Near the end of a World War II, (Feb 1945) at the Yalta summit, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to a plan to carve up the world… borders were reset, even as far away as South America. Nationalist China and France were part of the victors.

At Potsdam six months later, after Germany had fallen, President Truman, Prime Minister Attlee, both successors, met again with Stalin while the Asian theatre of war was still active. Truman encouraged Stalin to provide support for the Eastern Theatre against Japan which had occupied Korea for 35 years. It was agreed that the Russians would occupy territory above the 38th parallel while the U.S. would occupy the southern portion.

In 1949, the communists gained control of mainland China and North Korea was now controlled by Russia and China. The communists invaded South Korea in 1950, resulting in the Korean War (1950-1953) where 55,000 Americans lost their lives.

Fast Forward…

The two philosophies continue to be poles apart. Now comes the threat of another war. The Cuban crisis (1962) offers some guidance. The Soviets were bringing offensive weapons to Cuba…90 miles from the USA. Kennedy’s generals were gung-ho for war in the now nuclear age. Kennedy resisted the march to war. It has been reported that he had commented that if we go to war (nuclear) that no one would be alive to later tell the generals that they were wrong.

In comparing Cuba with Korea of today: the Soviets were thousands of miles from the field of battle. Today, the USA is thousands of miles from the field. When it comes to fire power—troops, reserves, aircraft, tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, naval vessels, and submarines, South Korea and it’s ally, the US, are disadvantaged by a factor of 2:1.

Thus, a non-nuclear war doesn’t look like a “cake walk” as the Iraq war of 2003 was promoted to be, as if they would welcome us in the streets with roses. That unnecessary war has been estimated to have cost the US up to $6 trillion—six times the outstanding balance of student loans!

The insane rhetoric of the “would- be-president” seems to be pushing us toward the nuclear option. While Trump bills his rhetoric as a show of “strength”, it is obvious to anyone with basic judgement that inciting war, in particular a nuclear one, is the epitome of weakness, unspeakable ignorance, and as General Mattis stated, would be “catastrophic.”