It has been 67 years since the Korean War reached an effective stalemate through the July 27, 1953 armistice agreement. To this day, historians and others look back at the bloody conflict and claim that it ended exactly where it started, with nothing achieved by either side. 

In some senses, this is true: Before and after the war, the Korean peninsula was divided into the capitalist South and communist North, shattering the unification dreams of both Seoul and Pyongyang.

But the Korean War was not inconsequential, even if it did not result in a major repainting of the political map.