The children threw stones into the pond as a joke while playing, and the frog was beaten to death.
After living as a frog, I thought this was unfair. Contrary to the intentions of politicians who cause war, frogs are life and death. It is widely known that war does not benefit the victorious countries, even if it is not a frog problem. Then, there will be cases where it benefits the interests of a political minority or the position of a political leader.
However, a study by Mossad, an Israeli intelligence agency that analyzed Saddam Hussein in the past also suggested that we should also explore the spiritual world of militant politicians.
The most terrifying aspect of Saddam's multiple personalities was his obsession with violence. He enjoyed the process of suffering enough to watch videos of people being tortured and executed for hours. The methods of torture were varied and cruel. They were buried alive and long nails were inserted from the victim's ear to his head. The victim, who did not want to be hanged too quickly, was buried alive in the desert.
- [ GIDEON’S SPIES ] BY GORDON THOMAS -
double translation
In the early days of the Ukraine war, I mentioned several mistakes made in the past that prevented the West from embracing Russia or incorporating it into other communities in the economy or environment when the Soviet Union collapsed. I even joked a few times that Russia should be tied to a global military alliance by creating a global defense force in response to the invasion of Kantapya, where Dooly, a baby dinosaur bullying an adult like Go Gil-dong, lives. It was because I understood the nature of a war that started weakly but ended in magnificent and miserable.
Still, I discussed with artificial intelligence that is smarter than frogs like me. Let's not throw stones. I'm in pain.
Who Benefits from War?
The Frog and the Stone: Ordinary People and the Logic of War
Lee Hyeong-chun · 2026
1. War Yields No True Benefit — Even for the Victor
Throughout history, countries that won wars rarely emerged better off than before. Loss of life, staggering debt, social trauma, and the seeds of new conflicts — these are the real legacies of victory.
The Paradox of the Victor
Case | Surface Result | Actual Cost |
Britain & France, WWI | Victory | National exhaustion → hegemony transferred to the US |
US in Vietnam | Military superiority | Strategic failure, deep domestic division |
US in Afghanistan | 20-year occupation | Taliban returns to power, trillions spent |
Soviet Union in Afghanistan | Military entry | National exhaustion → accelerated Soviet collapse |
The true beneficiaries of war are always elsewhere — the arms industry, post-war reconstruction firms, and third-party nations that fill the resulting power vacuum.
2. Beneficiaries Outside the Battlefield — The US and Japan
In both World War II and the Korean War, the United States and Japan — nations whose home territories remained untouched — emerged as the greatest beneficiaries. This is the most cruel paradox embedded in the structure of modern war.
The United States: Greatest Beneficiary of Both Wars
By the end of World War II, the United States accounted for roughly half of global GDP. As Europe and Asia lay in ruins, the dollar became the world's reserve currency. The Marshall Plan was simultaneously aid and market capture. The Korean War reignited a military-industrial complex that had been contracting since 1945 and cemented a US-led Western alliance under the Cold War framework.
Japan: The Hidden Beneficiary of the Korean War
This is one of history’s most painful ironies. While Korea was reduced to rubble, Japan served as the primary US logistics base and received a flood of dollars in return. Its industries roared back to life filling wartime demand, and the former aggressor nation was rehabilitated from war criminal to Cold War ally.
Factor | Detail |
Military procurement boom | Massive dollar inflows as primary US supply base |
Industrial revival | Factories running at full capacity for trucks, steel, and textiles |
End of occupation | San Francisco Peace Treaty signed in 1951 |
Rearmament begins | Self-Defense Forces established — rehabilitation from war criminal to ally |
3. The Ukraine War — A War With No Beneficiaries
Unlike previous wars, the Ukraine conflict has produced no clear beneficiary. The risk of escalation between nuclear-armed states and the collapse of global supply chains has effectively eliminated the concept of a safe spectator position.
The Existential Problem of NATO
When the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO lost its reason for existence. But institutions, once created, develop a survival instinct of their own. Rather than dissolving, NATO chose eastward expansion. Without an enemy, it moved in the direction of reproducing one.
Evidence exists that during the 1990 negotiations over German reunification, the United States gave a verbal assurance that NATO would not expand ‘one inch’ eastward. When Russia itself quietly explored NATO membership in the early 1990s, the West essentially ignored the overture. Instead, IMF shock therapy collapsed the Russian economy and gave rise to the oligarchs.
The greatest strategic failure was the West’s inability to embrace Russia as an equal partner after 1991. A Cold War relic called NATO expanded by inertia — and manufactured a war that could have been prevented.
The Genuine Alternative — Non-Military Alliance
NATO should have been dissolved and replaced by non-military structures — economic unions, environmental coalitions — that drew Russia into a shared framework. Human communities only transcend internal conflict in the face of a common threat. Whether that threat is defined as a neighboring country or as climate change and pandemic — that choice determines the direction of civilization.
4. A Taiwan Invasion and the Korean Peninsula — The Logic of Escalation
Xi Jinping has made Taiwan unification the centerpiece of his political legacy. The danger is that each repeated public declaration eliminates room for retreat. The trap of being ‘bound by one’s own words’ can compel irrational action.
The Escalation Chain on the Korean Peninsula
If the United States intervenes in a Taiwan conflict, South Korea — host to 28,500 US troops — is automatically drawn in. North Korea may well read the moment when US forces are tied down in the Taiwan Strait as the opportunity it has waited decades for. South Korea faces a structure in which no available choice produces a favorable outcome.
Option | Content | Outcome |
Support the US | Base access, logistics cooperation | Becomes direct target of Chinese retaliation |
Declare neutrality | Distance from the US alliance | Alliance rupture, security vacuum |
Ambiguous middle path | Strategic hedging | Loss of credibility with both sides |
Taiwan is a puffer fish — poisonous to consume. If Xi Jinping knows this and still invades because he is trapped by his own declarations, that becomes the most textbook example of elite vanity destroying a community.
5. The Frog and the Stone — The Place of Ordinary People
Children were playing by a pond and threw a stone. For the children, it was play. For the frog, it was death.
For leaders, war is a chess game, a bid for historical legacy, or a tool for redirecting domestic discontent. For ordinary people, it is the loss of everything.
The Structure of Powerlessness
Ordinary citizens do not fail to prevent wars because they are ignorant. Information is blocked, choices are absent, and the structure itself renders the individual powerless. The frog did not fail to dodge the stone because it was foolish — it simply could not see where the stone was coming from.
Psychopathology and the Summit of Power
A CIA psychological profile of Saddam Hussein identified a combination of antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. Hitler, Pol Pot, Kim Il-sung — history repeatedly shows the pattern of psychopathological figures ascending to supreme power.
Dictatorship does not create psychopaths. It is a system that selects for psychopaths and elevates them to the top. Normal people stop partway up the ladder of power — because conscience and empathy hold them back.
Conclusion: The Essence of Today’s Conversation
War yields no benefit to the nations that fight it. Beneficiaries are always found outside the battlefield. And that structure has not changed in the twenty-first century. If anything, the risk of nuclear escalation is eliminating even the peripheral beneficiaries.
War | Outside Beneficiary | Outcome for Combatants |
World War II | United States (global hegemony) | Europe and Asia reduced to rubble |
Korean War | US & Japan (economic revival) | Peninsula divided, ~3 million dead |
Ukraine War | None identifiable | Losses across all parties |
Taiwan invasion (hypothetical) | None | Crisis engulfing all of East Asia including Korea |
Those who decide on war and those who die in it are playing entirely different games from the start. It was true of the Korean War. It will be true of the next one. Until that structure changes, ordinary people will always be the frog.
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