Not ‘Cold’ at All after the Cold War Call: Outbreak, Evolution and Aftermath of the Korean War in a Bipolar World

Not ‘Cold’ at All after the Cold War Call:

Outbreak, Evolution and Aftermath of the Korean War in a Bipolar World

One could easily render the Korean peninsula as geographically ill-fated in terms of security. Not only has this been evidenced several times during the imperial era in Asia[1], but also during the course of the twentieth century. According to international attention, participation, and particularly the fears it supposed, the war from 1950 to 1953 within the Korean peninsula seems to emphasize this condition.

            The causes that catalyzed the beginning of the armed struggle are to be found from the final days of the Second World War and the sudden world order variations that followed. Until then, Korea had been a protectorate of Japan since 1895 and a colony of it throughout the 1910-1945 period, but the agreements reached in Yalta and Postdam in 1945 arranged to expel the Japanese and to internationally exert a five-year guidance over the territory. Thus, taking the 38th parallel as a reference, the URSS was to administrate the north, while the US was to do so in the south.

            Soon after the Japanese withdrawal, the north-south division also became evident internally due to poor economic circumstances and ideology discrepancies. As a result, whereas in 1948 the capitalist south saw the establishment of a weak democracy with Rhee Syngman as its president, the same year the communist north saw leader Kim Il-sung establish an absolutist-like regime. The Iron Curtain was already entrenched in the 38th parallel, but contrary to Germany’s case, there was no superpower’s presence (Zorgbibe, 1997: 173).

            With the tension upscale in the peninsula, the communist north, aided by Stalin and convinced that the Americans would not spoil the party[2], finally decided to launch an offensive attack southwards on 25 June 1950[3]. Thereby, that the US and the URSS would join the battle seemed only a matter of time―as it finally was.

            Actually, “it is not clear how each” side “had calculated the security interests involved (Yahuda, 2004: 25), and so far, they have “relied mainly on circumstantial evidence to place the blame on the other” (Gupta, 1972: 713). In any case, following García and Pareja’s (2008: 20) analysis, the motivations to intervene went as follows. As for the US, there was a real fear of the so-called domino’s theory happening if the communist side was to overcome; the Truman administration wanted to deal with hard criticism coming from revisionist spheres which held it responsible for the “loss” of China, that is, to have allowed Mao Zedong establish the People’s Republic of China (PRC); and it was an unexpected, touchstone test for the Truman Doctrine[4]. As for the URSS, they pursued to keep the communist area of influence; take a step further for the communist leadership in the region; weaken US influence in East Asia; and, generally speaking, carry on with the communist revolution in the bipolar world that was rapidly being unfolded.

            Methods, allies, and degree of involvement also differed in time and space. A few weeks after the communist offensive, Truman received the approval from UNSC[5] on 27 April to lead his country into war together with fifteen countries more[6]. US participation was prominent (90%), and the leadership of the mission was assumed by general Douglas MacArthur. The capitalist side reinforcement turned the tables completely, and from almost a complete defeat (August), they gained control beyond Korea’s narrow neck (October). While Washington was pondering what was the best way of putting an end to the war, this precise month became a second turning point since Mao decided to send troupes made up by ‘voluntaries’ under the slogan “Resist American invasion of Taiwan and Korea” (Farrar-Hockley, 1984: 290)[7]. Then, once again, the communist side stepped slightly beyond 38th parallel by the beginning of 1951. Truman’s fears of direct collision with China prevented him against further significant offensives, and now his main goal assumed the principle of avoiding any useless risk that could ignite major conflicts. A return to statu quo ante, as it remained until the end, was what he exactly strove for.

            Broadly speaking, the basic focus of the in-theater military techniques shifted from initial swift infantry attacks, followed by air bombing raids, to finally becoming a static trench war after the PRC intervention. However, a potential atomic bomb attack was always present[8]. This was MacArthur’s desire as a response to the Chinese threat, but finally Truman skillfully re-established diplomacy-military equilibrium by dismissing him in favor of general Gary Ridgway on 11 April 1951. Two months later Yakov Malik, Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, suggested a truce-like armistice which was accepted by Ridgway, but the conversations started in Kaesong on 11 July to reach a total agreement would last until 27 July 1953 due to sino-korean intransigence and prisoners repatriation issues[9]. That day, in Panmunjom, both sides signed the armistice of a war in which no fewer than 2.5 million people died (Luna, 2004: 13), although figures vary dramatically according to sources. That being so, it is clear that the north and the south are still technically at war.

            Both Korean sides remained under dictators’s administration in a self-evident bipolar scenario: the north kept sino-soviet support, while the south continued under US influence. Eisenhower, US president from January 1953, changed Truman’s ‘containment’ to ‘massive deterrence’ doctrine, that is, a significant tightening on foreign policy exemplified by a triplication of defense budget and NATO’s creation. In the URSS after Stalin’s death, Khrushchev’s (in power since September) ‘peaceful coexistence’ was paramount to reorient the country’s economy to industry and technology. This designated the starting point for URSS-PRC’s increasing discrepancies.

References

Barbé Izuel, Esther, 2007, Relaciones Internacionales, 3^rd ed, Barcelona: Editorial Tecnos.

Dingman, Roger, 1988, “Atomic Diplomacy during the Korean War”, International Security 13 (3): 50-91.

Farrar-Hockley, Anthony, 1984, “A Reminiscence of the Chinese People's Volunteers in the Korean War”, The China Quarterly (98): 287-304.

Fisher, Louis, 1995, “The Korean War: On What Legal Basis Did Truman Act?”, The American Journal of International Law 89 (1): 21-39.

Fautua, David T, 1997, “The ‘Long Pull’ Army: NSC 68, the Korean War, and the Creation of the Cold War U.S. Army”, The Journal of Military History 61 (1): 93-120.

García Segura, Caterina, and Pablo Pareja Alcaraz., 2004, “Las relaciones internacionales en Asia Oriental entre 1945 y 1989”, in Ríos Xulio et al., Política Internacional de Asia Oriental, Barcelona: Fundació UOC.

Gupta, Karunakar, 1972, “How Did the Korean War Begin?”, The China Quarterly 42 (October/December): 699-716.

Hao, Yufan, and Zhihai Zhai, 1990, “China's Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited”, The China Quarterly (121): 94-115.

Jervis, Robert, 1980, “The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War”, The Journal of Conflict Resolution 24 (4): 563-592.

Kissinger, Henry, [1994] 2010, Diplomacia, Utrilla, Mónica (trans.), Barcelona: Ediciones B.

Khrushchev, Nikita S., 1970, Khrushchev Remembers, Boston: Little Brown.

López i Vidal, Lluc, 2010, La política exterior y de seguridad japonesa, Barcelona: Editorial UOC.

Lowe, Peter, 1990, “An Ally and a Recalcitrant General: Great Britain, Douglas MacArthur and the Korean War, 1950-1”, The English Historical Review 105 (416): 624-653.

Luna, Joaquín, 2004, “La realidad de la guerra fría en Asia oriental. Sus secuelas en el siglo XXI”, in Ríos Xulio et al., Política Internacional de Asia Oriental, Barcelona: Fundació UOC.

Stanley, Elizabeth A., 2009, “Ending the Korean War: The Role of Domestic Coalition Shifts in Overcoming Obstacles to Peace”, International Security 34 (1): 42-82.

Weathersby, Kathryn, 1993, “New Findings on the Korean War”, Cold War International History Project Bulletin (3).

Yahuda, Michael, 2004, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 2^nd ed, London and New York: Routledge.

Zhang, Feng, 2009, “Rethinking the ‘Tribute System’: Broadening the Conceptual Horizon of Historical East Asian Politics”, The Chinese Journal of International Politics 2: 545-574.

Zorgbibe, Charles, [1994] 1997, Historia de las relaciones internacionales. 2. Del sistema de Yalta hasta nuestros días, Vecino Quintana, Miguel Ángel (trans.), Madrid: Alianza Universidad.

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[1] While this may be partially true, we shall not forget that the so-called “tribute system”, being Ming China-Korea relations usually regarded as the best example, was far from being a status based merely upon dependency, but rather a foreign policy strategy consciously seeking after one’s interests. So it seems more appropriate to call them ‘tributary relations’ rather than ‘tribute system’ (Zhang, 2009: 574).

[2] This clearly reflects one of the premises of the Cold War: each rival merely had blind threat perceptions of the enemy’s true intentions. Kim Il-sung, as believed to be the one who staged the invasion ―although the existence of indirect URSS pressures are being uncovered increasingly (Weathersby, 1993)―, did not quite understand the raison d’être of the Cold War. Perhaps euphoric after recent communist successes (presence of Red Army in East Europe, Czechoslovak coup d'état in 1948, and most notably, Mao’s victory in 1949), he purposelessly turned his own country into a proxy war of alien, out-of-reach aspirations.

[3] UN attributed the responsibility of the war to North Korea, but it is remarkable that Rhee Syngman’s invariable purpose characterized by reunification slogans such as “northwards march” (Zorgbibe, 1997: 172-187).

[4] According to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the containment policy in Korea was something absolutely unplanned. Both General of the Army Douglas Mac Arthur and Secretary of State Dean Acheson not only considered Korea as being out of US perimeter defense, but also there was no intention to turn up in any continental Asia area (2010: 505-506). An evidence of this was the remilitarization of Japan, which first seemed an undesirable urgency, but eventually the economic stimulus from the Korean War turned out to be a powerful lever to increase capitalist influence regionally (López i Vidal 2010: 62-63). Therefore, Truman’s main concern was not on geopolitical reasons, but on justifying UN mission. Consequently, he described American intervention as a universal defense, not one for its national interests; Americans were defending principles, not interests; laws, not power (Kissinger, 2010: 508).

[5] This was possible due to two major reasons: first, despite Mao’s victory in 1949, only Guomindang China was to maintain recognition by UN and, by extension, its seat in UNSC; and second, because of this, URSS ambassador in UN decided to boycott the institution and so missing the opportunity to veto. It is also important to point out that “president Truman's unilateral use of armed force in Korea violated the US Constitution and the UN Participation Act of 1945”; “the decision to place US troops in combat and to take the nation from a condition of peace to a state of war requires approval by Congress in advance. That was the constitutional principle in 1787. It has not changed today” (Fisher, 1995: 37).

[6] These secondary forces came from Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, which acted immediately, and France, Canada, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, Greece, Netherlands, Colombia, Ethiopia, Philippines, Belgium and Luxemburg, which joined afterwards. Furthermore, whereas these countries provided land, sea and air aid, a tertiary aid level, in this case humanitarian, came from India, Denmark, and thirty-eight countries more. It is remarkable to point out the refusal of Taiwan’s will to join the war by US authorities, since that, as was perceived, could precipitate China’s meddling, and also because there was no trust in Chiang Kai-shek forces after his defeat against the communists (García and Pareja, 2008: 21).

[7] As Hao and Zhai (1990: 114-115) point out, “ideology played an important but not an absolute role in Mao's decision, contrary to the views of most western historians over the past three decades”. Reasons “were primarily security concerns” as the UN mission “crossed the 38th parallel and marched towards the Yalu river”.

[8] As Dingman (1988: 89) notes: “that state of affairs encapsulated one important truth, namely, that Washington never came close to tactical use of the atomic bomb in Korea. But it obscured another equally vital one: American statesmen repeatedly attempted to use nuclear weapons as tools with which to manage the politics and diplomacy of the war”.

[9] Stanley (2009: 79-80) sheds light on this issue adding three reasons caused by the entrenched war that postponed the end of the hostilities: “a preference obstacle occurs in situations when belligerents’ leaders do not want to end the war—as Stalin’s ability to push costs onto his allies while drawing abundant benefits demonstrates. An information obstacle occurs in situations when belligerents’ leaders do not know they should end the war—as US decisions about voluntary prisoners of war repatriation show. An entrapment obstacle occurs in situations when belligerents’ leaders want to end the war but cannot—as China’s experience with Stalin suggests”.