Why did the United States get involved in the war in Korea In what sense was it an outgrowth of the Cold War - Term Paper Example

US Participation in the Korean War When the World War II ended in 1945, the fighting ceased but peace never commenced. The soldiers in the field laiddown their arms but the workers at the factory doubled their artillery productions and perfected the atomic bomb. Distrust and hate still prevailed between and among the countries involved in the war including allies, especially the military giants USSR and the USA.The USA and the USSR fought alongside each other against the Nazi Germany but it was a simple case of, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

When the common enemy collapsed at the end of the war, they turned against each other and entered into the Cold War era. Cold War is a state of affairs between the former USSR and the USA which are at odds with each other except for the understanding that it is for the best interest of the world that they should avoid direct armed conflict. Instead, they just try to outdo one another in building their armaments and in expanding their allies. The enemy of the USSR became the automatic best friend of the US and vice versa.

Whenever the USSR assists another country in the latter’s own conflict, the US immediately goes to the rescue of the enemy of the USSR allies. Stated otherwise, the cold war was a game of chess. The USSR and the US agreed to avoid direct armed fighting and just play chess instead. The world became the chessboard, the Kings were their own countries, the Queens were their atomic bombs, the other officials were their armies and the pawns were the smaller countries like the divided Korea and divided Vietnam among others.

The general game plan was to propagate the capitalist-democratic ideology while containing the other’s communist-authoritarian regime. The player is willing to sacrifice his pawns and even officials just to secure the position of the King on the board.And in this game of chess, the North and South Koreas became the opening pawns. The USSR was at first not interested in Kim Il-Sung’s plan of invasion, in the same way that the US was already in the process of withdrawing its troops from South Korea.

But when the communist north had crushed the capitalist south, the US executed its game plan and plunged itself into war. The US can never allow communism to gain more space in the world.The US got involved in the war in Korea in order to stop communism from spreading and to protect the capitalism’s position at the peninsula. The National Archives paper has so succinctly puts it, “Thus, when North Korean troops invaded the South, the Truman administration seized upon the opportunity to defend a noncommunist government from invasion by communist troops.

The invasion of South Korea made Truman genuinely fearful that the Soviet Union and China intended to expand the sphere of communism throughout Asia.” In conclusion, I shall allow President Truman to provide the reason as to why the US got involved in the war in Korea. President Truman declared that "communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war" (Archives). Therefore, the US lost thousands of lives on foreign soil halfway around the world because the US would not allow the USSR to post some gains in their “heated” cold war.

Works Cited:National Archives. Teaching With Documents: The United States Enters the Korean Conflict. Accessed on July 24, 2011. Available at http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/korean-conflict/Korean War. Ed. R. A. Guisepi. Accessed on July 24, 2011. Available at http://history-world.org/korean_war.htm