The Korean War
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The Forgotten War
“The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy” (Bradley, 1951)
The Korean War was the civil and military struggle that was fought on the Korean Peninsula and reached its height between 1950 and 1953. It originated in the division of Korea after the Second World War. The rivalry between the two Koreas drew third party countries into political and ideological disputes, such as the ongoing dispute between the United States of America and the USSR. There were many conflicts between the communists and capitalists during the Cold War era, commonly known as proxy wars, and the most serious divergence occurred in Korea. Why did North Korea cross the 38th parallel and invade South Korea? There are many reasons why, but the answer is; the Soviet-backed North Korean Communist government led by Kim Il Sung attacked the American-backed South Koreans with the aim of unifying the two Koreas and expanding communism. The Soviets provided military and economic aid to North Korea in the hope of gaining a valuable buffer zone in Asia.
After the initial split of the Koreas, both took different steps in ideology which would seal the fate of the Korean War, which took place five years after the capitulation of the axis in World War II. In the months following the end of the Second World War, the then unified Korea, split into two — North and South. The Soviet Union controlled the North, while the US controlled the South. The Soviet controlled North, was typically transformed into communist rule and under the control of the Soviets and also Kim Il Sung, who was a dedicated communist who had fought for the Red Army during WW2 (Dictatorofthemonth, 2008), made for a certain recipe for disaster, considering that South Korea was under command by the Americans who were predominantly capitalist and in the focal point of the Cold War (Fitzgerald, 52). The divergence of these ideologies can be summed up in a statement by Phelps Adams, “Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles” (Adams). The control by both of these superpowers contributed to outlining what ideologies both the Koreas would end up following, which in turn sealed the probability of a cold proxy war between the Communists and Capitalists.
The Korean War of 1950 provided Stalin with an indispensable opportunity for expansion, highlighting the expansionist nature of Soviet foreign policy. While initially weary of supporting North Korea’s plan of invasion of the South, Stalin’s eventual decision to give Kim Il Sung the go-ahead for the invasion of North Korea was that Kim Il Sung had proof that South Korean forces were planning an attack and the fact that Syngman Rhee, the South Korean president publicly boasted that he was going to attack North Korea. “(South Korean) authorities are pushing the situation to the brink of a war.”(Sinmun).The North used this as an excuse when invading the South (Cite from Booklet). In conjunction with this, the North Korean army itself was capable of conquering South Korea and there was evidence that communist guerrillas in the South would rise up and aid the North(cite). All these factors paid a huge role in determining the invasion of South Korea. Therefore, without the approval of the Russians there wouldnt have been an invasion.
Another reason for the offensive of South Korea was that Kim Il Sung was hoping to unify the Koreas under a single communist government(Jerrold, Armstrong, 38,39), �the North launched a surprise invasion of South Korea to try and complete this aim. In the following days after the start of the offensive, the UN Security Council condemned the attack and demanded an immediate withdrawal’ (Infoplease, 2008). The Soviets and North Koreans predicted that the whole operation could be accomplished in a very short amount of time. America’s decision to exclude South Korea from its defence perimeter made US intervention seem highly unlikely, but the military aid by the NATO countries and the UN made the outcome of the war much different than expected by Korea and the USSR because of the inclusion of the UN and NATO. (Zimmerman 1979, 17, 18).
In addition, without the USSR desire for �buffer’ zones in Asia, the war would not have started in the first place. Stalin’s primary motive in subordinating Korea was to expand the Soviet Union’s buffer zone (Zhihua 2000, 45) — if Korea fell to the West it would join Japan and Taiwan as a geopolitical barrier to the further expansion of communism. A Communist-controlled Korea would expand the buffer zone on Soviet borders, improve the Soviet strategic situation, maintain Soviet leadership of the Asian revolution, and divert US attention from Europe (Fitzgerald 1988, 55). All these factors helped North Korea gain the necessities required from Stalin which made the Korean War possible.
Military and economic assistance from the Soviet Union made the Korean War a possibility. David S. Painter in his recently published book has revealed that in April 1950, Stalin, after rejecting previous pleas by North Korean leader Kim II Sung for Soviet approval and assistance in taking over the South, agreed to supply the necessary military assistance. Stalin, however, conditioned his agreement on Kim’s gaining the approval of China. The combination of the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war, the Soviet atomic bomb test, and Western economic difficulties might have convinced Stalin (and Mao, who agreed to Kim’s plan) that the global balance of forces was moving in their favour.
On the other hand, Stalin and Mao may have been worried about resurgent Japan and the prospect of a US military build-up and believed that they needed to gain control of South Korea to secure their position in Northeast Asia. If the Soviets had not had given North Korea essential war aid, the North Koreans wouldn’t have even thought of attacking the South, given that most of their army machines were made by the Soviets, dating back to WW2. With all the Soviet military machines that were given to the North Koreans, there also came Soviet pilots which would make the Cold War a possibility into turning into a hot war as the statement says, �Soviet pilots were directly engaged in combat against US pilots, thus risking a dangerous escalation to general war’ (Higham, Hardesty, Greenwood, 209). All these factors helped North Korea gain Stalin’s approval which made the Korean War possible.
In conclusion, it can be said that the Korean War was a manifestation of two phenomena: the Cold war between the USA and USSR,