Korea's Motivation In The Cold War

Abdul Ly

Hist 020w

Essay 2 Revision In the Korean war documents, and the Nsc report to the president reading, the major superpowers: United States and The Soviet Union outline their primary motivations in Korea. These superpower's motivations lie, respectively, in seeking to avoid a direct confrontation with one another while covertly suppressing the geopolitical influence one another in the explicit policies of containment, on part of the U.S, and the prevention of capitalist encirclement on part of the Soviet Union. Based in a heated transnational competition, that was the cold war. The primary motivation of the competition was the proliferation and maintenance of international, geopolitical prestige .This prestige is the basis of international

A crucial subtext to the Ns.c document's is the maintenance of the u.n' s prestige. The ability of the U.n was founded on trust between allies and thus protecting their allies in south Korea was vital to the trust and prestige of the U.N. Allowing Korea to fall to communism would leave the u.n's ability to protect its allies in question. Moreover it would specifically advance claims of soviet superiority , leaving a detrimental blow to the interests of containment and international prestige. "The extension of Soviet control over all Korea would enhance the political and strategic position of the Soviet union. And adversely affect the position of the U.S in those areas. "a vital component to containment was enabling South Korea strong enough to fight off it's enemies "unless the U.S upon withdrawal left significant indigenous military strength to enable South Korea to defend itself against any but overt act of aggression , U.S withdrawl could be interpreted as a betrayal of the u.s to it's friends and allies and may well lead to the realignment of forces in favor of the soviet union throughout that part of the world . " Evidently the blow to the u.n's prestige and the threat of soviet's expanding their sphere of influence was a possibility unfavorable enough for the u.s to back south Korea, only enough to

It is important to know that in this post war cold war atmosphere , the superpowers sought to avoid direct confrontation at all costs, as this would implicitly ensure to nuclear warfare . While superficially the Soviet Union was concerned with suppressing the global influence of the U.s and subverting capitalism they claimed was synonymous with imperialism this did not encapsulate the extent of the Soviet union's motivations. The Soviet Union sought to expand its sphere of influence and allies, while also working to protect the interest of their existing alliances. One notable example of competition with the u.s was the soviet Union's rhetoric of preventing capitalist encirclement. Thus the U.S.S. R's motivation in Korea was to expand it's ally base while undermining the U.S without enabling a direct confrontation that could start an international