Whether Americans, or citizens the world over, wish to remember or not, the Korean War is the symbol of the 70-plus year war of attrition between two ideas: communism and democracy. June 25, 1950, moved the world from modern warfare into the existential warfare of the modern age— introducing the first hot war of the Cold War. The Korean peninsula provides the world a precise cross-comparison of the effects of freedom or tyranny. She is, ironically enough, geographically split in half. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a republic in name only. This nation, led by the Kim Dynasty, promised freedom and equality but was founded on force and subjugation. Any new nation arising from the chaos of revolution often forgets what it has promised, or, at times, simply cannot fulfill its promises until opportunity allows. In the past 75 years, however, North Korea’s rule has passed from …