Taking NATO To The Woodshed


Gates Says NATO Could Face ‘Irrelevance’ in the Future




See also:
Transcript of Defense Secretary Gates’s Speech on NATO’s Future
Gates rebukes European allies in farewell speech
‘Collective Military Irrelevance’
After Gates’ Blunt Warning, What’s Next for NATO?
US warns Europe over NATO future
Libya, Europe and the future of NATO
NATO’S future at risk, warns Pentagon chief
Gates offers grim account of NATO’s Libya efforts
Gates slams NATO allies over share of combat burden
Where Gates criticizes, Obama celebrates
How long will the U.S. find NATO relevant and affordable?




Kim Jong-il Was Eight Years Old

It was sixty years ago today, when his daddy, Kim Il Sung, started a war that has yet to end.

The forever war

Vietnam used to claim that dubious title. Now it’s Afghanistan. But the surprise communist invasion 60 years ago today began a Korean war that eventually saw an armistice but still no peace treaty.

Indeed, since major fighting stopped in 1953, more than 90 Americans and 300 South Korean soldiers have been killed in clashes along the DMZ barbed wire between North and South Korea — in addition to the 46 ROK sailors killed by a North Korean torpedo in March.

That summer of 1950 tested America’s commitment to the cause of freedom as never before, not even in World War II. There was no Pearl Harbor, and no American interests at stake in Korea but one: that other peoples should never be enslaved against their will.

The Soviet-backed invasion came just five years after V-J Day. It was the first serious test of America’s post-World War II strength of will and its new strategy of containing communism. Would America step up to protect an impoverished nation so far from any vital shore? Many feared the Truman administration, with its attention focused on Europe, would not.

They were wrong. President Harry Truman got off a plane in Washington and immediately agreed to swift action to save South Korea. He had been thinking about Hitler and Mussolini on the plane, Truman said; this time, the totalitarians would not get away with it. America would send in troops at once.

The problem was, there were no troops — or very few. In 1945, America had spent $50 billion on defense, in 1950 $5 billion. Its 8.25 million-strong military had shrunk to less than 600,000, most of them still in Europe. The Eighth Army’s four undermanned, underequipped divisions would somehow have to stem the massive communist tide, as Gen. Walton Walker fed his troops in piecemeal.

See also:
S Korea marks 60th anniversary of Korean War
Tensions ripple through Korean peninsula on 60th anniversary of war
North Korea ratchets up tension as South marks 60th anniversary of war
South Korea Commemorates 60th Anniversary of Korean War
Not forgotten: Korean War veterans remember on the 60th anniversary
60th anniversary to start of Korean War gets gala memorial celebration
Korean War veterans mark 60th anniversary
Korean vets remember 60th anniversary
60th Anniversary Of The Start Of Korean War Remembered
Korean War National Museum
Korean War Veterans Memorial
Korean War Veterans Memorial
Korean War

Technically, we’re still at war, there was only a ceasefire, South Korea never signed the Korean Armistice Agreement. So, the South Koreans live in freedom while the North lives in oppressive darkness.

/when will the North be free and Korea finally reunited?