this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025
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Korean history is really deep in M. Night Shyamalan level plot twists going back thousands of years. And every step of the way the people who live there have been fucked over in one way or another.
Most recently Japan occupied them... Quite brutally, once Japan was defeated in WW2 a pro China guy up north and pro US government in the south formed...
That fuckwad Dean Acheson, US Secretary of State at the time hinting that the US wasn't interested in Korea, leaving communist China and Russia to encourage Kim to try to take the whole thing. Acheson is more to blame than Stalin imo.
You know you really made it as a country when your recent history is all about which country owned you before and which owns you now.
I mean, the Spartans aren't around now for the same reasons Korea has been a smaller population and size for its entire history.
Size matters. If the US was the size of Korea, which itself is as big as Delaware, WW2 would have been another story.
There is a lot to be said for 3 key factors...
Population size Geographic size/natural resources availability Education (which translates into proper utilization of those resources/political power/military power/technology)
South Korea has 1 of 3 of those going for it, and has done quite well for itself and will continue to do so, as long as it can turn all the now self-inflicted problems around.
North has 0 of 3.
Funny thing though, if the South's population, education and economy had the land of the North which is very very resource rich, they'd have a decent opportunity to overtake Japan in world economic power possibly rival Germany landing it in the top 3.