Russia and the United States began their relationship as allies when Russia disregarded the non aggression pact they signed with Germany in 1939, effectively sealing Germany’s fate in World War II.
Korea, like Germany, had been occupied by Soviet and United States forces at the end of World War II. Korea was split in half via the 38th parallel after the Japanese Empire fell near the end of the conflict. The soviets occupied the north side of the line and the Americans occupied the south. “By the end of the decade, two new states had formed on the peninsula. In the south, the anti- communist dictator Syngman Rhee (1875-1965) enjoyed the reluctant support of the American government; in the north, the communist dictator Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) enjoyed the slightly more enthusiastic support of the soviets.” (http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war) Many top decision makers in the US believed that the USSR was trying to spread communism throughout the world.
In April 1950, a National Security Council report recommended that the U.S. use military force to “contain” communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring. “The NSC-68 called for significant peacetime military spending, in which the U.S. possessed "superior overall power" and "in dependable combination with other like-minded nations." It calls for a military capable of: Defending the Western Hemisphere and essential allied areas in order that their war-making capabilities can be developed; providing and protecting a mobilization base while the offensive forces required for victory were being built up; conducting offensive operations to destroy vital elements of the Soviet war-making capacity, and to keep...
... middle of paper ...
...ut to find us the worst possible location in the world to fight this damnable war the unanimous choice would have been Korea.” (Dean Acheson, U.S. Secretary of State (1893-1971)
Works Cited
Evanhoe, Ed. "The Korean War." The Korean War. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. .
Hickey, Michael. "BBC - History - World Wars: The Korean War: An Overview." BBC - Homepage. N.p., 21 Mar. 2011. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. .
"Korean War — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts." History.com — History Made Every Day — American & World History. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. .
"NSC-68 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2015.
.
The Korean War changed the face of American Cold War diplomacy forever. In the midst of all the political conflict and speculation worldwide, the nation had to choose between two proposed solutions, each one hoping to ensure that communism didn?t sweep across the globe and destroy American ideals of capitalism and democracy. General Douglas MacArthur takes the pro-active stance and says that, assuming it has the capability, the U.S. should attack communism everywhere. President Harry Truman, on the other hand, believed that containing the Soviet communists from Western Europe was the best and most important course of action, and that eliminating communism in Asia was not a priority.
The Korean War , although successful in preventing the spread of communism, was one of the first tests of communism in Asia. North Korea was strictly communist while South Korea was democratic. As usual, the United States supported democratic South Korea and the Truman Doctrine was applied to the Korean situation. The North Korean forces crossed the dividing line (38th parallel) and invaded South Korea. Thus, they provoked a war over communism. With the possibility of democratic South Korea falling to the communistic North, the U.S. stepped in and supplied aid mostly through troops. The U.S. then urged the United Nations to support South Korea and fight against the communist North. Once the North Korean forces were defeated at Inchon, they eventually got pushed back to the 38th parallel. However, against President Truman’s word, American General MacArthur decided to keep pushing back the North Korean forces by crossing the dividing line. This caused more trouble because the People’s Republic of China (Communist China) now sent troops to aid the communists against the pro...
Throughout the conflict Canada's naval contribution made a significant impact on coalition efforts to secure South Korea [5]. This was the first post-world...
Futrel Frank Robert. The United States Air Force in Korea. Washington: N.p, 1983. Air Force Historical Studies Office. Web. 15 Apr. 2014
In this article I will analyze the Korean People’s Army which represents the military forces of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. The Korean People’s Army is composed of 5 branches, Korean People’s Army Ground Force, Korean People’s Navy, Korean People’s Air force, strategic rocket force, and North Korean Special Operation Force. In this paper I will look at the big three: Korean People’s Army Ground Force, Korean People’s Navy, and Korean People’s Air force. I will talk about the force strength and some of the equipment that each brings to the fight.
To begin with, the foreign policies that affected the United States during the 1950s and 1960s include: “containment,” “brinkmanship,” and “domino theory.” The concept of “containment” involved utilizing “firm” military, economic, and diplomatic tactics to halt the proliferation of communism, improve United States’ national security, and augment worldwide influence. In supplement of “containment,” U.S. involvement in Korea provided an example of how “containment” influenced the decision to enter the country. With China falling to communism at the hands of Mao Zedong, Korea was the next to become “infected.” Subsequently, Korea underwent a physical division, which resulted in the communist state of North Korea and the now vulnerable South Korea. Urgent to unify Korea as a communist nation, North Korea invaded South Korea and war broke out. In the midst of this, the United States had seen China fall to communism and now h...
Salter, Christopher L., and Charles F. Gritzner. "Introducing North Korea,." North Korea. 2nd ed. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. . Print.
Tucker, Spencer C., Jinwung Kim, Michael R, Nichols, Paul G. Pierpaoli, Priscilla Roberst, and Norman R. Zehr, eds. Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Vol. I. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000. Print. 89-90.
Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare. New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2012. Print.
With this in mind, Korean Armistice talks started on July 10 of 1951 with Charles Joy primarily representing South Korea and the United States of America, while Nam II represented North Korea and the communist forces. These talks of Korean Armistice which occurred regularly in the city of Kaesong made a vast amount of progress to a point where Joy and Nam forged an agenda. Unfortunately, these talks were delayed on August 23, 1951, since North Korea claimed that Kaesong was bombed and proceeded to demand that the United Nations Command perform an investigation. In spite of these events, the investigation did not play a major role in the talks of Armistice due to China’s active resistance of an investigation conducted by the United Nations Command. As a result, the United States of America and South Korea believed North Korea fabricated the claim thus postponing Armistice talks as a result of rising tensions. Eventually, Armistice talks emerged again in October 1951 at the village of Panmunjom. Even though Armistice talks were progressing at this time there was further conflict associated with the content of the Korean Armistice Agreement. As a result, the Korean Armistice Agreement almost failed, due to the issue of how each country would release their prisoners of war. President Rhee of South Korea almost prolonged the war by ordering
Weathersby, K. (2004). New Evidence on the Korean War. Retrieved from COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 14/15: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Bulletin_11_Korea.pdf
Despite the fact that this was the age of Western imperialism and gunboat diplomacy, Korea failed to erect a large standing military and navy. Instead of uniting under the banner of protecting Korea’s sovereignty, some officials were more concerned with protecting their own privileges. Robinson wrote “The lack of consensus in domestic politics…inhibited any program to gather
Korea was in a state of disarray. Not in the way that you may be confused about what happened, but where political alliances and the division of Korea upset many people. The division of Korea was decided at the Potsdam Conference, without the consent of the Korean people (Korean War, Wikipedia). When Japan was defeated, they lost all of the land they had gained including Korea. With the land being split between the 38th parallel, North Korea was weak with a bad leader, looking for more power. Russia and China were willing to help. US saw South Korea as a victim to the Cold War and was trying to help South Korea (Schnabel 6). Both the United States and the Soviet Union occupied the Korean peninsula in hopes of turning them to their beliefs in government. The United States went to the United Nations to determine the issue of a divided Korea. The United Nations Commission determined they needed to hold elections in Korea. The communists in North Korea refused to allow the election because the did not want to be threatened by democracy. The communists in South Korea did not like the thought and boycotted it. The regime in South Korea was shaped by the anti-communist Syngman Rhee. The Soviet Union put Kim ll-Sung as head of North Korea, who was very, very weak. The North Korean Army invaded South Korea on June 25 1950 with varying reasons. The Chinese ...
On June 25th, 1950 at 4 a.m. the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) attacked across the 38th parallel, implementing a well-developed invasion plan (Lewis p.1). The KPA had a huge number of military men compare to the South Koreans. It had about 135,000 soldiers in 10 divisions, five separate infantry brigades, and one armor brigade with 120 soviet-made-T-34 tanks (Lewis p.1). The Republic of Korea (ROK) was taken by surprise and was not fully equipped with weapons like the KPA (Lewis p.1). So for that matter the ROK could not halt the invasion. But if the South Koreans would have had heavy artillery like the KPA then maybe the KPA’s invasion plan would had been a failure. The United Nations Security Council approved a US sponsored resolution that called fo...
The Korean War explicitly portrayed the atrocious battle between both the North and South side which gave the United Nations its military role for the first time, thus expanding the war from a domestic to an international scale. Sometimes called “The Forgotten War”, the Korean War was mainly overshadowed in historical terms by the conflicts that occurred before and after it, World War II and the Vietnam War. The Korean War had raged for years without a true resolution and after years of battles, even the compromise that was made was not a complete one. The current situation regarding North and South Korea is quite volatile. In order to apprehend the Korean War, one has to look at events that took place before the war, how the war was conducted and the aftermath of the War.