The Korean War was a turning point in history. Sandwiched between the global scale of World War 2 and the nightmare of Vietnam, Korea is sometimes referred to as the “Forgotten War”. Korea might not be in the forefront of the public’s psyche, but it set in motion events that changed the world. Without Korea, history would have been very different. Korea forced the United States to develop coherent policy to deal with the perceived communist threat. The new policy established shaped the course of the Cold War, international politics, and the world today.
U.S. Policy 1946-1950
American policy was a mess from 1946 through 1950. The Cold War had begun, and there was a lot of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. American forces were small however, and the defense budget was too small to meet the Soviet threat. American decision makers didn’t think the Soviets were necessarily seeking a war, but almost no one thought the peace would last. There was an overall gloomy outlook, however the Soviets were counting on several years of peace. Even though the Soviets were not actively seeking conflict, they were still using political means to achieve their goals. No one knew how a war might start and there was fear of miscalculation:
Now and for the foreseeable future there is a continuing danger that war will arise either through Soviet miscalculation of the determination of the United States to use all the means at its command to safeguard its security, through Soviet misinterpretation of our intentions, or through U.S. miscalculation of Soviet reactions to measures which we might take.
American policy was conflicted on multiple fronts. There was a high-perceived threat, but the means devised to cope with it fell short o...
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...sed by Korea. In 1950 the Truman Administration faced, “The real dilemma of obtaining congressional approval to implement the $15 billion or more recommendations of NSC-68 as well as European rearmament.” Truman needed a catalyst in order to make it possible to implement those funds. Before Korea, America’s political landscape made it impossible for such a sum to be approved. As Acheson admitted, “Korea came along and saved us.” The war made it possible to increase the budget and implement change because public support was high. American lives were at risk, and that would loom larger to the public than possible economic repercussions. The Korean War gave Truman the precedent to raise the budget, implement NSC-68, and oppose communism at every turn. The new policy established shaped the course of the Cold War, which in turn has shaped the world stage to this day.
During the Cold War, the United States engaged in many aggressive policies both at home and abroad, in which to fight communism and the spread of communist ideas. Faced with a new challenge and new global responsibilities, the U.S. needed to retain what it had fought so strongly for in World War II. It needed to contain the communist ideas pouring from the Soviet Union while preventing communist influence at home, without triggering World War III. With the policies of containment, McCarthyism, and brinkmanship, the United States hoped to effectively stop the spread of communism and their newest threat, the Soviet Union. After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union had very different ideas on how to rebuild.
Discussions of the causes of the Cold War are often divisive, creating disparate ideological camps that focus the blame in different directions depending on the academic’s political disposition. One popular argument places the blame largely on the American people, whose emphasis on “strength over compromise” and their deployment of the atomic bomb in the Second World War’s Pacific theatre apparently functioned as two key catalysts to the conflict between US and Soviet powers. This revisionist approach minimizes Stalin’s forceful approach and history of violent leadership throughout World War 2, and focuses instead on President Harry Truman’s apparent insensitivity to “reasonable Soviet security anxieties” in his quest to impose “American interests on the world.” Revisionist historians depict President Truman as a “Cold War monger,” whose unjustified political use of the atomic bomb and ornery diplomatic style forced Russia into the Cold War to oppose the spread of a looming capitalist democratic monopoly. In reality, Truman’s responsibility for the Cold War and the atomic bomb drop should be minimized.
During the late 1940's and the 1950's, the Cold War became increasingly tense. Each side accused the other of wanting to rule the world (Walker 388). Each side believed its political and economic systems were better than the other's. Each strengthened its armed forces. Both sides viewed the Cold War as a dispute between right and wron...
The Soviet Union began to view the United States as a threat to communism, and the United States began to view the Soviet Union as a threat to democracy. On March 12, 1947, Truman gave a speech in which he argued that the United States should support nations trying to resist Soviet imperialism. Truman and his advisors created a foreign policy that consisted of giving reconstruction aid to Europe, and preventing Russian expansionism. These foreign policy decisions, as well as his involvement in the usage of the atomic bomb, raise the question of whether or not the Cold War can be blamed on Truman. Supporting the view that Truman was responsible for the Cold War, Arnold Offner argues that Truman’s parochialism and nationalism caused him to make contrary foreign policy decisions without regard to other nations, which caused the intense standoff between the Soviet Union and America that became the Cold War (Offner 291)....
U.S. participation was centered on America’s foreign policy at the time. Although the War did not break out until June of 1950, several conflicts brewed over the attempt to take over the entire nation under one rule for several years after World War II. The majority of these conflicts took place at the 38th parallel where Korea was split. Decisions influenced by President Harry S. Truman and his doctrine, which was essentially the policy to contain the spread of communism, gave the United Nations an opportunity to prevent global domination through communism (“Teaching with Documents”). The fear of international communism from the powers of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China was the main reason that caused the United States to intervene.
With this book, a major element of American history was analyzed. The Cold War is rampant with American foreign policy and influential in shaping the modern world. Strategies of Containment outlines American policy from the end of World War II until present day. Gaddis outlines the policies of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, including policies influenced by others such as George Kennan, John Dulles, and Henry Kissinger. The author, John Lewis Gaddis has written many books on the Cold War and is an avid researcher in the field.
As the end of the second World War dwindled down, a new fear arises in America that quickly turns the glory of victory into another countdown to disaster. The United States and Soviet Union, two differing governments, meet at the Elbe River in 1945 their first time shaking hands with little knowledge of the true terror that they would cause the world. As the technology advanced so did the ways warfare could end the world. Although the Soviets lost more than 27,000,00 soldiers during World War II, they did not back down from the United States threats, as they believed that communism would spread throughout the world. The response from the U.S. was strategies to stop the spread of communism and protect the rights of the “free peoples”. From the Truman Doctrine in 1947, a
The Korean War was a battle of whose government would come out on top. After the annexation of Japan, Korea was split into two areas. North Korea was under the influence of China with the help of Russia. North Korea was involved with two Communist nations and as a result they were devoted to having a Communist government. On the other hand, South Korea was under the influence of the United States. At this time Communism and the United States with the help of the UN did not mesh well together, especially in one country. The war was mostly a standstill with nothing much happening on either side with pushing back and forth across the 38th parallel where many of the battles took place and casualties as well. “In the North the estimated killed, wounded, and missing totaled 15 million…In the South the toll was estimated at 1.3 million (East Asia, pg.375).” When the war ended, South Korea especially hit a bottom with their economy and it was not until the Vietnam War where the U.S. helped out again. “But in the end, economic isolation became an obstacle and to industrial growth as the country (the North) was closed to more highly developed economies (The U.S.) (East Asia, pg.381).” This showed that South Korea was still able to grow because of their connections with the United States compared to that of North Korea. Then, during the Vietnam War, the United States deployed Korean troops and gave South Korea money which finally allowed for the South Korean government to modernize and industrialize. This was the biggest jump for Korea in becoming a modern nation and was assisted by the United States and the Vietnam
An event that held a lot of the weight as the cause of the war was the communist aggression throughout indochina that the united states was working vigorously to stop, while peace efforts were in korea. Its represented in, “Another hole in the Dike” as a man (America) hammering a nail (peace efforts) into a hole(Korea), and all of the water (communist abortion) is spewing from another hole (Indochina) bc it can’t be contained in one place. Another impactful event was
The Korean War became the first hot water after the Cold War, over 55,000 members of the American troops died during the conflict. Korean War became the first limited war in which the United States’ aim was not to have a complete and total defeat of its enemy. The limited goal of the United States was to protect South Korea; the only rational approach for the United States was to try and protect South Korea in order to avoid the occurrence of the Third World War. The United States also wanted to avoid stretching its finite resources too thinly around the globe; this however, proved to be a frustrating experience for people of the United States since they were used to victory that was achieved during the Second World War. The model of limited war was a difficult word to comprehend among the America...
The stance of the American government was crucial to the involvement of the United States in the Korean War and greatly influenced the outcome. After World War II, in August of 1945, the Soviet Union raided the Northern part of Korea, which at the time Japan had control over, with the plan of spreading communism. In response, the United States sent their troops to the Southern part of Korea in order to protect them against a Soviet Union takeover. This created a divide along the 38th parallel with the North supported by the Soviet Union and the South supported by the United States (“U.S. Enters the Korean Conflict”). However, this temporary solution was repealed on June 25, 1950 when North Korea crossed the 38th parallel and attacked South Korea, thus starting the Korean War (“Us Enters the Korean
The Cold War consisted of geopolitical tensions around the world and with that came the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine had, “officially embraced the containment of Soviet communism as the foundation of American foreign policy.” The fight was against communism and Truman wanted to defeat it. During his speech, Truman made it clear to, “set a precedent for American assistance to anti-communist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union.” The United States fought in wars overseas to help fight communism and to improve factors domestically. The war in Korea during the 1950s was a fight against communism in which North Korea invaded
The fight for world power could have been prevented if both countries had not assumed and reacted. In an argument, most people roar and scream, but the notion that should have been remembered during the early Cold War years is that somebody’s bark is worse than their bite. The United States and the USSR should have taken a breath and remembered that their actions are not as bad as their threats. Thus, early misperception can definitely be seen as a major contribution to the causes of the Cold War.
he aftermath of the Korean War set the tone for Cold War tension between the superpowers. The Korean War was important in the development of the Cold War, as it showed that the two superpowers, United States and Soviet Union, could fight a "limited war" in a third country. The "limited war" or "proxy war" strategy was a feature of conflicts such as the Vietnam War and the Soviet War in Afghanistan, as well as Angola, Greece, and wars in the Middle East.
William Stueck’s, Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History, written in 2002, emphasizes on the diplomatic, political, and strategic matters of the Korean War. Examining the internal and external issues of the conflict, the policies and diplomacy of the major parties, and the impact of the war between the United States and Korea. Stueck stresses that the division between the United States and the Soviet Union occurred because neither occupiers believed it possessed the capacity to seize the entire country before the other arrived. Another key argument is that the Korean government tried to have their own voice, but the super powers made the crucial decisions. The historical significance is that it left a legacy of