>>Korea was (is?) probably a good war, on balance. Every South Korean I know says that it was.
The Chinese were satisfied, but nobody asked the dead Koreans or mothers in Iowa. Certainly South Korea is doing well economically today if you can ignore the sabre rattling from the North and poverty hidden away from the Samsung and Hyundai salesrooms.
Actually, perhaps I was being pessimistic. The response to the Malayan emergency went quite well- well enough that after the Commonwealth troops went home, the Communists tried again and failed without further Western intervention. So that was one for the good guys.
And ousting Saddam from Kuwait also went quite well though it did release his heavy boot from the neck of the sorts of troublemakers who now taunt and attack the West.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
