Korea

Question 1

What was the background of the Korean War in Asia?

Answer 1

• -Korea: Japanese colony since 1910
• -Divided at 38th parallel between USSR and US
• -US went ahead with elections: established Independent Republic of Korea
• -USSR did not: established DPRK
• -1949: China turns communist
• -Koreans resent division of country by outsiders
• -Syngman Rhee and Kim Il Sung claimed right to rule whole country

Question 2

What was the background of the Korean War in America?

Answer 2

• -Internationalism
• -Test of policy of containment
• -McCarthyism
• -Truman accused of losing China with weak policies
• -Russia had atomic bomb
• -NSC memo talking about the need to build up American defences/nuclear forces
• -Military-industrial complex
• -Development of H-bomb
• -US prepared to meet force with force

Question 3

What was Russia’s involvement in Korea?

Answer 3

• -Stalin equipped the NK army with fighters and tanks
• -Exploded the atomic bomb
• -Approved of the invasion
• -Soviet expansionism threatened USA
• -Communist victory would strengthen Russia’s position in the Pacific

Question 4

What started the Korean War?

Answer 4

• -1950: NK attacks, drives SK into one corner of the peninsula
• -Unprovoked attack
• -USA believed USSR was behind the attack
• -Truman bypassed Congress
• -Committed US in the name of the UN; got UN backing because USSR was absent over failure to recognise China

Question 5

Why did America intervene?

Answer 5

• -Unprovoked attack
• -Domino theory
• -Believed the USSR was behind the attack
• -Japan: vital to the USA, sent supplied through it, top 5 economy, Capitalist stronghold: if Korea fell Japan could too
• -Policy of containment; McCarthyism etc

Question 6

What happened during the conflict?

Answer 6

• -UN troops land at Inchon
• -Push NK back beyond 38th parallel
• -MacArthur invades NK, pushes them back to Yalu river - beyond UN mandate
• -China attack with 300,000 troops
• -NK drive USA back past Seoul
• -MacArthur publicly criticises Truman, advocates nukes, replaced with Ridgeway
• -Fighting drags on for two years
• -US bomb NK
• -Trench warfare

Question 7

How did the Korean war end?

Answer 7

• -November 1951: start of peace talks
• -Eisenhower threatens China with use of nuclear bombs
• -Stalin dies: 1953
• -Truman doesn’t stand for re-election
• -Armistice truce signed: July 27 1953
• -DMZ created across 38th parallel
• -DPRK and Republic of Korea created

Question 8

What were the consequences of the Korean war?

Answer 8

• -Death and destruction
• -Total death toll: 255,000
• -American soldiers: 50,000
• -Cost of the war: $20 billion
• -Rise in defence spending: $14 billion - $44 billion
• -Cold war becomes global
• -Truman doesn’t stand for election
• -End of the war makes Eisenhower very popular

Question 9

What effects did the Korean war have on US foreign policy?

Answer 9

• -Victory for policy of containment
• -Began contributing to French defence of Vietnam
• -Rise in defence spending
• -Strengthened Western Europe
• -West Germany allowed to rearm, joins NATO in 1955
• -Worsened relations with China
• -Tied US to hateful regimes in Taiwan and China
• ANZAC and SEATO

Question 10

What were US successes in the Korean War?

Answer 10

• -Achieved objective of containment
• -Drove a wedge between USSR and China: USSR didn’t send military aid until autumn 1951 and demanded payment
• -UN solidarity against Communism

Question 11

What were US failures in the Korean War?

Answer 11

• -NK has been a problem ever since
• -50,000 US dead
• -Communist China showed it was a great power
• -USSR and China learnt not to give USA a moral justification and to fight them indirectly: Vietnam
• -The USA learnt the wrong lesson: Thought it could successfully defend an unpopular and incompetent anti-Communist regime at tolerable cost and its superior firepower would always defeat an Asian enemy – showed them up in Vietnam