History and Results of the Korean War
The Korean War is often referred to by historians as the 'forgotten war'. One of the reasons for this is because the war took place less than five years after the end of World War II. The Korean War which began on June 25, 1950 "... was often and perhaps unavoidably compared with and subsumed by the myth and memory of the Second World War. " (Pierpaoli 92) The historical antecedents of the Korean War, particularly in terms of political and ideological thinking in relation to the Second World War and the advent of the Cold War, are made clear in the following quotation. ... the Korean conflict seemed to have emerged like an unwanted mutation from a linear, Darwinian-like process that seamlessly linked World War II with the Cold War and its early evolutionary process. Thus, from the start, the Korean War became a prisoner of the rigid mentality and ideology of the early Cold War. It is therefore important to realize that the reasons for the Korean War must be understood against the historical and political background of the region after the Second World War. Korea had won its independence after the Second World War but was partitioned between Russia in the north an
The root causes of the tension between North and South Korea was not resolved. One estimate was that that, "Half of Korea's industry and a third of all homes were destroyed. Therefore the basis of the conflict between North and South Korea should, in the first instance, take cognizance of the simmering conflict and mistrust between the United States and Russia in the era after the Second World War. "One of the significant results of the Korean War was that it gave the US reason to increase its military expenditure four-fold. "MacArthur and his staff didn't believe it, even though we captured prisoners who said it was true. Numerous efforts were made to normalize the conflict and tension in the region. To a large extent the invasion from North Korea was a shock to the American Government and it caused a radical shift in their foreign policy. " (Outcome of the Korean War ) In reality the Korean War never came to an end in legal terms. This was due to the fact that the Russia had entered into the Second World War against Japan shortly before the Japanese surrendered. The Russians in the north and the Americans in the south both installed political leaders who reflected their respective political and social viewpoints. In 1949, Kim II Sung visited Stalin. The invasion of South Korea and the start of the war saw large differences in term of military strength between the two sides. At the same time the the United States also began enhancing the South Korean forces. " The communists quickly recaptured Seoul.
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