People are worried about a lot of things at the moment, but one thing near the top of everyone’s list is a war between the US and China over the fate of Taiwan. What most people have forgotten is that the US already fought a war with China. It’s easy to overlook this previous conflict because we called it the Korean War (and initially it wasn’t even called a war). This is understandable given that it took place in Korea. As such, it’s forgivable to overlook the huge Chinese involvement. But for most of the war the Chinese were our primary opponents. (At its peak 80% of enemy troops were Chinese.)

Can we draw any lessons from our last war with China when considering the possible outcomes of a future war with the same adversary? There are certainly worse places to look for information.

The first thing we might look at is the outcome. How did we do? How did the war end? This part, at least, most people remember. It ended in a draw. After costing the lives of at least four million people (soldiers and civilians) the final truce line was very close to the original dividing line of the 38th parallel.