In September of 1950, the North had taken every part of the Korean peninsula except a small area around Pusan. Without outside military help, the same ideology running North Korea now would be running the whole area, and the entire peninsula would be dark on those satellite pictures.

This conclusion does not require being "all-knowing," having a gift of prophecy, using a huge computer model, or doing years of study, any more than I would need such things to conclude that an asteroid would do damage if it hit New York City. If North Korea had taken the South, they would have absorbed it and dominated the people in the same way they had done in the North, and the whole place would be the hellhole North Korea is now.

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.

The history of domestic insurgencies in totalitarian communist nations is not an extensive one. In fact, it's hard to think of any at all, even unsuccessful ones. For example, I didn't notice much of an insurgency problem in South Vietnam after the communists took over. If there is an active insurgency of any kind in places like North Korea now, I haven't heard about it.

It is common for isolationists to harbor the delusion that evil will simply fade out of its own accord if not disturbed or annoyed, or that it is impossible for a ruthless authority to control a large population for long. History shows that none of these things are true.

I used Korea as the most glaringly obvious example. If that one didn't work, I doubt there's a lot of room for discussion on any of the others.

Your own military experience has probably poisoned your thinking on this subject. I understand some of the rationalizations you have had to construct on this issue. That doesn't make you right.