Korean War Term Paper On June 25, 1950 North Korean forces invaded South Korea. South Korea was not prepared. They were outnumbered and outgunned. Many South Koreans stayed to fight but many fled. Within the first week 44,000 South Koreans were killed, just under half of their military forces. On June 27, American President Harry S. Truman ordered American troops to defend South Korea two days after North Korea invaded. By the 28th, United States bombers and fighters left for the Korean Peninsula. This began one of the bloodiest and most infamous wars in United States history. On the South Korean side were The United States with the United Nations and on the North Korean side were the Chinese and Soviets. The Chinese and Soviet involvement is what made the war into the violent one it was. Before World War II Japan ruled Korea as one country from 1939-1945. After World War II Korea was split into two countries. The U.S. took the side of South Korea, which was ruled by Syngman Rhee. Syngman Rhee lived March 26, 1875- July 19, 1965. He had a traditional Confucian education then went on to Methodist school where he learned English. He became a nationalist and later a Christian. When he was 21 he joined a group that’s goal was to free Korea from Japan. The club was broken apart and he was arrested from 1898-1904. He earned a PhD from Princeton, becoming the first Korean to earn a Doctorate from an American University. He returned to Korea after it was annexed from Japan. He was elected president of the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai where he lived for a year and then moved back to Hawaii where he had been living, trying to create an international movement for his country. He remained president for 20 years before being p... ... middle of paper ... ...received help from over a dozen different nations but the Soviets still put up a good fight. If the Soviets hadn’t entered the war at all the United Nations could have defeated North Korea easily. The Soviets and the Chinese were the reason the Korean War was such a historical one. The Korean War was a war that shaped how people live today. Because of the Soviet and Chinese involvement there are people starving in North Korea under communist rule. In the 1990s 2.5 million people died of malnutrition in North Korea because of the communist rule. Maybe if the United Nations had won the war and made Korea a constitutional democracy, Korea would be a thriving country. But because of the Soviets and Chinese the country was split in half. The well-trained, ruthless Chinese soldiers and the Soviet advice and air force were what made the Korean War a war to remember.
Most people know that the Korean War was started when, in 1950, the North Koreans (N.K) crossed over the 38th parallel and opened fire on the South Koreans (S.K). North Koreans wanted the land,,because of the resources on the land. What most people don't understand are the other hidden conflicts that contributed to the tension.The Cold War was going strong between the Soviet Union /China and the United States.
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...
The north was supported by the Soviet Union, and the south was supported by the United States. This conflict took place from 1950-1953 and the U.S. got involved to keep the whole country from turning Communist. This was the first incident in which the United States sent military support in order to contain communism. There was not a real winner and loser in this conflict, the nations stayed divided just as they were before the fighting broke out. The war ended with an Armistice, and the United States was successful in the fight against the spread of
...nt that democracy and communism could not cooperate with one another as shown in the United Nations Security Council after the Soviet Union boycott. UN initiatives often faced a stalemate, as the Soviet Union would many times prove difficult to the other members of the Security Council because its representative would constantly veto acts that favored democracy at the expense of communism, while other powers such as the United States would veto and shut down any proposals that benefited communism. The Korean War proved that democracy and communism could and would not get along, adding fuel to the imminent Cold War. What started as a civil war in a small Asian country quickly erupted into an international division between opposing powers backed by incompatible political systems. The Korean War has left its mark on surviving Koreans as well as others around the world.
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.
The Korean War started with North Korea’s invasion to the Pusan Perimeter, on June 25, 1950. North Korea's invasion was the first of four stages of the Korean war. The North Koreans called their invasion a violation of peace. When the invasion happened, the North had 135,000 soldiers. Since the South wasn’t prepared for war, troops from sixteen different countries fought alongside the South. Forty-one more countries got involved in the war by supplying the South with weapons and food.
On June 25, 1950 the war began when the communist leader of the north sent powerful forces and coordinated an attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel to head south to invaded South towards the capital of Seoul. The United Nations Security Council Responded to this attach, with a vote of 9-0 votes. A resolution that condemned the invasion as a “breach of the Peace”. The vote was unanimous because the council
...fight North Koreans for the first time north of Osan. U.S. forces retreat with heavy casualties. The 34th Infantry Regiment moved north from Pusan. This Week In Korean War History July 5-August 10 - United Nations Forces fight delaying actions across South Korea. July 7, 1950 -- President Truman authorizes the Department of Defense to draft young men in the nation's build-up for the Korean War. July 7 - United Nations creates United Nations Command, under General Douglas Mac Arthur, who is appointed by the U.S. July 8-12, 1950 -- Airstrips are built in South Korea, enabling short-range F-80 Shooting Star jet fighters to support American soldiers. On July 10 U.S. and Australian aircraft fly 300 missions. July 9-18 - Arrival of 25th Infantry Division in Korea. July 10 - Fifth Air Force destroys large contingent of North Korean tanks and troops stalled at Pyongtaek. July 10 to 12 - U.S. Forces retreat down the Seoul-Taejon road. July 13 - Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker appointed to command the ground forces in Korea. July 13 to 16 - Assault of North Koreans begins against the U.S. troops on the Kum River ending with the crossing of the Kum River and withdrawal of U.S. troops.
To what extent did the United States or the Soviet Union cause the ceasefire of the Korean War in 1953? This investigation is historically significant because it focuses on which country influenced Korea to create the Armistice Agreement on the Korean War. The scope of this investigation focuses on the years 1945-1953 through the span of the Korean War and when the Armistice Agreement was created. One method to be used in this investigation is an examination of The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. This resource will be examined to see the impact the United States had on Korea as a whole. Another resource utilized is the documents of “Army Department Teletype Conference” during the time of the Korean War. This source will be analyzed to peek into some of the United State’s actions during the Korean War. To further research additional sources will be used such as books, articles, letters, and documents from important assets in the war.
The Korean War began when North Korean leader, Kim II Song, wanted to unite the peninsula under communism influence. As a result of the cold war, Korea was split into two regions (North and South). Both with separate governments but they claimed to be legitimate. Neither regions never accepted the border between them to be permanent. Tension started to rise when North Korea forces, which were supported by the soviet Union and China, invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. This marked the beginning of the Korean War.
Lastly, in 1950 the USSR began aiding the North Korean People’s Army invasion of U.S. supported South Korea commencing the Korean War and the first proxy war among the U.S. and the USSR (Campbell,
Although the Korean War is always regarded as a conflict between the U.S. and China in support of South and North Korea respectively, the U.S. Armed Forces actually intervened in this war on behalf of the UN. American generals in Korea sometimes commanded troops from several countries in one battle. The UN and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) were the only signatories in the Korean
The korean war caused a widespread of suffering among soldiers as well as civilians.No place was safe, families abandoned their homes;schools,hospitals and houses were bombed.Food supplies were destroyed and those left often did not reach the neediest koreans.Thousands of people were killed during battle.Diseases swept through cities killing many.Family members were separated by the war, and some are still separated today.The war created the world's most heavily fortified border.
Events that took before the war were what had initially sparked the rancor between both nations of Korea. Despite the fact that World War 2 just ended, tension between North and South Korea remained heated. Causes of the Korean War can mainly be broken down into two different categories; ideological and political reasoning. The Soviet Union, China and North Korea, the communist side, ideologically wanted to secure the Korean peninsula and incorporate it in a communist bloc. This “domino effect” feared individuals such as Harriet Truman due to the fact that the potential danger of other countries such as Japan and Korea becoming a communist bloc was definitely not something Truman had hoped for. Politically, the Soviet Union considered the Korean peninsula as a springboard to attack Russia and asserted that the Korean government should be “loyal” to the Soviet Union, this was where the United States stepped in, realizing that they were in a competition for world...
South Korea, badly outnumbered and outgunned, began to retreat southward. Seoul, South Korea’s capital, fell in a matter of days. (Heritage, 2010). Taken by surprise, America wasted no time in sending reinforcements to help crippled South Korea. This began a costly and bloody three year war. In 1950 china intervened when the United Nations forces are deemed to overthrow North Korean forces. This move prolonged the war and made a wider war possible. It also marked the only time that Western forces directly battled a communist power (Heritage, 2010). At the end of the war in july of 1953, no peace treaty was signed. The conflict between North and South Korea lives on today, showing the impact of the Cold War across the globe even in present day. The Korean War was a huge turning point in the Cold War. It introduced the concept of limited war as a way to prevent an escalation to a nuclear war.