Korean War, Essay Options

[dispn0ygonekrazy]

Communism and The Korean War
How much do you like your freedom? Do we take freedom for granted in this country? Imagine living in a divided country. A country where one side has all the freedom and the other side isn’t. Imagine living in a country where you don’t have any freedom at all. A country where there’s no freedom of speech or religion. Have you ever felt like somebody is watching you? Just imagine living in a country where someone is always watching your every move, someone telling you how to act and how to behave in a certain way. To live in a country where the form of government dictates how one should live. These are just few examples of living in a communist country. Korea is one of the many countries that had undergone this traumatic transformation. A transformation where one day you’re free then the next day you’re fighting for your very freedom and nearly losing it!

Korea has a long history of being an independent nation, an ancient country rich in cultures and customs and where the civilization had progressed alongside with both Ancient Japan and China. However, this independence was lost in 1910 when Japan forcibly annexed and ruled Korea for over thirty years. This rule ended when Japan surrendered to the United States and it’s allies in 1945 ending World War II. The Union of Soviets Socialist Republic (USSR, Soviet Union, Soviets) is a communist country and of the allies who fought with the United States. The United States decided that it would occupy the southern half of Korea for fear that the Soviets Union would take control of the entire Korea Peninsula and making it a communist country. The US chose to divide Korea at the 38th parallel to keep the capital city, Seoul, in the American-occupied southern zone while the Soviets occupied the northern zone north of the parallel line.

The United States proposed that American forces disarm Japanese forces south of the 38th parallel and the Soviet forces do the same north of the parallel line. Both the Soviets and the United States proceeded, with the aid from the Koreans, to build their own regimes that supported their own country’s interests from their own sides. Doing so, created riffs between the Korean political factions represented by both the liberals (left-wing) and the conservatives (right wing). After World War II, the main conflict between the two factions centered on a thorough reform of Korea's land ownership laws where the liberals are calling for reforms and the conservatives are resisting the reforms. This law allowed a small number of wealthy people to own most of the land resulting in many Korean farmers who were forced to live as poor impoverished tenant farmers.
The Soviet Union along with Communist China supported the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a left wing faction under the leadership of Kim IL Sung, a Korean guerilla who fought with Chinese Communist forces against the Japanese in Manchuria during the 1930s. The United States on the other hand, supported the Republic of Korea (ROK) a right wing faction headed by Syngman Rhee, an anti-communist. In 1948 both governments of North and South Korea were effectively in place and the United States terminated the military government and began withdrawing occupational forces. However, the newly formed southern government was faced with a left-wing guerrilla rebellion supported by the north. It took the ROK Army one year from 1948 thru 1949 to suppressed the rebellion. Although the Soviets withdrew their troops from the Korea Peninsula at the end of 1948, the Americans were concerned about the rebellion and the potential of invasion from the North, delayed their withdrawal until the end of June 1949. Thousands of troops from both North and South Korea were concentrated along the 38th parallel and in May 1949 minor border skirmishes broke out and continued, on and off, through December.
During the summer of 1949, South Korea had expanded its army to about 90,000 troops, and large contingents of North Korean soldiers were still fighting with the Communists in China’s civil war. North Korea was not ready to invade the South. But when the North Korean troops came back in the early months of 1950, tens of thousands of these soldiers were sent just above the 38th parallel hoping to provoke the South for another skirmish and to use this as justification for invasion. Before dawn of June 25, 1950, a minor skirmish escalated into a massive conventional warfare, Communist North Korea attacked and invaded South Korea.
Uijeongbu, a town north of Seoul was critical line of defense for the South and maintained by a ROKA (Republic of Korea Army) division was waiting for reinforcements and did not commit to the battle. When reinforcements did arrive, the South Korean troops panicked, mutinied and fled. The collapse at Uijeongbu broke the South Korean’s defensive lines and enabled North Korean troops to pour through. The ROK government fled Seoul, and the capital city was taken on June 28 by a force of about 37,000 North Korean troops. The quick and complete collapse of resistance in the South forced the United States to enter the War in full force. American ground troops were finally committed in the early morning of June 30, 1950. In June 1950 the total armed strength of the U.S. Army was 593,167, with an additional 75,370 Marines. North Korea alone was capable of mobilizing perhaps 200,000 combat soldiers, in addition to the immense reserve of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Hearing the news that the ROKA had ceased to fight motivated President Truman and others to fight and did not seek a declaration of war from the U.S. Congress, relying instead on the United Nations’ support.
World War II hero General Douglas MacArthur was placed in command of U.S. troops in Korea. Despite the application of US Naval and air power against enemy targets and forces in North and South Korea, the North Korean Army continued its relentless advance southward with dramatic success, inflicting one humiliating defeat after another on the American forces. An army that had defeated Germany and Japan in World War II found itself overwhelmed by what many thought was a hastily assembled, ill-equipped peasant army said to be doing the bidding of a foreign imperial power. The North Korean Army advances continued until almost until the North Korean forces occupied 90 percent of South Korea.
In the first week of August the U.S. 1st Marine Brigade arrived and finally stabilized the U.S. and ROK forces, which by that time guarded only a small area on the south easternmost part of the peninsula. The two months following the invasion marked an increase in air force activity to include B29 bombers and the introduction of the F-51 Saber jet aircrafts. By mid September, the North Korean offensive had clearly failed and the UN (United Nations) forces had survived savage blows. Fighting the North Koreans to a stand still required combined efforts of the Air, land, and Sea forces of several nations. Although air power did not prevail, it did help stop the enemy’s drive. The burned out hulks of hundreds of tanks destroyed by air strike marked the invasion and the B29s damaged the North Korean transportation network and destroyed whatever industry the nation possessed.
On September 15, 1950, US forces spearheaded by the 1st Marine Division successfully landed at Incheon, near Seoul, effectively cutting the supply lines to the North Korean Army threatening its rear. The US 8th Army launched its own offensive from Busan and what was once a stalled North Korean offensive became a disorganized retreat. So complete was the rout that less than one third of the 100,000 strong North Korean Army escaped back to the North. On September 27, 1950, President Truman authorized US forces to pursue the beaten army north of the 38th parallel line.
The U.S.-led forces might have reestablished the 38th parallel as the border between North and South Korea, ended the war, and declared that the Truman Doctrine’s policy of containing Communism had been achieved. Instead, MacArthur sent troops across the parallel into North Korea in early October. Military strategists later faulted MacArthur for taking this action without Truman’s approval, but evidence has since shown that Truman approved the march north at the end of August, even before the landing at Incheon. As the summer progressed, nearly all of Truman’s senior advisers decided the chance had come not only to contain Communism but to roll it back. Thus, National Security Council document 81 authorized MacArthur to "roll back" the North Korean regime if there were no Soviet or Chinese threats to intervene. The document also instructed MacArthur to use only Korean troops near the Chinese border so as not to further antagonize China.
China did not enter the war purely to protect its border. It was decided early in the war by Mao Tse Tung, the Communist leader of China, that should the North Koreans falter, China had an obligation to help them because many North Koreans had sacrificed their lives alongside Chinese. Remembering how North Korea assisted China in the Chinese revolution that overthrew the imperial government in 1911 to 1912, in resistance to Japan’s decades of occupation, and in the Chinese civil war of 1946 to 1949. On August 4, 1950, Mao told the Chinese Politburo (the highest decision-making body of the Chinese Communist Party) that he intended to send troops to Korea "in the name of a volunteer army" should the Americans reverse the tide of battle. The day after UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, Mao informed Stalin of his decision to invade. In other words, it was not the approach of American troops on the Chinese border that prompted China’s attack; it was the American strategy to roll back North Korean Communism.
Over the course of the next 2 months form November and on, the Chinese together with the remnants of the routed North Korean Army, advanced 40 miles south of Seoul but were halted by stiff resistance. Limited allied defenses in the ensuing months brought US, UN, and the South Korean forces back near the 38th parallel by February 1951. The U.S. government seriously considered using nuclear weapons fortunately for everyone, this never sufficed. After 2 ½ more years of war, including two years of truce negotiations, the war ended on July 27, 1953 near the demarcation line.
The Korean War was one of the most destructive of the 20th century. Approximately 4 million Koreans died throughout the peninsula, two-thirds of them civilians. China lost up to 1 million soldiers, and the United States suffered 36,934 dead and 103,284 wounded. Other UN nations suffered 3322 dead and 11,949 wounded. Economic and social damage to the Korea Peninsula was incalculable, especially in the North, where three years of bombing left hardly a modern building standing.
On a variety of levels, the Korean War represented a change in US policies and doctrines. The realities of the cold war redefined the term “victory”. Like the Korean War, victory could be something less than destroying the enemy’s armed forces or replacing governments. Containment of Communism, the US stated position became a reality. The threat of Nuclear Weapons also became a reality. Lastly, the spread of communism globally became a reality. The Korean War was just benchmark for future communist threat and the US would once again be faced with this threat in South East Asia – Vietnam.

[KissMe2408]

nice essay. lol yes indeed i read the whole thing. I learned alot through it, never studied the korean war before. But i loved how you wrote your first paragraph...next time try incorporating your opinions of the war with the facts. For a while i was just being told the facts of the korean war, while in the first paragraph you really made me want to read on. You have very good writing skills and i encourage you to keep using them!

[dispn0ygonekrazy]

heheh yes i appreciate the kind comments
yeah korean war..had write an essay about it lol kinda surprised someone actually read the whole thing

[ItzOnlySydney]

great job. i am reallly glad you chose this topic. not many people even know that there was a korean war hence the "the forgotten war" title. and that reallly bothers my grandfather seeing as how he disarmed bombs in that war. i can't wait to show himt his =)