 The victory of Allied in WWII (1945)

 US + Soviet Union agreed to occupy the

country as a trusteeship with the zone
demarcated along the 38th parallel.
 After the war, the USSR began to pursue
communism, which the US saw as a threat to
freedom because of the Communist
Manifesto. Because Korea was divided,
America felt that there should be an election
to see which form of government the people
of Korea wanted, so that it could be reunited
again.
 No agreement reached on how to resolve the
issue of divided Korea.
◦ Fall of 1947: US brought this problem to United
Nations
 Nov. 14, 1947: UN passed a resolution
◦ free elections should be held,
◦ foreign troops should be withdrawn, and
◦ an UN commission for Korea (United Nations
Temporary Commission on Korea) should be
created.
 Reaction of Soviet Union:
◦ Boycotted the UN-supervised election in the south
◦ No UN supervision of election held in the north
 May 10,1948: the south held a general election.
◦ Syngman Rhee was elected as president
◦ August 15,1948: the Republic of Korea was established.
• Sept 19, 1948: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
was declared in which Kim Il-sung appointed as prime
minister
 As a result, a Communist state was permanently
established under Soviet in the north and a pro-
Western state was set up in the south.
 The two superpowers backed different leaders
and two states were effectively established, each
of which claimed sovereignty over the whole
Korean peninsula.
 Immediate cause:
◦ 1950, Syngman Rhee boasted that he was going to
attack North Korea. It was a good enough excuse –
the North Koreans invaded South Korea.
◦ April 1950, Kim Il-sung travelled to Moscow and
secured Stalin's support for a policy to unify Korea
under his authority
◦ North Korea started the Korean War invoking the
nationalistic slogan of liberating the Korean people
from the U. S. colonialism and imperialism.
 Underlying Cause:
◦ It was just another episode in the ongoing Cold War
between the US and the USSR
 The US went to war in Korea for three
reasons:
◦ The ‘Domino Theory’.
◦ To try to undermine Communism.
◦ Competition with the USSR for world domination.
 The Soviet Union reason:
◦ To expand Communism
◦ To prevent the Chinese leader (Mao) from
establishing relations with the US

 The PRC reason:

◦ As an act of self-defense
 The armistice of 27 July 1953 ended the
fighting in Korea. The armistice was a
temporary cease-fire and not a treaty of
peace. It reflected the realization by all the
involved parties that neither side had either
the means or the will to compel the other to
submit to its political agenda. The conflict
has remained, despite border clashes and
sporadic incidents, for more than half a
century.
 Casualties:
◦ In the three years of fighting 1,263 men of the
Commonwealth forces were killed and a further
4,817 were wounded, while the United States lost
33,000 men. Australian casualties numbered more
than 1,500, of whom 339 were killed. Almost half a
million South Koreans died as a result of the
war, and an unknown number of North Koreans and
Chinese.
 Korean:
◦ The country was totally gone after long period of
war as image below. The effects of Korean war has
divided Korea into North Korea and South Korea.
Many Korean families were split with relatives on
either sides of the border due to different kind of
thoughts, either communism or non-communism.
There were several casualties on both sides though
the exact figure may never be known.
◦ Today, South Korea has become a major economic
and technological power. North Korea is still a
poverty-stricken, heavily militarized nation.
 Soviet Union:
◦ They had actually suffered a net loss of 1,500
square miles of territory as the price of their
aggression.
◦ The Communists had successfully prevented UN
attempts to liberate the North,.
 China:
 The conflict had propelled the People's
Republic of China to a place of prominence
on the world stage
 Develop feeling of enmity between China and
the United States that last for decades
 US:
◦ This war created a fear in the United States of the
‘domino effects’ of communism. The United States
intervened in Vietnam to avoid another North
Korea.
◦ The war demonstrated the will of the United States
to do everything possible to prevent the
proliferation of communism.
◦ United States had rearmed and become a world
power