The Korean War: Police Action

The Korean Demilitarized Zone

            Roughly halfway down the Korean peninsula lies the Demilitarized Zone, an armored border stretching roughly two hundred and fifty miles from the east coast to the west coast and about two and a half miles wide throughout. This border divides the peninsula into The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea, from the Republic of Korea, or South Korea. This border, which runs on the 38^th latitudinal parallel, holds in place a shaky cease-fire that was signed in 1953 following the end of the Korean War. How and why was Korea divided? To understand that we must turn the clocks back to the late 1940s, and trace the origins and the fallout of the Korean War.

            Towards the end of the Second World War the Soviet Union joined her allies in the war against Japan. Soviet troops made their way halfway down the Korean peninsula before the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki signalled the end of the war, and thereafter Korea was occupied and controlled by a joint Soviet and American Military Government. This commission failed to make progress on creating an independent Korea, and elections held in 1948 attempting to set up a new sovereign state were met with boycotts and violence from the Korean communists. The results of these elections set up a government located in the Southern city of Seoul, while the Soviets set up a communist government based out of Pyongyang soon thereafter, led by a man named Kim Il-Sung.  This was followed by the United States and Soviet Union pulling out of the Korean peninsula by 1949, and allowing these two new states to develop on their own. Both sides, however, began planning for future reunification - peacefully or otherwise.

            In 1950 Kim Il-Sung, backed politically and economically by the Soviet Union and militarily by the newly formed Communist Chinese state, invaded South Korea, believing that the people would welcome him as a liberator. As Russia was boycotting United Nations meetings and the Communist Chinese weren’t yet internationally recognized, the Security Council voted unanimously to have member states support South Korea militarily that June. However, by September the Communists had overrun almost the entirety of South Korea; something drastic was needed. On September 15, the United Nations began the battle of Inchon, an amphibious invasion under the command of General Douglas MacArthur that provided a clear victory and a strategic reversal. Within the next two months MacArthur’s forces would push their way northwards, soon making their way passed the 38^th parallel and eventually to within miles of the Chinese border. This was met with a major invasion by the Chinese, which pushed the fighting back to the 38^th parallel, where the fighting was localized for the remainder of the war.

            These quick troop movements up and down the peninsula before settling into a longer stalemate at the 38^th parallel were incredibly deadly. The majority of the war’s casualties fell in this period, which included some 2.5 million between both sides. Halfway through 1951 both countries accepted that they had reached a stalemate, and little territory was exchanged as fighting continued. General MacArthur argued that the allies should extend the war into China, which was rebuked by the US government as many feared this would lead to another world war. He sent cables to members of the House of Representatives defending his position, and in response President Harry Truman demanded his resignation. Over the next two years, the two Koreas sought to create a peace deal, but no resolution could be found that both sides could find agreeable. During these two years of protracted negotiation Dwight Eisenhower was elected US President. He had campaigned on ending the Korean War, and immediately set out to do so. In 1953 an agreement was reached, not in the form of a treaty, but rather a cease-fire; to this day, the two Koreas technically remain at war.

            Discussion questions, write a paragraph for one:

In many Anglophonic nations, the Korean War is referred to as the “Forgotten War” – why might this be the case?

Was the United Nations right to act on a vote that would put the members at war with the Soviet Union and China when neither was represented in the vote? Why or why not?

President Truman famously referred to the war as "Police Action" - why might he choose to use this phrase to describe such a brutal war that had broad international support?