Download The Korean War and the United States

The Korean War and the United States
The Korean War (1950-1953) has some significant meaning in modern history:
it was the first ‘hot war’ between liberalism and communism that had been both against
fascism; it was the first war in which only conventional weapons were used in the
nuclear era; it was the first ‘limited war’ in the U.S-Soviet bipolar system. It is quite
natural for the United States, which had led World War II to victory and was working on
establishing world hegemony at the time, to be engaged in such a crucial war. In this
paper, I will elaborate the Korea-U.S. relationship and the influence of the Korean War
on the U.S.
A series of U.S. faults until the war broke out
The U.S. policy towards the Korean peninsula from 1945 to 1950 can be
described in two words: dualistic and expedient. Since the establishment of a diplomatic
relationship in 1882, Korea was overlooked in terms of its geopolitical value by the
United States. We can easily see this perception on the part of the U.S. toward Korea to
some degree from the U.S. effort at the Yalta Conference to get the Soviet Union
involved in the front against imperial Japan, though the U.S. knew that the Soviet Union
would enlarge its sphere of influence in East Asia after the war. 1 On the other hand, the
U.S. also didn’t want Korea to be under a particular country’s clout. Due to this
paradoxical standing, the U.S. acted on expedient policies towards Korea, which led to
divided occupation for the disarmament of Japanese troops in Korea between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union.
During the period of U.S. military government in Seoul, U.S. policy toward the
peninsula was still provisional. At first, the U.S. had no idea about what the war would
be like if one would occur in Korea. The U.S. was seized by the thought that subsequent
war would be a direct strategic conflict between two superpowers; and it was believed
that war would break out in Europe. Therefore military actions elsewhere, especially in
Asia, would be indirect small guerilla actions contingent on the main war in Europe.
This speculation was shown in NSC-68, the U.S. blueprint for global strategies, and was
intensified by the Yeosun military riot that occurred in 1948. Faced with financial
difficulties, the U.S. planned to relocate troops from South Korea to Western Europe.
Nevertheless, the U.S. did not consider reinforcing South Korean forces while planning
to retreat its force. Though a few military generals, such as General Hodge, the U.S.
military governor in Korea from 1945 to 1948, and General Wedemeyer, who draw up a
1
However, the Soviets took part on August 8th, two days after the Little Boy hit
Hiroshima.
report on Korea, maintained that South Korean troops should be reinforced, General
McArthur, the commander of U.S. troops in Japan and in charge of all U.S. military
action in East Asia, ignored the suggestions. It was because Washington worried that the
hostile Lee administration in Seoul might invade North Korea to reunify the peninsula
with the reinforced troops. Hence the entire South Korean troops reached only 98,000 of
67 battalions and only half of them had basic military training; the rest of them nothing,
at the time the war broke out. Finally, the U.S. stepped back its Pacific defensive line. In
March 1949, General McArthur noted to a British reporter that the U.S. Pacific
defensive line started from the Philippines and extended to Ryukyu and then to Aleutian
Islands, which excluded South Korea and Taiwan. This comment was reconfirmed at the
National Press Center on Jan 24th, 1950 through the famous “Acheson Line.”
The U.S. entry into the war
Washington was fairly embarrassed by the news that a war had broken out in
the Korean peninsula. In other words, Pyongyang’s invasion, neither a small guerilla
action nor without a huge war in Europe, was a shock to Washington. The U.S.
President H.S. Truman coped with the situation rapidly, noting: “Moscow played a
gamble in the Korean peninsula considering that the U.S. would not resist in fear of the
World War III, but it won’t work.” Within 36 hours war had broken out, did the United
Nations pass a resolution in the absence of the Soviet Union that North Korea was the
invader. And on June 28th, the U.S. troops in Japan were sent to Korea to participate in
the war. Of course, the U.S. did not want the Korean peninsula under the power of a
single country; however, these rapid moves were quite exceptional. This could be
explained for two points of view. First, the U.S. had fear of certain ideologies at the
point. The U.S. was well informed about how it would suffer from “a wrongful
ideology” while fighting alien ideology named fascism and the British appeasement
policy toward the Nazis might be good lessons for the U.S. Second, the U.S. wanted to
maintain its special political superiority over its allies. That is, the U.S. tried to confirm
its hegemony in democratic camp by playing the role of “global police.” It also helped
to inform Europe that Washington would be a shoulder to depend on to them in any
communist flow to elsewhere.
I will skip the details about how the U.S. fought in the war, which is wellknown. Let’s jump to the Korea-U.S. relationship at the point of the armistice. As the
battle front was stuck around 38N due to the Chinese entry into the war, the U.S.
intended to withdraw its forces by establishing armistice with the fame of protecting
free world. On the other hand, Seoul’s Lee administration intensively opposed the
American pro-stalemate position. The armistice, however, seemed inevitable; therefore,
Seoul stepped back and asked Washington to conclude a bilateral treaty that would
secure South Korea. In Lee’s letter to U.S. President D. Eisenhower sent on May 30th,
1953, Lee said he would accept any appropriate armistice that Eisenhower might
suggest if Washington could guarantee South Korean security in concrete. Eventually,
Washington and Seoul agreed upon a mutual defense treaty in 1953. The treaty says that
both countries are supposed to make firm efforts for collective security to maintain
peace and security until a general and effective regional security organization developed
in the preamble, and that each party would recognize the attacks on the other party in
the Pacific area as a danger to its own peace and security; therefore, the each would
declare to act in accordance with respective constitutional process to cope with the
common danger in the clause 3. The U.S. has maintained that the clause does not imply
automatic engagement as mentioned in NATO treaty, but anyway the U.S. army always
needs congressional permission, which is a constitutional process, to operate outside the
U.S. All the more, the U.S. troops that come to 38,000 have been stationed in South
Korea since then.
By the way, in economic terms, the U.S. foreign aid to South Korea went steep
high after the war.
Table 1 the U.S. aid to Korea and Japan in 40's and 50's
Aid to
'45~'50
'51
'52
'53
'54
'55
'56
'57
Korea
410
118
155
206
165
237
315
355
Japan
1,942
241
36
0
1
12
17
14
(Unit: 1 million$, From Statistical Abstract of the U.S.,1958)
As shown in Table-1, the U.S. aid to Korea was around 70 million per year,
which was an equivalence of one-fifth to that to Japan from 1945 to 1950. However, the
total amount of aid to South Korea after the war came almost equal to that to Japan. The
total amount of the U.S. aid to South Korea was equivalent to a tenth of the Korean
GNP; therefore it had significant influences on the Korean economy. In a good sense,
the aid vitalized the overall Korean economy which was on the point of low
productivity due to the war and made great help to poor Seoul’s public finance. On the
other hand, it also had negative effects to make Korean economy too dependent upon
the U.S. economy including ruining small independent farmers.2
In sum, the Korean War resulted in a very close relationship between South
Korea and the U.S., which caused Seoul’s foreign relation too dependent on Washington.
2
The U.S. aid was made mainly in form of crops; hence the price of farm products fell dramatically after
Seoul received the U.S. aid.