You always think one move ahead. Of course a NK invasion of the South would be disastrous to those people but what you fail to realize is that the South Koreans are a pretty tough sort. It would not have been a cakewalk for the North.

Even given what you'd consider a worst case scenario, that the North would roll over the South and turn it into a despotic communist dictatorship, it would be tough for the North to retain power. They'd be hit daily by an insurgency that would make the chaos the Russians faced in Afghanistan seem like a walk in the park. That civil war could just as easily have destroyed or considerably weakened the communist regime in the North eventually.

History has shown that imperialistic nations always bite off more than they can chew. The farther they venture from the center of their power, the longer their supply lines become, the more they begin to erode themselves.

Let's not mince words here Tom. You know as well as I do that our efforts in the Korean War had nothing to do with our concern for the South Korean people even if that was the public pronouncement. The last truly noble war we fought was WWII and even that had major missteps that set the stage for the Cold War.

All that said, I don't know what the outcome would have been had we not involved ourselves in Korea and neither do you. It's much like the butterfly effect. For you to pretend you are all-knowing about how things turned out shows your complete lack of depth. Happy Thanksgiving.

Art