The Korean War
Korea had been occupied by Japan for 35 years prior to the end of WWII.
After the war, the Koreans hoped for independence. But instead, the Allies divided Korea at the 38th parallel. This was intended to be a temporary division while Soviet forced enforced the Japanese surrender in the north and pending establishment of an independent government.
- Within a few years, however, the Soviets and Americans had set up their own governments in their respective spheres and hoped to unify Korea under their exclusive control.
- In 1949, believing Korea to be of little political or strategic importance, the Soviet and Americans withdrew their forces and left behind two hostile regimes, each claiming to be Korea's rightful government. Both Koreas launched raids across the border - neither side gaining much ground but losing 100,000 people during the first year of conflict.
a. On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces launched a full-scale invasion of the south. Both Stalin and Mao approved this "act of aggression."
- Truman saw the invasion as a clear-cut case of Soviet aggression reminiscent of Hitler's actions in Europe and was determined not to appease Stalin.
Thus, Truman appealed to the UN Security Council and he secured a UN resolution condemning North Korea as an aggressor and calling on the member nations to engage in a collective security action.
- On June 27, President Truman sent forces into a UN "police action" without Congressional approval. In reality, the US fought a war in Korea for over three years.
The Korean War marks a series of "firsts:"
- The first shooting war of the Cold War
- The first United National war
- First war fought with an integrated army
- First war using helicopters
- First war to use MASH units
- First war that when it ended, we did not disarm.
Truman, policymakers, and most Americans did not perceive the Korean War as a civil war, but rather, as an operation mastermind by the Soviets in their next step toward globalism and in their effort to challenge the U.S. containment policy.
- Because the war was associated with communist aggression and spoke to the American anticommunist hysteria, public support was high. Over 70% of those polled in 1950 approved of Truman's decision to intervene.
- There was, however, no corresponding rush to arms as in WWII. National Guard and reserve forces had to be called to active duty to fill the ranks and the draft had to be reinstated to meet the monthly quota of 50,000 soldiers.
Korean War began as a "limited war" - a police action designed to force the North Koreans back across the 38th parallel and liberate Seoul. As this map indicates, by early September, the North Koreans had been wildly successful. But the new American-sponsored action changed the tide of the war by September 27, 1950.
- At this point, the American goal for entering the war changed.
- MacArthur, Truman, and most Americans now wanted to unify Korea under South Korean rule. On October 7, MacArthur was given permission to "liberate" North Korea from Communist rule - thus transforming Korea into a "total war" of liberation - to create a unified nation of Korea.
- MacArthur’s troops moved quickly toward the Korean-Chinese border at the Yalu River.
- Truman worried that the Chinese might enter the war if MacArthur moved closer to the Yalu. MacArthur countered that if they did enter the war, they would be met by a very small force of maybe 30,000 Chinese - a force that could easily be overtaken.
Nonetheless, Truman ordered the General to use only South Korean forces when approaching the River.
- Ignoring the President, on Nov. 24, MacArthur moved American, British, and Korean forces to within a few miles of the Yalu.
Two days later, nearly 300,000 Chinese soldiers entered the Korean Conflict. Within weeks, the United Nation forces were shoved back to the 38th parallel.
- Truman's total war goal - unified pro-Western Korea - was quickly abandoned in the face of the new military reality. Thereafter, the President sought a negotiated settlement to end the conflict that would leave two Koreas.
- MacArthur disagreed with Truman's decision and began to vociferously criticize the administration saying that there was "no substitute for victory." On April 10, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur- however, public opinion and Republicans backed the General.
Truce talks began in July 1951 and dragged on for two years - during which time 125,000 casualties were incurred. A cease-fire was declared on July 26, 1953. Cease fire line was almost exactly where the war had begun three years earlier. Containment had been achieved. But at what cost?
Consequences of the Korean War
- The war lasted just over three years, involved 22 nations, and claimed
5 million lives. Costs were over $54 billion. About 6 million
Americans served in Korea in some capacity; 54,000 died and more than 100,000
were wounded or reported missing. MASH units, which were located
close to the fighting fronts, reduced deaths due to battle wounds by 50%
of the World War II figures.
- The Korean War marked a series of "firsts:" the first shooting war of the Cold War; the first united Nations war; the first war fought with an integrated army; the first war to use helicopters; the first war to use MASH units; the first war that when it ended, the U.S. did not disarm.
- The war dramatically divided Americans into two camps: those supporting
the success of the "limited war" goal - to keep South Korea from falling
to the Communists; and those supporting total victory - defeating North
Korean Communists and moving into China, thereby ending Communist rule
in both nations. From this division arose a greater division among the American people
that lasted throughout the Cold War - Americans who did not want to get
involved in other nation's political battles, even if they were
communists - and between Americans who were willing to support any
effort to contain communism.
- Containment policies changed after the Korean War.
- Before the war, containment primarily involved creating economic, social,
and political conditions that would stimulate Western European democracies
and deter the military buildup of communism.
- By the war's end, containment meant preserving military frontiers behind
which conditions unsuited to communism and suited to democracy could evolve.
- The powers of presidency increased when Truman sent troops to Korea
without asking Congress to declare war.
- The War solidified the role of the US as the world's police
power.
- The War marked an important transition to the Cold War national
security state. During the war, the army expanded to 3.5 million
troops, the defense budget incrased to $50 billion a year, and the US acquired
distant military bases from Saudi Arabia to Morocco. After the war,
the defense budget had quadrupled and the US emerged as the most powerful
military in the world.
- The Korean peninsula remains one of the world's most dangerous
flash points. To maintain the uneasy armistice, some 37,000 American
troops remain stationed in South Korea. See Breaking news for North Korea, April 4, 2013 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vy6mwX860