Americans Before The Korean War

Korea is called “The Land of the Morning Calm” but Korea lacks the peace that this name implies. The peace of Korea is constantly threatened by the rivalry of the countries that surround it and in particular, the country of Japan (Stokesbury 19). In 1910, Japan made Korea it's colony and oppressed the Korean people. While being oppressed by Japan, the Koreans were treated harshly and were discriminated racially (Halliday and Cumings 15). This oppression ended when the Soviets and Americans stepped in and liberated the little country of Korea in 1945. When the Soviets and Americans entered Korea, it brought the conditions leading up to the Korean War. After liberating Korea, the Soviets entered Korea from the north and in reply, the Americans

In these battles, it was not just the North Koreans who initiated the violence but it was also occasionally the South Koreans who initiated. After a year of small battles, North Korea fully invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. This is the day the Korean War began and the United State's fight against Communism continued (Nishi 12). The North Koreans entered the South supplied with 90,000 men (Nishi 19) and heavy tanks. There was about 50 tanks when they attacked (Halliday and Cumings 73) but the South Koreans had no tanks nor did they have anything to stop the North Korean tanks (Stokesbury 14). The North Koreans were able to take the town of Kaesong and three days later the city of Seoul fell. After they took the city of Seoul, they captured the city of Taejon. North Korea claimed that they did not initiate the attacks but that South Korea did. Although North Korea put the blame on the South, the South claimed that they were only countering the North's attacks (Halliday and Cumings 71). According to Kim Il Sung, Syngman Rhee sought to start a civil war and he used this to back up his reason for why the North did not start the war unprovoked. He used Rhee's threats as an excuse to attack the South (Clare). Even though Kim Il Sung claimed this, evidence seemed to point toward an unprovoked attack as it seemed that North

With both sides fighting for their respective government systems, Korea became a pawn in a war bigger than itself (Nishi 13). This was not just a local issue but a global issue (MacArthur 84) and not just Korea's battle but the free world's battle (Pyun 73-74). The United States needed to put an end to the Communist Global Conquest for freedom's sake. Communism was not just a threat to Korea but to the whole world. According to Y.T Pyun, the war would have sprung up somewhere else if it did not start in Korea (73); therefore, the free world needed to work together in order to keep Communism from spreading to their part of the world. Russia wanted to grow Communism (Clare) but the United States was not going to let that happen. The war in Korea seemed to be the beginning of a Soviet plan to dominate all of Asia and ultimately dominate Europe, and this was a major threat to the free world. Harry S. Truman said that “Korea was part of a greater plan for conquering all of Asia” (93). To put an end to this plan it had to be stopped in Korea (Truman 94). If communism spread globally, this would be very detrimental to our