World must heed the lessons of the Korean War

Seventy-five years ago on June 25, the Korean War (1950-53) broke out. It stood as a defining case of great power rivalry during the early days of the Cold War. The Korean Armistice Agreement not only militarily demarcated the Korean Peninsula but also institutionalized an incomplete peace agreement — one perpetually overshadowed by great power competition in Northeast Asia.

The war highlighted three major traps in great power rivalry. The first is the "proxy war" trap. What appeared to be a conflict on the Korean Peninsula was actually a "proxy war" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union intervened indirectly through the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, while China sent the Chinese People's Volunteers to fight, in order to protect the country's national security needs.

This model persists to this day, with proxy wars unfolding in places such as Ukraine and the Middle East, where smaller nations are forced to bear the cost of great power competition.