Korean War (1 gen 1950 anni – 1 gen 1953 anni)

Descrizione:

The United States took a stronger stance in Korea. Truman and Stalin had agreed at the close of World War II to occupy the Korean peninsula jointly, temporarily dividing the former Japanese colony at the 38th parallel. As tensions rose in Europe, the 38th parallel turned into a permanent demarcation line. The Soviets supported a Communist government, led by Kim Il Sung, in North Korea; the United States backed a right-wing Nationalist, Syngman Rhee, in South Korea. The two sides had waged low-level war since 1945, and both leaders were spoiling for an opportunity to unify Korea under a single regime. However, neither Kim nor Rhee could launch an all-out offensive without the backing of his sponsor. Washington repeatedly said no, and so did Moscow. But Kim continued to press Stalin to permit him to reunify the nation through military action. Convinced by the North Koreans that victory would be swift, the Soviet leader finally relented in the late spring of 1950.

As a result of President Truman’s 1948 Executive Order 9981, for the first time in the nation’s history all troops in the Korean War served in racially integrated combat units. This photo taken during the Battle of Ch’ongch’on in 1950 shows a sergeant and his men of the 2nd Infantry Division.

The Korean War, which the United Nations officially deemed a “police action,” lasted three years and cost the lives of more than 36,000 U.S. troops. South and North Korean deaths were estimated at more than 900,000. Although hostilities ceased in 1953, the South Korean Military (with U.S. military assistance) and the North Korean Army continue to face each other across the demilitarized zone, more than sixty years later.

On June 25, 1950, the North Koreans launched a surprise attack across the 38th parallel (Map 24.2). Truman immediately asked the UN Security Council to authorize a “police action” against the invaders. The Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council over China’s exclusion from the United Nations and therefore could not veto the request. With the Security Council’s approval of a “peacekeeping force,” Truman ordered U.S. troops to Korea. The rapidly assembled UN army in Korea was overwhelmingly American, with General Douglas MacArthur in command. At first, the North Koreans held a distinct advantage, but MacArthur’s surprise amphibious attack at Inchon gave the UN forces control of Seoul, the South Korean capital, and almost all the territory up to the 38th parallel.

The impetuous MacArthur then led his troops across the 38th parallel all the way to the Chinese border at the Yalu River. This was a major blunder, certain to draw China into the war. Sure enough, a massive Chinese counterattack forced UN forces into headlong retreat back down the Korean peninsula. Then stalemate set in. With weak public support for the war in the United States, Truman and his advisors decided to work for a negotiated peace. MacArthur disagreed, declaring, “There is no substitute for victory.” On April 11, 1951, Truman relieved MacArthur of his command. Truman’s decision was highly unpopular, especially among conservative Republicans, but likely saved the nation from a costly war with China.

Notwithstanding MacArthur’s dismissal, the war dragged on for more than two years. An armistice in July 1953, pushed by the newly elected president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, left Korea divided at the original demarcation line. North Korea remained firmly allied with the Soviet Union; South Korea signed a mutual defense treaty with the United States. Korea was the first major proxy war between the Soviet Union and United States, in which the rivals took sides in a conflict without directly confronting one another militarily. It would not be the last.

The Korean War had far-reaching consequences. Truman’s decision to commit troops without congressional approval set a precedent for future undeclared wars. His refusal to unleash atomic weapons, even when American forces were reeling under a massive Chinese attack, set ground rules for Cold War conflict. The war also expanded American involvement in Asia, transforming containment into a truly global policy. Finally, the Korean War dispelled Truman’s resistance to a major military buildup (Map 24.3). Defense expenditures grew from $13 billion in 1950, roughly one-third of the federal budget, to $50 billion in 1953, nearly two-thirds of the budget (Figure 24.1). American foreign policy was now more global, more militarized, and more expensive. Even in times of peace, the United States maintained a state of permanent military mobilization.

In 1950, the U.S. defense budget was $13 billion, less than a third of total federal outlays. In 1961, U.S. defense spending reached $47 billion, fully half of the federal budget and almost 10 percent of the gross domestic product.

Defense spending gave a big boost to the Cold War economy, but, as the upper map suggests, the benefits were by no means equally distributed. The big winners were the Middle Atlantic states, the industrialized Upper Midwest, Washington State (with its aircraft and nuclear plants), and California. The epicenter of California’s military-industrial complex was Los Angeles, which, as is evident in the lower map, was studded with military facilities and major defense contractors like Douglas Aircraft, Lockheed, and General Dynamics. There was work aplenty for engineers and rocket scientists.


The memory of appeasement lay behind much of U.S. foreign policy in the first two decades of the Cold War. The generation of leaders who designed the containment strategy had witnessed the failure of the 1938 Munich conference, at which the Western democracies had appeased Hitler by offering him part of Czechoslovakia, unwittingly paving the road to World War II. Applying the lessons of Munich, American presidents believed that “appeasing” Stalin (and subsequent Soviet rulers Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev) would have the same result: wider war. Thus in Germany, Greece, and Korea, and later in Iran, Guatemala, and Vietnam, the United States staunchly resisted the Soviets — or what it perceived as Soviet influence. Standing up to the USSR worked in some disputes, particularly over the fate of Germany. But it also drew the Americans into armed conflicts — and convinced them to support repressive, right-wing regimes — that compromised stated American principles.

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