The Widening of the Cold War, 1949–1955: The Korean War - Impacts of the Korean War

Question 1

What impacts did the Korean War have on South Korea and North Korea?

Answer 1

• Long-term security protected
• No further warfare on Korean peninsula from Panmunjom Armistice Agreement
• Uneasy stability
• Between 3-4 million civilians killed
• NK fell behind SK economically
• US troops remained, causing tension between 2 states

Question 2

What impacts did the Korean War have on the USA?

Answer 2

• Strengthened arguments of US NSC that communism was a global threat
• Truman accepts NSC’s rearmament programme and triples US military budget as part of NSC-68
• Became basis of US foreign policy for next 20 years
• 50,000 US troops killed

Question 3

What impacts did the Korean War have on the PRC?

Answer 3

• Mao used Korean War to raise support for revolutionary change within PRC and encourage antagonism towards Americans
• Agricultural land was distributed to peasants and landlord class was eliminated - ending economic and social system thousands of years old
• PRC victories in Korea were promoted as avenging China from defeat from Europeans and Japanese - strengthening Mao’s government
• Likelihood of Taiwan being absorbed lessened - long-term security of Taiwan guaranteed by USA

Question 4

What impacts did the Korean War have on Sino-Soviet relations?

Answer 4

• Raised tensions from disagreements over who should pay for supplies and damages
• The Chinese came to feel that the Soviet Union was both an unreliable and demanding ally and took greater steps to ensure independence from the USSR in the years following the war
• USSR demanded cheap raw materials in return for signing Sino-Soviet Pact
• Made PRC pay excessive sums for military supplies

Question 5

What impacts did the Korean War have on the UN?

Answer 5

• Became involved in the Cold War

• Introduction of ‘Uniting For Peace’

• USSR stopped boycott during Korean War to block UNSC initiatives
• US introduced ‘Uniting for Peace’ - if action is vetoed and is needed to preserve peace, the General Assembly will take over to carry out the peace
• USSR unhappy

• US dominated UN
- Nearly 90% of all army personnel, 93% of all air power and 86% of all naval power for the Korean War had come from America