Signs point to North Korea unilaterally launching the invasion. It was not helpful for the USSR and was at a very bad time for the PRC since the war immediately shut down plans to invade Taiwan.
The U.S., especially after Chinese troops entered the war, viewed it as a united and aggressive communist bloc brashly taking over one more country and likely to try more if not resisted. US defense spending shot back up to wartime levels (though far from the WWII peak) and stayed there.
China also viewed it as a feeler for aggression that would go further if not resisted. Both countries were overinterpreting local issues as global ones.
The dramatic reverses were all in the first year, followed by two years of stalemate before the armistice.
Mussolini gradually dismantled the institutions of democratic government, making himself dictator. Mussolini always agreed to give the church what it wished. The regime was held together by a strong state control and Mussolini’s cult of personality.
Democrats scorched the Republican administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower for allowing the United States to fall so far behind the communists. Eisenhower responded by speeding up the U.S. space program, which resulted in the launching of the satellite Explorer I on January 31, 1958. The “space race” had begun.
