The Cold War began in earnest soon after the conclusion of World War II. Increased global instability, caused in part by a distinct shift to bipolarity due to the emergence of the Soviet Union and The United States as the two major global actors. The Soviet Union, the United States, and their respective allies began leveraging the international theater to expand their spheres of influence by building alliances and creating organizations for economic and securitization. With increased communist influence from the Soviet Union and China on the Korean peninsula, President Truman and American policy makers began to shift their strategic vision through implementation of the Truman doctrine, which, succinctly, “pledged aid to governments threatened …show more content…
Eventually however, the United States deferred to the United Nations who began to play a significant role in the future Korea, primarily because the United States, the Soviet Union, and China could not agree on a satisfactory solution to the issue that fit their agendas. For several months, there was some disagreement between America and Russia about the best path to take. Finally, on November 14th the American proposal was accepted: a Korean election would take place, supervised by the UN, after which Korea would be given its independence and all foreign forces would withdraw from the peninsular.
The Soviet Union abstained, and North Korea explicitly disagreed with the course of action unanimously voted for in the General Assembly. Consequently, within one year, South Korean provisional government created the Republic of South Korea (ROK) under the unpopular but U.S. favored Syngman Rhee, who “quickly established a ruthless dictatorship, dismissing all ministers who revealed evidence of independence of thought, and taking direct personal command of the police force.” In the north, in
September of 1948, Kim Il Sung headed the newly created Democratic People's Republic of Korea