Seventy years ago at Geneva, an interesting exchange took place. During a conference meant to tidy up the loose ends of the Korean War, the parties changed the subject to Indochina. The French were said to have struck a deal with the Soviets: help relieve us of the burden of losing a war in Indochina and we’ll kill plans for a European Defence Community, a French concoction backed by the USA to place a fig leaf over (West) German rearmament. Why did there need to be German rearmament? Because too many American and British troops had been sent to Korea, and too much French blood and treasure was being lost in Vietnam, for Western Europe to be defended in the style to which it wanted to become accustomed. Soviet help wasn’t needed after all. The Vietnamese settled the matter at Dien Bien Phu. The French killed the European Defence Community anyway, but West Germany went ahead and rearmed as a new member of NATO, and the Americans succeeded the French in losing another Indochinese war. The Korean War continued, albeit with an armistice, which lasts to this day. Recently Vladimir Putin visited North Korea and Vietnam. In Hanoi, he poked his finger in the eye of the Americans (and maybe also of the Chinese), who have given up a good deal of treasure in courting their erstwhile enemies there. In Pyongyang, he signed with Kim Jong-un a new treaty of alliance. The South Korean government responded by renouncing its ban on providing military assistance to countries at war, and is now preparing to send weapons to Ukraine. War in Europe has already brought forth some remarkable results: the end of Finnish and Swedish neutrality, and a large increase in German military expenditure, for example. Might it also end the armistice in Korea? |