The Korean War - Term Paper Example

?The Korean War: origins and the military conflict The Korean War was a military conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the United Nations, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and People’s Republic of China (PRC), with air support from Soviet Union. The war began on 25 June 1950 and an armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. The war was a result of the political division of Korea by agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War. The Korean peninsula had been ruled by Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. In 1945, following the surrender of Japan, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th Parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part and Soviet troops occupying the northern part. The failure to hold free elections throughout the Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between two sides, and the North established a Communist government. The 38th Parallel increasingly became a political border between the two Koreas. Although reunification negotiations continued in the months preceding the war, tensions intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. It was the first significant armed conflict in the global struggle between democracy and communism, called the cold war. After the Japanese defeat in 1945 Korea had been divided into the pro-Soviet North and the pro-American South. According to a post-war agreement, the division of Korea into the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was overseen by the United States and the Soviet Union. These two military occupation zones were later to be united into an independent country, but, because of the Cold War, that objective proved unachievable for tensions between North and South Korea started to grow as the Cold War intensified. North Korean army crossed the border between the two rivals, and invaded South Korea. The United States immediately received approval for a military intervention from the UN. Canada and most Western nations, led by the United States, thought that North Korea was acting under Communist Chinese or Soviet direction. To the Americans and their allies, the Korean War demonstrated the need for containment and because of this, along with the majority of other Western states Canada participated in the UN force in Korea. The Korean conflict didn’t happen at the time which was favorable to Canada, for its army had been drastically reduced in size after the World War II, and the steps to increase the strength of the three armed forces to meet the nation’s commitments to the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Canadian contingent was initially supposed to be an infantry brigade group made up of one battalion each from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light infantry, the Royal Canadian Regiment, and the Royal 22e Regiment and signals, tank, artillery and other support units were also included. However, each regiment had to raise new battalions because the country couldn’t denude itself of its only standing army units. The country remained divided, with the American-supported Republic of Korea in control of the south by virtue of election sanctioned by the United Nations, while Soviet-supported Democratic Republic of Korea ruled the north, where elections were not held. The only unifier of the country was the civil war with each side threatening to invade the other claiming to be the legitimate government. But to do so, they needed support. The Americans denied this support to their Korean allies, mainly because the Truman administration had decided to liquidate all positions on the Asian mainland and concentrate on the defense of island strong points like Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines- but not Taiwan. The president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, constantly asked for support to liberate the north from officials in Washington and from General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of United States occupation forces in Japan, but all without success. Rhee’s North Korean counterpart, Kim II-sun, had similar designs on the south. He repeatedly sought support in Moscow for a military campaign to unify Korea, but he too was repeatedly turned down. That was until January, 1950, when another request got a more encouraging response. This time what made a difference was Stalin’s conviction that a “second front” was now feasible in East Asia, that it could be created by proxies therefore minimizing the risk to the U.S.S.R., and the Americans would not respond. However, nothing had been done to save Chinese nationalists. On January l2, 1950, Secretary of State Acheson had even announced publicly that the American "defensive perimeter" did not extend to South Korea. The Soviet leader then informed Kim II-sung that "according to information coming from the United States, the prevailing mood is not to interfere." Kim responded assuring Stalin that "the attack will be swift and the war will he won in three days." Stalin's approval to Kim Il-sung was part of the larger strategy for seizing opportunities in East Asia that had been discussed between him and the Chinese: shortly after publicly supporting the invasion of South Korea, he also encouraged Ho Chi Minh to intensify the Viet Minh offensive against the French in Indochina. Victories in both locations would maintain the momentum generated by Mao's victory the previous year. The setbacks which had been encountered in Europe by the Soviet Union would be compensated for and increasingly obvious American efforts to bring Japan within its system of postwar military alliances would be countered. This strategy’s particular advantage was that it would not require direct Soviet involvement: the North Koreans and the Viet Minh would take the initiative, operating under the pretext of unifying their respective countries. And the Chinese, still very interested into legitimizing their revolution by winning Stalin's approval, were more than willing to provide backup support, if and when needed. These were the events that led to the North Korean invasion of South Korea. What Stalin had not expected was the effect it would have on the Americans: this unexpected attack was almost as shocking as the attack on Pearl Harbor nine years earlier and its consequences for Washington's strategy were at least as profound. South Korea was of little importance to the global balance of power, but the way it had been invaded—across the 38th parallel, a boundary which was sanctioned by the United Nations— seemed to challenge the entire postwar collective security structure. This sort of action was exactly the one that had led to the collapse of international order during the 1030s, and to the subsequent outbreak of World War II. Truman he repeatedly told his advisers that they cannot let the UN down. It took only hours for his administration to decide about the United States’ coming to the defense of South Korea, and that besides doing it on its own, but also under the authority of the |United Nations. It was able to do so quickly for two reasons. The first was that an American army was conveniently stationed nearby, occupying Japan—a fact Stalin seems to have overlooked. The second, another oversight on Stalin's part, was that there was no representative of Soviet Union present in the Security Council to veto United Nations action: he had been withdrawn, some months earlier, as a protest against the organizations refusal to seat the Chinese communists. With U.N. approval, the international community mobilized within days to counter this new threat to international security, yet another unexpected response for Moscow. The response almost failed: American and South Korean troops were forced to retreat to the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula and might have had to evacuate it altogether had it not been for a brilliant military maneuver by the United Nations commander, General MacArthur, who surprised the North Koreans with a daring amphibious landing at Inchon, near Seoul, in mid-September. Soon the North Korean army had been trapped below the 38th parallel, and MacArthur’s forces were advancing almost unopposed into North Korea. Shocked by this sequence of events, Stalin almost accepted the lost war, even the prospect of the Americans occupying North Korea itself, which directly bordered on China and the Soviet Union: he wearily commented, "Let it be. Let the Americans he our neighbors."   However, the question of what the Chinese would do remained. Mao had supported the invasion of South Korea, and even before the Inchon landing he had begun moving troops from the China coast opposite Taiwan up to the North Korean border. Mao was determined not to fail to assist the Koreans, and to lend them the hands of the Chinese in the form of sending their military volunteers there. There was concern in Washington about the possibility of Chinese intervention, and for that reason Truman ordered MacArthur not to advance all the way to the Yalu River, which formed the Sino-Korean border. Meanwhile the State Department, through various intermediaries, was seeking to deter the Chinese by raising the prospect of horrendous casualties. Mao had difficulty for a time convincing his own advisers that it would be necessary to intervene, a fact that led Stalin, early in October, to tell Kim Il-sung that he would have to evacuate North Korea altogether. Shortly thereafter, though, Mao prevailed, and so was able to inform the Russians and the North Koreans that the Chinese would be soon corning to the rescue. Thus it happened that, at the end of November, 1950, two armies once again confronted one another across a river—with awareness that this time failed to dissolve into cheers, handshakes, drinking, dancing, and hope. "I thought we'd won the war!" an American army officer recalled. "Thanksgiving Day came and we had all of the food . . . that Thanksgiving had meant when we were at home. . . . At that time we were nearing the Yalu River and that meant going home." In this case, though, the army on the other side of the river had other ideas. "We shall aim," its commander, Mao Zedong, had explained to Stalin, "at resolving the Korean conflict, that is, to eliminate the U.S. troops within Korea or to drive them and other countries aggressive forces out." On November 26th, some 300,000 Chinese began to make good on this pledge with bugles blowing, human wave attacks, and all the advantages of surprise. Two days later MacArthur informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "We face an entirely new war." Read More