Few would deny that China's red star is rising in the world. In recent years, China has completed the Yellow River Dam, became the largest foreign debt holder of the US Government, and taken over shelf space in American Stores. Relations between the US and China during the Cold War were a chilly alliance of convenience aimed at developing fear that China would capitalize on any US-Soviet confrontation, by taking over the undefended scraps of the Soviet's soft undefended underbelly.
In decades past, the Chinese had one primary military asset, that could not be ignored: A Billion People they could throw at a regional threat. And they demonstrated how effective that could be in the Korean War. When Americans pushed the North Korean Army to the Northern reaches of the Korean Peninsula, the Chinese sent their hordes over the frozen Yalu River to force a standstill that protected Communism's southern flank in Asia.
The parallels to Task Force Smith can not be ignored today. Following WWII, President Truman had so slashed the military that North Korea (along with the Soviets and Chinese Communists) felt emboldened to take the rest of Korea by force. The most that could be mustered to stop the invasion was a small task force, ill-equipped with outdated arms. The United States alone lost 38,516 Troops alone in a war often forgotten, while more than 778,000 Allied Troops, 2.5 Million civilians, and more than 1.1 Million North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet Troops died in the war that has not been ended officially, and ended in a stalemate of lines in the same place it started.
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