It's not the lack of oil that enabled this. The west* fought a bloody war to defeat North Korea. We just didn't win (though we did prevent the north from taking the south...). Now you've got a dictatorship protected by their ability to deal devastating damage to South Korea via nukes, huge stockpiles of conventional artillery (and Seoul is within range), etc. Moreover one backed by a superpower (China, and before China the soviet union... indeed these countries are the reason the west didn't win the first war as well).

They could have all the oil in the world and we'd be no more in a position to do anything about it.

*US, Uk, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, France, New Zealand, Phillipines, Tukey, Thailand, South Africa, Greece, Belgum, Luxembourg, Ethopia, Columbia, and South Korea.

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energy123 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

South Korea wouldn't exist as a prosperous Western-aligned liberal democracy without the war, so it was hardly a complete loss.

	▲	BigTTYGothGF 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> South Korea wouldn't exist as a prosperous Western-aligned liberal democracy without the war The first several decades after the war they were very much not a liberal democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Democratic_Struggle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Republic_of_Korea).

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AnimalMuppet 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We didn't win because China intervened in massive numbers to keep the regime in the North from losing the whole country.

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FpUser 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The US did not win because the US did not win. Crying about the reasons does not help. Usual FAFO. Does not hurt to think of consequences before starting something

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gpm 4 hours ago | parent [-]

South Korea and its allies did not win - but they did successfully defeat the North Korean invasion of South Korea that started the war. Resulting in 53 million people today who live good lives in a high tech liberal democracy instead of living in abject poverty under the dictatorship that controls the north.

Despite not winning, the consequences of the western nations going to war in this case appear to have been significantly positive. It's really the only war since WWII that I think I can confidently say that about.

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FpUser 3 hours ago | parent [-]

No need for political lecture. This was a simple point of win / win not.

>"high tech liberal democracy"

After US involvement South Korea was anything but. It is only since 1987 that some semblance of normalcy had started to appear. Still it is a country practically owned by Chaebols and Hell Joseon work and life culture. Recent temporary martial law with the president's shenanigans does not inspire much confidence either. Call it whatever you want.

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gpm 3 hours ago | parent [-]

When you imply there was "fucking around and finding out", "starting something", and "[negative] consequences" to a war that had positive consequences, and which was a war the other side started, there absolutely is a need to correct that.

Edit: Just noting that at the time I responded the above post consisted entirely of "No need for political lecture. This was a simple point of win / win not". The rest was edited in after the fact.

	▲	FpUser 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes I edited it later to respond you your point of flourishing society. I should have put it under PS or edited. My fault. The original point still stands. Edited. I do understand that comparatively to North Korea SK is of course a huge win for people. However I think they would like to compare their lives with something better than one of the world's poverty and people's abuse champion