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Korea: “Scariest Place on Earth”
“The scariest place on earth,” President Bill Clinton in 1993 called the fenced and
heavily guarded 151-mile long Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the Korean
peninsula. Standing at this same border in February 2002, President George Bush called
for a Korea “one day united in commerce and cooperation, instead of divided by barbed
wire and fear.” Since North Korea became a nuclear power in 2009, tensions have
escalated ominously. Some 700,000 North Korean soldiers with thousands of artillery
pieces are arrayed along the DMZ, capable of devastating Seoul, only 25 miles away.
Nonetheless, the urge to unite with their northern brethren is deeply rooted in the South.
“This country was unified for 13 centuries before 1945, when it was divided by the
United States to prevent it from being entirely taken over by the Soviet Union,” says
Don Oberdorfer, author of The Two Koreas. In the final days of World War II, the
Soviet Union declared war on Japan and occupied Korea, annexed by Japan in 1910.
Under a hasty agreement, Korea was partitioned at the 38th parallel: the northern part of
the peninsula came under Soviet control and became communist. The southern region
came under the sponsorship of the United States and became democratic.
Then, on June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out, when North Korean tanks and
troops poured across the 38th parallel, capturing Seoul within three days. The United
States sponsored a "police action"—a war in all but name—under the auspices of
the United Nations. The Department of State coordinated U.S. strategic decisions
with the other 16 countries contributing troops to the fight. President Harry Truman
appointed Gen. Douglas MacArthur, hero of the war against Japan, as commander of the
U.S.-led force of United Nations troops, to roll back the North Korean invasion.
In a spectacular counterattack in September, MacArthur’s forces staged an amphibious
landing at Inchon, on the western coast not far from Seoul. By October, the North
Korean Army was routed and Pyongyang taken. But when U.N. forces neared the Yalu
River, marking the Korea-China border, communist Chinese troops unleashed a massive
offensive, conquering northern Korea and, by January 1951, Seoul. In April, after bitter
disputes over military strategy, Truman fired MacArthur, who wanted the option of
using nuclear bombs against China, and replaced him. The war continued without either
side gaining decisive advantage.
Dwight Eisenhower broke the bloody stalemate. Elected president in November 1952
after making a campaign pledge to “go to Korea,” Ike indeed went there, decided the
war was unwinnable, and quickly ended it on honorable terms.
At the end of the war in 1953, two nations were established on either side of the 38 th
parallel: South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea with its capital at Seoul), a
democratic nation to the south; and North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea with its capital at Pyonyang), a totalitarian state currently under the rule of Kim
Jong Un, to the north. Today, South Korea is an economic powerhouse, while North
Korea is an economic disaster that uses its nuclear capability as a bargaining chip to
coerce the rest of the world.
Sources: Kandell, Jonathan. “Korea: a House Divided.” Smithsonian Magazine. Vol.
14, No. 4, July 2003.
“NSC-68 & the Korean War.” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/koreanwar