islam) were fundamentally materialist in origin.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

You better edit the Wikipedia article to remove the propaganda. According to that, since Roosevelt the Monroe doctrine has been repurposed for hegemony in the Western Hemisphere:

Starting at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine#Roosevelt_Coro... and further.

> For starters, this propaganda often mischaracterizes the Monroe Doctrine as the US preying on its neighbors the way Russia and China are currently doing, when in fact it was a policy aimed at keeping wars between European colonial powers away from the newly independent countries in the Americas.

...so we can freely do as we please. Of course we've been preying on our neighbors. We've been invading and deposing all across the Americas to force alignment with our interests for well over a century now. We even have terrorist training camps hosted on our soil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...

What, do you think that our invading Grenada, or Panama, is somehow in their interests? It's a flagrant violation of international law and sovereignty. To imagine that this is somehow an abnormal deviation from our "protection" of our neighbors is... well, I honestly didn't realize anyone thought that way anymore.

Furthermore, we didn't enforce this doctrine when France invaded (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Saint_Pierre_and_Mi...), nor in the Falklands war.

Look I can understand not thinking america is "evil" or entirely machiavellian, but it seems just as absurd to take any noble intentions we claim to have at face value. The monroe doctrine is as good an example of this as any.