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When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Korean War #30: Unfriendly Fire
Episode 30: Unfriendly Fire switches gears from the Anglo-American to the Asian angle in the war. We encounter some more controversial points, as we learn just how instrumental Stalin was in blunting the force of the North Korean People's Army, as he manipulated the situation to acquire the war he wanted. Stalin was creating in Korea a war which would draw the allies in further, and which would force the Chinese to respond. With this in mind, he couldn't afford to watch the North actually push the allies off the peninsula and effectively win the war.
In previous episodes, we've made the point that Stalin wanted a certain kind of war, but in my mind, this evidence here proves that Stalin was utterly committed to sabotaging Kim Il-sung after leading him to believe that the war would take a certain shape. Kim, much like the Chinese and Stalin believed, the Americans, were pawns in his game to gather greater power and influence for himself. We thus see for ourselves that the Northern failures were less to do with allied preparations or Northern mistakes, but Stalin's deliberate actions. Controversial for sure, but in this window of time that the North had to close the war in its favour, Stalin needed to be sure that everything went according to plan, and that the war would not end just yet.
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Music used:
We return to the American Heart Association and Jo Stafford for another another song, and you can find the collection of audio I used for that series here: https://archive.org/details/1950-1959RadioNews
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