Korean War

THE KOREAN WAR : COLD WAR BATTLEGROUND

2007

War and Peace . These are more than mere words . They are more than the title of a classic novel . These concepts , together and apart , resonate across all times and boundaries . They are two of the most powerful symbols in human language , regardless of race or creed . Time and again humanity has instilled these words with life , enacting their struggles on the world ‘s stage . In the past century alone , the world has witnessed two global wars , the rise of the peace movement , and countless [banner_entry_middle]

examples of a larger struggle between war and peace . What fuels this seemingly eternal struggle ? Is it simply good versus evil ? If so , what determines who is the devil and who is the saint ? What happens when those lines of black and white are blurred ? Perhaps the fruit of war is the absolute conviction of each side in its own righteousness . And perhaps nowhere is this theory more manifested than in the Korean War

Why did America insert itself into a conflict which was – on the surface – a civil war ? Initially , America proclaimed its involvement as a clear defensive maneuver . In a 1950 statement , U . S . president Harry Truman condemned the attack of invading forces from North Korea against Government forces ‘ in South Korea . Truman viewed this attack as a direct threat to the security of the Pacific area ‘ because the actions violated the peace-seeking intentions of the newly formed United Nations . As such , the United States poised itself to uphold the rule of law ‘ and protect the interests of South Korea . These actions represented the early stages of America ‘s involvement in Korea However , by November of 1950 , the American attempts at protection led to direct assaults on American and United Nations forces by Chinese aircraft crossing over the Korean b . During a press conference Truman spoke harshly against the attacks of Chinese planes on the forces . The president branded these maneuvers as unprovoked attacks from the safety of a privileged sanctuary ‘ condemning the actions of the larger country . Words such as threat ‘ and aggression ‘ became commonplace in the speeches as a larger-scale struggle took center-stage . When China became involved in the Korean dispute , the United States military commitment in South Korea was sealed

Why did the Chinese support of North Korea serve as the final straw One need only examine the various exchanges between President Truman and Chinese head Mao Zedong to understand the conflict . During a 1949 speech entitled On the People ‘s Democratic Dictatorship ‘ Zedong stated his objections to the Western world quite clearly : rulers in Britain and the United States are still imperialists ‘ Mao believed that the US and its allies desired an infiltration of China and its interests and final say in the affairs of Asian countries . But , Mao countered in a 1950 address , The affairs of Asia should be managed by the people of Asia themselves , not by the United States ‘ The Chinese leader held that the United States had torn to shreds all international agreements ‘ and had in effect broken its promise not to meddle in Asian disputes such as the battle for Taiwan . Truman had already pledged more support for forces in Formosa (Taiwan ) and the Philippines . The Chinese saw the US defense of South Korea as more evidence of the country ‘s imperial designs , and , therefore , as a threat to anti-imperialistic socialism

Imperialism only advanced capitalism and self-interest , the anti-thesis of socialism and its community-centered focus : the capitalists of these countries want to make money ‘ Mao said in his 1949 speech The Chinese people lean to the side of imperialism or to the side of socialism . There is no exception ‘ he further emphasized . To counteract the imperialist threat , China needed North Korea as its example , a validation that it is impossible for the true people ‘s revolution of any country to win its own victory without assistance ‘ China had cast itself in the role of the righteous revolutionaries against the evil imperialists . Or , in Zedong ‘s own 1950 words , People throughout the country and the world unite and make ample preparations to defeat any provocations by American imperialism

The Korean conflict became just as much a fight against imperialism as it was a minor skirmish within a warring country . But who were the imperialists ? According to the Chinese , America was the face of imperialism . But for the Americans , imperialism wore quite a different mask . In Truman ‘s 1950 statement , he gives imperialism an undisputable name : The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war ‘ For the American government , Korea served as yet another warning to the dangers of the Communist influence . And in to stop this spread , a subtle approach was needed . Rather than smash the whole clock (China and Russia , the United States hoped to disable Communism by removing the clock ‘s key cogs and springs (such as North Korea . Truman believed that winning the smaller battles and preventing invasion of the large-scale countries would prevent the outbreak of a third devastating world war while helping the forces of freedom ‘ as stated in his 1951 defense of policy . America was equally convinced as China of its righteousness against the forces of imperialism

Yet despite the surface tensions with China , how much of the Korean conflict was really an extension of the Cold War with America ‘s main arch-nemesis , the Soviet Union ? Consider how often the USSR is referenced in both the words of Harry Truman and the speeches of Chinese leaders . In his 1949 speech for the founding of the Chinese Communist party , Premier Zhou Enlai makes explicit just how much the country ‘s Communist philosophy is linked with the

Russians : we belong to the anti-imperialist front headed by the Soviet Union ‘ Mao Zedong further solidified China ‘s alliance with the Soviet Union in his 1950 denouncement of US involvement in Korea : The People ‘s Republic of China resolutely stands on the side of the world camp of peace and democracy headed by the Soviet Union ‘ Ironically Mao believed that his country ‘s philosophy was the true representative of peace and democracy ‘ whilst Truman and other American officials believed Communism to be the enemy of democracy . Communist

China and the Soviet Union saw actions such as the attempt to exclude the nearly 500 million Chinese people from the United Nations ‘ as evidence of Western opposition to peace . By these actions , the US and UN would only served to bloody their skulls ‘ as Enlai proclaimed

The Soviet Union and Cold War anti-Communism were prominent in American thoughts regarding Korea as well . Truman , in his 1951 defense of his Korean policy , charged that The Communists in the Kremlin are engaged in a monstrous conspiracy to tramp out freedom all over the world Later in the speech , he assures that free men are alert to the Soviet threat and are building their defenses ‘ These defenses included actions against other instances of Communist aggression , as Truman outlines examples in Greece and Berlin . Communist imperialism ‘ he continues , is part of a greater plan for conquering all of Asia Truman grounds his warning in

then-recent history , with allusions to Hitler ‘s dictatorship and its devastating consequences during World War II : .cruel and selfish rulers of a powerful nation who are bent on conquest [become] a clear and present danger to the security and independence of every free nation . This is a lesson that most people in this nation have learned thoroughly ‘ Just as it was with China and to a larger extent with the Soviet Union , Korea to the United States was simply a symbol – a pawn – in a much larger ideological struggle

‘It is right for us to be here ‘aggression anywhere in the world is a threat to peace everywhere in the world ‘It is easier to put out a fire in the beginning when it is small than after it has become a roaring blaze ‘to make sure that the precious lives of our fighting men are not wasted ‘the cause of world peace is more important than any individual ‘ All of the above proclamations were uttered by Harrry Truman in defense of military aggression in Korea All of these proclamations make clear that Korea was indeed the battleground of an

ideological struggle . And all of these proclamations met with intense resistance . Fast-forward fifty years , and the parallels are obvious Humanity studies history so that it may learn . Humanity studies history so that it may remember the victories and avoid repeating the mistakes Perhaps only time will tell which lesson ‘ America will learn now . PAGE

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