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the Korean War (1950-1953)

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it's important not to see the Cold War as just a simplistic linear story of two sides in conflict with each other

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the character of this confrontation in 1949-1950 changed much of how the world progressed in the subsequent decades

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this is a pivotal point in world history

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in 1949, important parts of Europe and Asia are being organized around completely different social systems

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this didn't necessarily mean that these two systems had to come into military conflict

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America was actually gradually pulling out of East Asia after the war

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the world of 1949

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the US envisions a multipolar world

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communist states

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the US is hoping that the largest, the Soviet Union and China, will begin to disagree with each other

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Western Europe

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will increase in power, hoping for continued good relations

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participating in the world economy

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some American military assistance

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new independent and reconstructed states

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e.g. Japan

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America providing some military and economic aid to help these new states get on their feet

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implications

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US gives Western Europe the treaty North Atlantic Treaty, "if you are attacked, we will come to your defense"

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the US is expecting the Western Europeans to gradually be able to fully protect themselves

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NSC 48/2 document

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defines new independent power areas in Asia and US desire to gradually scale down presence there

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1949: two major blows shake American complacency

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the Soviet bomb

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first A-Bomb test August 29, 1949 in Semipalatinsk

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the US learned about it only from detecting radioactive particles in air samples on fly overs

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fall of China to the Communists

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a lot of revolutionary fervor that can spread to other countries, i.e. a very large country that successfully was overthrown and became communist

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however, Truman is still committed to keep defense spending way down, and concentrate his energies on America's domestic development

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this is the tension of 1950

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1949 from point of view of Soviet and Chinese government

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Soviet Union

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still recovering from the enormous damage it suffered in the war

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China

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just coming out of civil war

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you could easily make the argument that both of these countries would be concentrating on domestic issues

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Stalin and Mao get together

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Mao is planning invasion of Taiwan to wipe out the last bastion of the Nationalists

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Americans are fearful of this, but in 1950 America has resigned itself to what at that point seemed to be the fact that Taiwan was lost

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although many in congress wanted the U.S. to help Taiwan

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Chinese are looking for ways to help the insurgents in French Indochina

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China paying more and more attention to what is going on in Korea

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Choice about Korea 1949-1950

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the area in and around Korea and a fairly small part of North Western Europe seem to be the arenas where a lot of world history gets written

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the problem

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Korea had been a Japanese colony until 1910

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after World War II that colony was taken away by the victorious powers

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it was going to go back to Korean control

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all the issues arose around the issue: which Koreans, who is going to run it?

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the United Nations had the responsibility to help sort this out

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Korea is currently under the administration of occupying powers

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The Soviet Union and its forces in the North

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the Americans and their forces in the south

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two rival republics are created, one in the south, one in the north

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each claimed the whole peninsula for themselves

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both are revolutionary-style governments

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Syngman Rhee

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long-time Korean nationalist

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was trying to enlist outside help to get the Japanese out of Korea

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National Conservative

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top-down modernizer

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Kim Il-sung

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in WWII was in Soviet Red Army

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Soviets nominate him to lead the North Korean area

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the United States view on Korean split

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they are ambivalent about Syngman Rhee

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some things they like about him and some things they don't

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above all, they don't want him starting a war with North Korea

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1948 indeed America decides to draw American forces out of South Korea

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America pulls forces out and leave behind a small number of people advising the South Korean army

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Soviet Union's view of Korean split

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Kim Il-sun repeated pleads to Stalin to give him the help to launch a decisive invasion to gain control of the whole peninsula

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April 1950: Stalin and Kim have decisive meeting in Moscow

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we have documentation from this meeting which shows in detail how the Korean war begins

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if you are a note-taker for Stalin's meetings, probably one of the safest thing to do is to write really careful and accurate notes

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"the Chinese Communist Party's victory over the Guonmindang has improved the environment for actions in Korea, China has at its disposal troops which can be utilized in Korea, the Chinese victory is also important psychologically, Americans left China and did not dare to challenge the new Chinese authorities militarily, the prevailing mood in America is not to interfere, such a mood is reinforce by the fact that the USSR now has the atomic bomb, the liberation can be started only if the Chinese leadership endorses it"

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May 1950: Stalin, Kim, Mao meeting

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Mao agrees to support the North Korean move, and has some reciprocal requests he wants from the Soviet Union in return

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June 1950: North Korean invades South Korea

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June/July 1950: The US backed by UN commits to fight in Korea

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Stalin had good reasons to think that this would not have been the case

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Why did Truman reverse his position and decide to get involved militarily in Korea?

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difference between calculated and axiomatic reasoning

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in a calculated reasoning, the US had decided they would not get into a war in Korea

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it was the wrong place and time to have a war for many reasons

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but when the attack actually happened, the analogy and symbolism was strong

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it had the same pattern as Hitler in 1938, as the Japanese in 1941

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Americans making the decision to return to South Korea and defend it had been profoundly marked by WWII and the attacks on Poland and Pearl Harbor and had experienced the US reaction to these events

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viscerally, it felt as though they were being tested again: will you stand up to world-wide aggression or won't you?

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drawing from that sense of historical analogy, America instinctively responded to meet the challenge and defend the cause of freedom in the world

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this axiomatic reasoning quickly overrode all the prior, careful reasoning to not get involved in a war in Korea

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situation in August 1950:

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South Korea is almost entirely overrun

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American with South Korean forces only held a small area in the south east of the country