With a POD of October 9, 1950 (the date on which, according to the Genocide, the UN forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea), what is the smallest plausible North Korea achievable after an armistice / peace treaty?
TB-ES
TB-ES
Smallest Plausible North Korea?
- Thread starter The Blue-Eyed Infidel
- Start date
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Here he was known as Spartan, before he was banned. On DW he was Spartan Phalanx before changing his name to Persian Immortal. tThere he was not only banned but deleted. w While he ticked off the administration in both places, he used his military knowledge to write some good AH. h He had a TL that had Truman bomb the Yalu, cutting off the supply of Chinese troops. t The North Koreans were only able to hold on to a small mountainous section near the Chinese border
Tallest Skil
Banned
I figure the backstory was only needed if you'd had a link.
So basically a North Korean Transnistria?
Riain
Banned
If China intervened because they didn't want a western oriented country on their border then have the offensive into the North peter out or stop voluntarily well short of the Chinese border. Perhaps call a halt at the narrowest part just north of Pyongyang, maybe for the practical reason to consolidate the existing gains. In such a scenario either the Chinese don't intervene until the offensive is renewed (if it is), or do intervene and run into the sort of prepared defences that armies tend to build up when they stay in one place for a while which doesn't send the UN forces reeling.
-MacArthur is wounded in combat after Inchon landings (maybe shot by some of his own people?)
-Replacement takes threat of Chinese crossing the Yalu seriously and calls a halt to advancement
-Peace eventually ensues leaving the Korean frontier at 40th parallel - Taedong river. North Korea is all but a Chinese province by 1965.
-Replacement takes threat of Chinese crossing the Yalu seriously and calls a halt to advancement
-Peace eventually ensues leaving the Korean frontier at 40th parallel - Taedong river. North Korea is all but a Chinese province by 1965.
Does such a clear victory make Truman a viable candidate in 1952?
How much more significant is South Korea?
I started a thread on this way back on the old board, and it's come up a few times on here since; basically, my idea was that the UN would drive into NK but stop roughly on the 40th Parallel and fortify it, then annex everything south of it to SK, leaving NK to exist in what was left. The idea is that China, so willing to intervene to save all of NK, might not do so to save part of NK. And NK would be deprived of it's capitol city, most of it's population, and nearly all of the arable land. The rump state would be even more miserably poor and starving than it is today, and that's saying something...
Depends on how the war ends, if a cease-fire is declared in late 1951 perhaps, but if American casualties are still horrific or if MacArthur campaigns vigorously against him then it's up in the air. Mac still has lots of prestige to toss around, and without the JCOS trading him for control of some of the nuclear arsenal at this point it gets interesting. He *might* be able to oust Truman if he can spin their opposition into looking like defeatism or settling instead of pushing for ultimate victory.
As for South Korean significance, the gain of more farmland in Hwaghae provinces and industrial resources around Pyongyang, Wonsan, and other areas, I think South Korea will be in a much better position going into the late 1950s and 1960s. With very little farmland the remnant of North Korea iwll be hard-pressed to stay independent, and perhaps with a treaty guaranteeing minimal/no foreign presence on Korean soil we might get an Austrian-type truly unified Republic of Korea about 1955 / 1960. Otherwise a rump North Korean state that serves as a buffer to the West that survives at the behest of its Chinese/Russian masters and either falls in 1992 (should it side with Russia) or acts as a de facto province of China into the modern day.
Riain
Banned
I've read that Nth Korea is too big and too poor for Sth Korea to absorb the way West Germany absorbed East Germany. This is why there is no real unification effort. But if the DMZ was well north of Pyongyang then Sth Korea would be bigger and richer and Nth Korea smaller and more readily absorbed, so perhaps the two would be unifiied by now.
deathscompanion1
Banned
But of course it's internal propaganda will play it as the Chinese begging for the glory of being one of the Dear leaders blessed provinces.
*Dear Leader may vary with use. Provider is under no obligation for the duration, consistency, productivity, effectiveness, or lunacy of Dear Leader for tenure of office. If Dear Leader is found to be defective, ineffective, or misaligned with the goals of the Korean People's Republic, he may be...Upgraded...at the behest of...the people...with the assistance of one or more tributary Worker's Republics who fear that he may not be the most effective example of leadership for the awesome might represented by the Korean people. Side effects of Dear Leader may include eccentricity, an obsession with Western sports figures, random assassinations, human experimentation, starvation, proliferations of uniforms, [strikethrough] insane propaganda [/strikethrough] information services that may not be as effective at some times as others, and [strikethrough] delusions of grandeur that would make Alexander or Napolean blush [/strikethrough] a determined resolve to see the barbarians of the West humbled as needed