Why Study the Korean War?

Table of Contents

OAH Magazine of History
Volume 14, No 3
Spring 2000

Spencer C. Tucker

The Korean War erupted fifty years ago. A seminal event in world history, it has for too long been overshadowed on the one side by the triumphant Allied victory in World War II and on the other by the tragedy of the Vietnam War. The Korean War was actually a turning point in twentieth-century history and is clearly deserving of continued study. The first shooting confrontation of the Cold War and the first limited war in the nuclear age, it was also the only time since the Second World War that two of the world's major military powers, the United States and China, have fought one another. Diplomatically, the war is interesting for the miscalculations and ineptitude on both sides that led up to it. The first United Nations war, it also saw the use of prisoners as diplomatic pawns.

The Korean War had a profound impact on the countries involved. For Koreans it brought catastrophic civilian and military casualties, and widespread damage. It also hardened the continued division of their country by adding to the existing enmity between the two Korean states.

One of America's least understood wars, it nonetheless marked an important transition to the Cold War national security state. Previously America had radically disarmed after every war. World War II was no exception, and the United States was thus woefully unprepared to fight even a limited war on the Korean peninsula against a second-rate military power. The war was a powerful factor in the rearmament of the United States. Soon the defense budget had quadrupled, and the United States emerged with the most powerful military in the world, a state of affairs that continues to the present. Domestically, the war speeded up the racial integration of the armed forces, which in turn greatly accelerated the later civil rights movement.

Diplomatically, the war solidified the role of the United States as the world's police officer, and the country's relationship with its West European allies and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) underwent fundamental change. The war facilitated the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany, for a divided Germany seemed to many observers all too reminiscent of Korea before the Communist invasion. The conflict also stiffened U.S. attitudes toward the People's Republic of China and toward perceived domestic leftism. In addition, the United States changed its position regarding aid to the French in their war in Indochina.

Militarily, the Korean War is worth studying for its two-phase nature of maneuver and stalemate, and for the restrictions placed on its conduct by political leaders on both sides, a process that would be repeated in Vietnam. The war saw many military innovations. The helicopter established its potential in reconnaissance, evacuation, resupply, and rescue work; and jet aircraft entered battle against each other for the first time in history. But it also served as a reminder that air power alone cannot bring about final decisions in warfare. It again showed the importance of command of the sea, especially in resupply from Japan; and it saw considerable advances in the treatment of wounded.

Certainly the Korean War cast a long shadow. During the later Vietnam War, planners in Washington were haunted by fears of Chinese military intervention based on misconceptions born in the Korean War of that nation's military power. And Japan's emergence as a world economic power has roots in the conflict.

Strangely, in the United States the Korean War soon came to be known as the "Forgotten War." World War II veterans were honored while Korean veterans never received the measure of praise they too deserved (although they fared better than veterans of the Vietnam fighting). Indicative of the American desire to forget was the fact that the Korean War did not have a war memorial in Washington until 1995.

Technically, the Korean War continues today, as only an armistice agreement halted the fighting in 1953. The Korean peninsula remains one of the world's most dangerous flash points, and the West knows less about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) than about any other nation on earth. The intentions and behavior of its leaders remain shrouded in mystery. To maintain the uneasy armistice, some 37,000 U.S. troops remain in the Republic of Korea. A solution to the Korean problem seems as far off as ever.

Essays in this issue address a variety of aspects pertaining to the war. Stanley Sandler deals with the historiography of the war, including the latest books on the subject. Priscilla Roberts covers the factors prompting the war, the positions of the powers involved, and the impact of the conflict on international diplomacy. Paul Pierpaoli addresses the conflict's impact on the United States and points out how it had greater domestic influence than the later Vietnam War. Mark O'Neill makes use of new archival information to examine Soviet involvement in Korea, specifically the actions of Soviet fighter pilots. Donald Boose discusses the sticking points and tedious course of negotiations leading to the July 1953 armistice. Elizabeth Schafer provides one lesson plan on the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea, and another on the U.S. homefront, with a guide to Internet sources. Michael Nichols's classroom exercise utilizes four documents on Chinese involvement in the war. Together these articles offer a fresh perspective of the war, fifty years after it began.

Spencer C. Tucker holds the John Biggs Chair of Military History at the Virginia Military Institute. He has published twelve books on military and naval history, the most recent of which is the three-volume Encyclopedia of the Korean War, to be published this spring by ABC-CLIO.