This position paper addresses some of the critical events which occurred, key decisions taken and personalties involved in the Korean War (1950-1953).
Background and Causes of the Conflict
For more than a century, the fate of the Korean peninsula has been largely shaped by rivalries among great powers with interests in the Far East. By winning the Sino-Japanese War of 1893-4 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, Japan obtained control of Korea. Hastings said that until 1945, "the Japanese maintained their ruthless, detested rule in Korea" (25). After Japan's defeat, Korea was temporarily divided along the 38th parallel between invading Soviet and arriving American occupation forces. In 1946-1948, the Soviet Union and the West failed to agree on the peaceful unification of Korea. In the North, the Soviets and Kim Il Sung, a communist and nationalist guerrilla leader in the 1930s and 1940s, "established a totalitarian police state," known after August 1949 as the People's Democratic Republic (Whelan 33). In the South, the American military government spurned Korean nationalists with left-wing supporters and helped conservative (and anti-communist) factions led by Dr. Syngman Rhee gain power. According to Whelan, "violence and repression rather than democratic freedom . . . determined the outcome" of the spring 1948 election won by Rhee and his followers (46).
Causes of the War. Soviet forces were withdrawn from North Korea by December 1948 and American forces on June 30, 1949. According to Whelan, after August 1948, there were "hundreds of minor clashes along the border, a few of which escalated into major battles" (p. 95). Faced with declining defense budgets in 1946-1950, General Dwight Eisenhower, Chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), said in a memorandum of September 25, 1947 that South Korea "had little strategic interest" to the United States (Goulden 25). The United States Army left behind arms and e...