Essay On The Korean War

2964 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Communism in China

At the end of the catastrophic World War II on October 24, 1945, fifty-one nations gathered to officially form the United Nations, an organization that promoted peace and security for all of its members. Despite the success of establishing a worldwide peace-keeping force, tensions were high between the powers of the Western Bloc (the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact). Ironically, a mere five years after the formation of the UN, the first major outbreak in the Cold War occurred: the Korean War. The effects of the Korean War would not only forever change the state of North and South Korea, but also have a significant effect on all the other nations involved in the Korean War. A few years before the conflict in Korea, US President Truman set forth an international policy known as the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine stated that the United States would aid countries that were fighting communist takeover. Combined with the ideological differences between the US and the USSR, the Soviet Union’s development of an atomic bomb pushed tensions past the breaking point, moving both countries into an arms race during which each attempted to amass more weapons than the other nation. Around the same time, over in Asia, the Communist Party banished Chinese Nationalists, the local democratic party, and began taking hold under Mao Zedong. This sparked fear within the Americans, for China was a large, influential country in Asia; Americans began to believe that China’s communistic society would influence its smaller surrounding countries to adopt communism as well. That series of events, along with the perceived threat of communism spreading, led to a tim... ... middle of paper ... ...nt that democracy and communism could not cooperate with one another as shown in the United Nations Security Council after the Soviet Union boycott. UN initiatives often faced a stalemate, as the Soviet Union would many times prove difficult to the other members of the Security Council because its representative would constantly veto acts that favored democracy at the expense of communism, while other powers such as the United States would veto and shut down any proposals that benefited communism. The Korean War proved that democracy and communism could and would not get along, adding fuel to the imminent Cold War. What started as a civil war in a small Asian country quickly erupted into an international division between opposing powers backed by incompatible political systems. The Korean War has left its mark on surviving Koreans as well as others around the world.

Show More
Related

  • Cold War Dbq Essay

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the biggest fears of the American people is that the concept of communism contrasts drastically from the concept of capitalism, which the United States was essentially founded upon. The United States, as the public believed, was not a land of perfect communal equality, but rather a land of equal opportunity. However, what made communism so dangerous can be succinctly described by Eisenhower who compared the spread of communism as the domino effect. As his secretary of state, Dulles, put it, the propagation of communism “would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and independence” of America (Doc B). In addition, the Cold War also planted the seeds of rational fear of a global nuclear war. As Russia caught up to the United States in terms of technological advancements, they successfully developed the atomic bomb as well as the hydrogen bomb, which caused Americans to believe that the USSR would use these weapons of mass destruction to forcefully extend their ideologies to the USA. In fact, Americans were so frantic about a potential nuclear disaster that it...

    Read More

  • Was President Truman Responsible for the Cold War?

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Soviet Union began to view the United States as a threat to communism, and the United States began to view the Soviet Union as a threat to democracy. On March 12, 1947, Truman gave a speech in which he argued that the United States should support nations trying to resist Soviet imperialism. Truman and his advisors created a foreign policy that consisted of giving reconstruction aid to Europe, and preventing Russian expansionism. These foreign policy decisions, as well as his involvement in the usage of the atomic bomb, raise the question of whether or not the Cold War can be blamed on Truman. Supporting the view that Truman was responsible for the Cold War, Arnold Offner argues that Truman’s parochialism and nationalism caused him to make contrary foreign policy decisions without regard to other nations, which caused the intense standoff between the Soviet Union and America that became the Cold War (Offner 291)....

    Read More

  • The Effects Of The Korean Armistice Agreement

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    During 1950 there was much opposition to the thought of ending the Korean War. While the United States of America and the United Nations Command sought out to peacefully end the war, both North Korea and South Korea were hell-bent towards unifying the Korean peninsula in their own image. While at this time South Korea, was an ally of

    Read More

  • How Did Canada's Involvement In The Korean War

    586 Words  | 2 Pages

    For nearly a century before World War II, Korea had been ruled by the Japanese or the Chinese. When Japan’s empire has fallen after the war, the Soviet Union and the United States occupied Korea, The Soviet Union occupied the northern half of Korea and installed a communist government. Meanwhile the United States occupied the southern part of 38th parallel (an invisible line that divides Korea into almost equal halves). While the Soviet Union wanted all Korean to be united under single communist government, the Americans wanted free election for the south. By 1950, Kim IL Sung, leader of North Korean, had laid claim to the entire country and desired to invade South Korea. However The Soviet Union did not want to clash directly with the United States. Instead they supported and supplied North Korea with weapons and armories to have them fight for the Union in a “proxy war”. The United Nations decided to respond to the North Korean invasion. Led by the United States, the UN Security Council invited 21 UN members to send troops to Korea under the command of General Douglas MacArthur to restore the southern part of Korea.

    Read More

  • Why Did American Respond To The Events In Korea Essay

    455 Words  | 1 Pages

    He gained permission to attack them without them knowing, while others still fought in the front line

    Read More

  • Communism Dbq Essay

    1365 Words  | 3 Pages

    President Truman distinguished his policy of dismantling communism, not through military means, but through the form of economic aid to countries under communist threat (Document B). However, while Truman may have preached universal funding for nations in need, American financial commitments exemplify otherwise. Between 1948- 1952, American provided billions in assistance to traditional allies, including the United Kingdom and France; conversely, many weaker nations received a fraction of the funding allocated to America’s closest allies (Document C). The hypocrisy of the United States, coupled with underfunding, were indicative of a failed strategy to contain the future spread of communism. First, the basic issue here is the lack of funding provided to countries who desperately needed U.S. aid. By providing minuscule amounts of funding, democratic countries were destined for failure. Without the economic aid of the United States, countries would continue to fall to the sheer enormity of the communist movement. Therefore, the misallocation of funds was a fundamental misstep of the government in their efforts to combat communism. Secondly, the United States was portrayed as a betrayer across the globe. Publically, the leader of the United States promised money to countries combatting communist insurgencies; however,

    Read More

  • Cold War Dbq

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to history, there was a conflict that nearly put us to the communist rule, which was titled the “Cold War.” It occurred in the mid-twentieth century in an attempt for the Soviet Union to overthrow most of the countries with their ideology. Significantly, Cuba was the location where the conflict nearly brought the world to a nuclear war. Korea was one of the countries besides Vietnam that were split by two different powers. The USSR was motivated to expand their sphere of influence due to the independence from oppression, according to Karl Marx’s ideology. The first reason was victimization on Korea in the Cold War; separating communist north from democratic south. The second reason is that Cuba formed alliance with the Soviet Union

    Read More

  • Anti Colonialism In The Third World

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    China tried to be the leader in the Third World and its intents of acting resonate with the Third-worldism. In 1950, at the beginning of the Cold War, Mao decided to support Soviet Union and joined the North Korean War to clarify and emphasize the anti-imperialism stand, and the defeat of US prepared China to get the leader position in the Third World. In addition, the anti-imperialism claim resonates with the defeating imperialism part of the Third-worldism, and the overlapping made China easier to get trust among countries in the Third World. As time went by in 1950s, Mao’s attitude toward Soviet Union changed from supporting to being suspicious and admiring less. Even though Soviet Union helped China with industrialization and economic development, such as the five-year plan in the early 1950s, Mao began to worry about Chinese political

    Read More

  • Korean War Veterans Memorial Essay

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    Korean War Veterans memorial can be seen in Washington D.C and is located in Potomac Park which is near other landmarks such as the Lincoln memorial and the reflecting pool by the national mall. This amazing memorial commemorates and preserves the memory of those who bravely served in the Korean War. The original team of architects from Pennsylvania state university who had won the initial design/concept competition later chose to disband because several changes would have had to been made that not only pleased the advisory board but the agency of the commission of fine arts as well. A court case on the federal level was filed and lost concerning some of the changes that were to be made to the memorial site. The design that is well known today is the work of talented Cooper-Lecky architects who also collaborated with many other designers. The start of construction was put underway by President George W. H. Bush on June 14th 1992 also known as flag day and was finished on July 27th 1995 which also happened to be the 42nd anniversary of the armistice that ended the

    Read More

  • Korean War Research Paper

    1624 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Korean War is the unfortunate by-product of international conflict, concentrated across a peninsula arbitrarily divided by outside interests. Following Japanese occupation, the 38th parallel decision was orchestrated by the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR), in an effort to curtail the influence of the other in that region. Though Allied leaders, in partnership with the USSR espoused Korean independence, that vague statement found little form until the Moscow Agreement in 1945. The agreement enacted a joint US-Soviet Commission designed to organize a provisional government, and was supported by a United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution in 1947, that provided for UN oversight of the process. These efforts never found

    Read More

  • United Nations And The League Of Nations

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    After the conclusion of the Second World War, the United Nations (UN) replaced the ineffective League of Nations and its job was to protect humans rights and prevent future wars like World War 2. The “Big Three” — who were US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union— held a meeting in the soviet city of Yalta to discuss terms for the up coming peace treaty, which included talks about a “world organization.” “This organization— which Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin said was essential ‘to prevent aggression and to remove political, economic, and social causes of war through close and continuing collaboration of all peace-loving peoples’ — was to be called the United Nations (Patterson 7).” The United Nations is one of the first steps towards the idea of globalization. That the entire world is beginning to connect on social, political, and economic levels and now with the United Nations this process directly connects with the governments involved in the UN to help countries in social, economic, and/or political turmoil.

    Read More

  • The Kim Dynasty Of North Korea

    2780 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...tein). The extensive members of the United Nations essentially put North Korea against the world. The result is to increase the isolation and poverty that began when Kim Il-Sung took leadership over North Korea.

    Read More

  • Comparing The United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

    1055 Words  | 3 Pages

    UN and NATO were both formed after major crises in the world. UN was being formed during and after WWII. In 1944 reps of china, the UK, US, and USSR met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. to plan the peacekeeping Organization. The forming of NATO began years after WWII. Many western leaders saw policies of USSR as threatening. The Berlin blockaid that began in March 1948 led to negotiations between Europe, Canada, and US that resulted in NATO.

    Read More

  • Korean War

    1438 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Korean War was the first war in which the United Nations played a major role in. It was also part of the cold war between the US and Soviet Union. One of the deadliest war in history, it took many lives in such a short span of time of three years. Even after all these deaths, the conflict isn't completely resolved in Korea. There are still American troops stationed in South Korea, in case the Communists decide to take aggressive action.

    Read More

  • Korean War Case Study

    1847 Words  | 4 Pages

    Historically, the Korean War played a tremendous role in both North and South Korean societies. The Korean War was simply a victim of the rivalry between the Communism and the Capitalism. North Korea followed the communist beliefs, while the South Korea was backed up by the United States and its allies. The result of this war was deleterious, over 5 million people were killed from both sides. (Stueck, 1997). After experiencing a huge amount of loss both economically and socially, the Korean peninsula still remains divided. In other words, Korean people have experienced extreme tragedy for nothing in return. Visibly, the two Korean states have now a miniature intention to get into Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID). Accordingly, a realist

    Read More

More about Essay On The Korean War

Open Document