Mother Russia
My friends, the answer is blowing in the wind. A Russian wind to be precise. Since World War II, beginning with the Roosevelt Administration, the United States has made a strategic decision not to engage militarily with the Russians, communist or otherwise, where ever the they may be ensconced. They too have made a decision to not engage with us in a direct military conflagration by conventional or nuclear arms on US forces in any country that we have set up base camp. If either side attacks the other then all options are on the table and the consequences will be unforeseen. So, wherever the Russians are based then we are not and conversely, where we are based the Russians are not. The US will not attack a country in which the Russians are based and the Russians will not attack a country where we are based.
We see this "gentlemen's agreement" playing out between Russia and the United States over the whole world since WWII such as in East and West Berlin, Eastern Europe, East and West Germany during the Cold War, and of course in Cuba under Castro. This politico-military dichotomy spilled over into Communist China after 1949 and again, we decided that we would not attack the Chinese in a direct military action.
Korea
The invasion of South Korea by the North Koreans would probably have been successfully pulled off by the North had they not attacked the American Army based in South Korea directly. No doubt while North Korea swept all before them in summer months of 1950, if no American forces were in the country, then the Truman Administration would have basically abandoned the South to its fate citing this gentlemen's agreement with Russia. But Americans were there and we were directly attacked and thus we counterattacked under MacArthur and by the Winter of 1950, US forces pushed the North Koreans all the way back to China.
Then a funny thing occurred - we decided to extend to China that same gentlemen's agreement accorded to Russia. Perhaps the Russians were directly involved with the Chinese or we believed they were and thus when China herself counterattacked us at the Yalu River, they called our bluff and watched us retreat back to the 38th Parallel dividing North and South Korea. For the next two and a half years we would joust over the middle of Korea before a truce was set in place with the advent of General Eisenhower as President of the United States in 1953. It's been this way for 60 years now.
Viet Nam
Viet Nam 10 years later also was governed by this same condition. We felt the Russian/Chinese investment in North Vietnam was big enough to prevent an actual invasion by US forces and thus, like Korea, we would come to "respect" the gentlemen's agreement and only fight for South Viet Nam in a limited way. We had hoped that the North would make a truce like in Korea but political forces in the United States had turned leftward and unlike in Korea, American forces pulled out of Viet Nam by 1973. With no American forces to check the Russian/Chinese North, the Communist conventional forces invaded openly in '74 and occupied Saigon by 1975.
Proxy Forces
Vietnam also proved that proxy forces could be used to great effect to bypass this gentlemen's agreement between Russia and the United States. Russians could indeed attack American forces directly without necessarily violating this agreement. Guerrilla forces financed and supplied by the Russians/Chinese could attack the Americans and her allies with impunity which is the difference between Korea and Viet Nam.
Of course, the United States also could enlist guerrilla proxy forces against Russia as well. Both Afghanistan and Nicaragua were cases of American-backed proxies fighting the Russians during the 1980's under the able leadership of Ronald Reagan. The Mujahadeen of Afghanistan and the Contras of Nicaragua successfully destabilized Russian occupation and influence enough that the USA ended up on the winning side.
A New World Order
The end of the Cold War does not end the gentlemen's agreement. Since the "fall" of communism in Russia and the advent of the Moslem War Of Terror in the West, the United States is still operating under this politico-military regime. We will not attack a country that houses Russian/Chinese military forces. And the same is true for them on us. Hence, we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan after 2001 but have not and will not invade Iran or Syria today because the Russians are based in both of these countries. Cuba also is still very much invested by the Russians which we could easily squash if we so desired. Libya did not base Russians or Chinese and thus we got more easily involved.
The one event that will destabilize this Russian-American dynamic will be the so called "Arab Spring". It's quite possible that a Sunni-Moslem political uprising will push the United States completely out of the Middle East as far as military bases are concerned. If this is the case, then our relationship with Israel becomes that much more important thus exacerbating the tensions with the Sunni-Moslem world which in turn could provoke nations like Qatar or Kuwait to kick us out of their countries for political - religious reasons. Similar to the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973 to punish the United States for directly supporting Israel during the Yom-Kippur War, a future conflagration with the Sunni-Moslem world could instigate a crisis that causes military base closings and troop withdrawals from Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait. For the first time since WWII, we could see a Middle East not occupied by American/Western forces which in turn could tempt the Russians to challenge the gentlemen's agreement over this part of the world.
Fasten your seatbelts.
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