KOREAN WAR VETERANS MEMORIAL

ORIGINS OF THE KOREAN WAR

A Nation Torn by Ideology: Korea 1910 to 1950

The Korean War Veterans Memorial should make us consider not just the sacrifice of war but the conflicting courses several nations took to create that war and its horrors. The Korean War, like other wars, had origins in the period long before the first shots were fired. A brutal Japanese occupation created two hostile governments in Korea after the Second World War ended in 1945. North Korea saw an opportunity to unite the peninsula in 1950 and took it. China and the Soviet Union wanted no anti-Communist government near their borders with North Korea. The United States was determined to show its communist rivals that it would honor its commitments to defend its allies. Rather than looking just at one perspective on the war, this article will examine the historical era and the role several countries played in creating the Korean War.

Japanese Occupation

Beginning in 1910, Japan won her fight to be the regional power in Northern Asia against first China and then Czarist Russia. After decades of expanding influence in Korea, Japan formally annexed "the land of the morning calm." Imperial forces structured every part of the Korean economy to strengthen an empire that stretched across Manchuria, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and part of China. Officials forced heavy industry on the northern part of Korea and took most of the profits. They corralled people into slave labor gangs to construct factories, mines, buildings, and roads. The army drafted men to serve as occupation troops all over Asia. Japan alternated brutal repression with divide and rule techniques, which pitted Korean against Korean.

Korean Resistance

Of course many Koreans fought against this oppression. Kim Il Sung became a major communist guerrilla leader in the north. He waged an aggressive style of warfare by ambushing Japanese patrols. Right wing resistance groups also contested foreign exploitation. Syngman Rhee fled imprisonment and he publicized Korea's plight before world leaders in order to bring about international pressure on Japan. Korea became a land of absolutes where one resisted the Japanese or became their victim. Koreans judged each other harshly according to how they fought the occupation. Both Rhee and Kim thought their accomplishments entitled them to rule all of Korea some day.

The Cold War

With the end of the Second World War, two hostile alliances emerged- one led by the United States and the other influenced by the Soviet Union. These nations emerged out of the holocaust of war, determined never to be taken by surprise as they were in 1941. The best way they knew how to protect themselves was to build alliances that served as a protective shield around them. Russian troops rigged elections throughout Eastern Europe. They successfully detonated an atomic bomb in 1949. That same year Mao Zedong won a communist revolution in China. Joseph Stalin and he became allies. Accordingly, the United States feared that the combination of Moscow's technology and Beijing's manpower would enable them to conquer key portions of the world. America built alliances throughout Asia and Western Europe to contain the communist giants. By 1950 these competing alliances used military, economic, and political aid to influence nations considered important to their survival; examples included Iran, Germany, Greece, Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Indochina, and Korea. If either or both sides perceived a significant shift in the other's favor and overreacted, then another world war could engulf the planet.

The Cold War Heats Up

The superpower struggle in Asia drew Korea into its vortex. As Japan collapsed in August 1945, Soviet troops occupied the northern half of Korea while Americans moved into the southern part of the peninsula. In 1948 both armies withdrew and left just advisors behind. In the south, Syngman Rhee's government allied itself with the United States, but his army was poorly trained and badly equipped. Then in January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson failed to mention South Korea in his list of vital interests at a press conference and further weakened the security of the Republic of Korea.

Russia and China considered Korea a potential dagger pointed at each of them and determined to make their borders secure. Korean communists played a crucial role in the Chinese resistance to the Japanese and then in their revolution, so Mao supported their new government. He resolved to never let American troops approach his border with North Korea. Russians brought in political allies, such as Kim Il Sung, and provided advisors that solidified communist rule over the nation. In April 1950 Stalin reluctantly approved Kim's plan to attack the south and unify the peninsula. Soviet officers even drafted the invasion plans. Kim's well-trained army struck across the border with thunderclap surprise on 25 June 1950.

In America, Korea became a symbol of its commitment to defend its allies against aggression. President Harry S. Truman believed the invasion proved that the communists were testing American resolve and that if they were not stopped then, their aggression would grow around the world. If other countries doubted American commitments, they might more easily collapse. America immediately brought the issue before the United Nations. Since Moscow had left the Security Council in protest over Beijing not being allowed membership, America secured unanimous support for South Korea. Eventually, twenty-one nations sent supplies, medical personnel, or combat units to the embattled land.

The origins of the Korean War began not with the North Korean invasion of South Korea but with the brutal Japanese occupation decades before. For nearly forty years, Koreans suffered in slave labor camps and from reprisals. Syngman Rhee and Kim Il Sung merged from this cauldron in 1945 as leaders of two uncompromising factions committed to unifying the peninsula. While the United States restrained South Korea, the Soviet Union provided the arms and training that made the north's aggression possible.