This week General The Lord Dannatt and I have been celebrating the publication of Korea, War Without End. We think its the first British view of the war published in the last 30-years, at least since the Official History (written by General Anthony Farrar-Hockley) was published in the mid-1990s. Our book is not a traditional military history, but rather an analysis of how the war started, and by whom; how the war was prosecuted, and by whom; and how the war ended, and by whom. Its been an interesting book to write, as we have done so in the context of ongoing Russian aggrandizement in Ukraine. We believe that the Korean experience offers some helpful pointers to modern policy makers.
Anyway, a short article I’ve written for History of War magazine follows:
In the same magazine is a review, which I present warts and all!
Their book will be worth reading, but I’m not sure of the parallel of Kim’s and Putin’s wars: it may be that Putin has made Russia Great again simply because all eyes are on him fighting a war.
His economy is on a war footing, and his armed forces on the front foot; not only does he not need to negotiate, he doesn’t want peace.
That’s not to say his major objective is territorial; it’s hegemony, which means Ukraine cannot be in the Western or European sphere of influence. While he is pounding Ukraine into the dust, the EU won’t want to pick up the ever-increasing tab, and NATO (that is, because of Trump, European NATO) won’t want the escalatory commitment of Ukraine’s membership.
This picture is a very different one to that in Korea.