Should the U.S. enter the Korean War if it happens?

What are your sources? They didn’t declare war – they just fired upon the island. They have never commenced peace talks since the initial conflict.

It’s not just the US involved, but a UN resolution – one of the only ones the security council acted in unison (the irony…)

well, N Korea did NOT declare war; if they had Seoul would be shelled by now. But the Korean war has never been settled, and the North has been shelling a disputed territory on an island.

I’m sorry I thought that North Korea had declared war on South Korea, my mistake. but the rest of my question still stands.

we’ve had troops in S Korea since the 1950s. The aircraft carrier that is there was part of planned practice maneuvers, not a response to the shelling.

How does the rest of your question still stand? How can we talk about U.S. involvement in a war that isn’t happening; U.S. involvement in a non-existent war?

First some fact checking. There is no declared war unless it happened in the last few minutes. North Korea fired some artillery rounds into an Island claimed by the South. They killed 4 people. South Korea returned fire and claims to have inflicted casualties on the North, but there is no confirmation of count. The gunfire ended days ago. There are exercises there this weekend. Just training. We laready have 30,000 people stationed in South Korea to help defend them against a second invasion from the North—and I have not heard of any new deployments. We did send a nuclear aircraft carrier there, osstensibly for the training exercise, but obviously to send a clear sign to the North as well.

I do not think China wants a open war with the US and because that’s not in their national interest, I don’t think they would permit North Korea to go to far in their game of brinkmanship. We’re China’s number one market, and they hold a significant amount of our debt. If hostilities erupted on the Korean peninsula, China would have to chose between the cost of upsetting Kim Jong Il and his son versus the cost of losing their biggest market and having us renege on ¾ of a trillion dollars in US federal debt.

Alright I’m going to completely rephrase my question, seeing as I had my information wrong the first time. Why does the U.S. get involved in other countries business when it doesn’t involve us? And if a war between N Korea and S Korea does happen, will we get involved? there is that better?

Ah. That’s a better question. I think the fear is that we do not want to see a repeat of European attempts to appease Hitler. Clearly, thinking that letting Hitler take just one country wouldn’t be so bad, and would satisfy him was entirely wrong. It’s not so clear Neville Chamberlain had a bunch of great alternatives at hand at the time, but that is a matter for historians to debate. What is beyond debate is that the idea of securing peace by appeasement got a bad name back then which lives on to this day.

It would be a big mistake on the U.S.‘s part if it stepped in. I just wished China would step up to the plate and have a good long talk with nutty North Korea.

There was never a truce called between North and South Korea after the cease-fire of the Korean War; they have technically been at war since then. North Korea’s position is the reunification of Korea. We’ve had troops there to “stabilize” the area, but have generally been able to work things out with Russia and China to hold North Korea in check. That’s were things sit now.

With approximately 56 cents of every tax dollar going to military spending, we cannot afford to engage in another military front. China and Russia are doing what they can to hold things in check. While they side with North Korea on the issue of reunification of Korea, they are not in favor of going to war over it.

I’m guessing that Kim Jong Il wants to consolidate power for his son, who is taking over at the tender age of 27 as a four star general. Letting him issue the order to fire on the South probably stoked egos of the top brass and made it clear the young General is the MAN. Whatever. Four people dead for foolish ego. At least it isn’t 40,000 dead. We lost over 58,000 in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953.

We must stand with our North Korean allies.

Sarah Palin jokes aside,
My general feeling is that China should be stepping up to the plate far before the US does, like said above. It’s their problem far before it’s the US’s problem. If North Korea makes direct tangible threats against the US, I think that is the one and only time when we should consider stepping in. It’s not our war.

We are required by treaty to defend South Korea from external aggression (emphasis is mine):

“Under the 1953 U.S.-R.O.K. Mutual Defense Treaty, the United States agreed to help the Republic of Korea defend itself against external aggression. In support of this commitment, the United States has maintained military personnel in Korea, including the Army’s Second Infantry Division and several Air Force tactical squadrons. To coordinate operations between these units and the over 680,000-strong Korean armed forces, a Combined Forces Command (CFC) was established in 1978. The head of the CFC also serves as Commander of the United Nations Command (UNC) and U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). The current CFC commander is General Walter “Skip” Sharp.”

State Department

Well technically they are at war as no peace treaty has yet been signed.

The US-Korean alliance is a result of the Cold War and fear of communism. The alliance has never been ended. It would be a diplomatic disaster for the US to end it right now.