William Stueck - The Korean War: An International History

PRINCETON STUDIES IN

INTERNATIONAL HISTORY AND POLITICS

Series Editors

John Lewis Gaddis

Jack L. Snyder

Richard H. Ullman

__________________________

History and Strategy by Marc Trachtenberg (1991)

George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy,
19471950 by Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C (1992)

Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange:

World Political Economy in the 1930s and 1980s

by Kenneth A. Oye (1992)

Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Latin America and the
Caribbean by Robert A. Pastor (1992)

Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification
by A. James McAdams (1993)

A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the
Gaulist Legacy by Philip H. Gordon (1993)

The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear
Weapons by Scott D. Sagan (1993)

Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and

Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe

by Janice E. Thomson (1994)

We All Lost the Cold War by Richard Ned Lebow and
Janice Gross Stein (1994)

Who Adjusts? Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy
during the Interwar Years by Beth A. Simmons (1994)

Americas Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle

for Democracy in the Twentieth Century

by Tony Smith (1994)

The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An Analysis of
Systems Change by Hendrik Spruyt (1994)

Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on
U.S. Foreign Policy by Thomas Risse-Kappen (1995)

The Korean War: An International History by William Stueck (1995)

The Korean War

AN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright 1995 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stueck, William Whitney, 1945

The Korean war : an international history / William Stueck

p. cm. (Princeton studies in international history and politics)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN 1-4008-0786-7

1. Korean War, 19501953. 2. Korean War, 19501953Diplomatic
history. I. Title. II. Series.

DS918.S819 1995 951.9042dc20 94-46286 CIP

This book has been composed in Times Roman

FOR PAT

LIST OF MAPS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IT IS A great pleasure to acknowledge the assistance I have received from individuals and institutions. The Harry S. Truman Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities provided major grants for travel and release time from teaching. The Humanities Center at the University of Georgia funded me through a quarter off from teaching. The American Council for Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, and the History Department and Research Foundation at the University of Georgia all provided funding for travel. Given the magnitude of the research involved in this study, there is simply no way I could have done without the support of the above institutions.

The staffs of numerous libraries offered essential assistance in my efforts to exploit their holdings, in some cases greatly expediting the declassification review process of key documents. In particular I would like to thank Kathy Nicastro and Sally Marks of the Diplomatic Branch of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; Dennis Bilger, Elizabeth Safly, and Edwin Mueller of the Harry S. Truman Library; Marilla B. Guptil of the United Nations Archives; Dacre Cole of the Historical Office of the Department of External Affairs of Canada; Fe Angela Manansalu of the Jose Laurel Memorial Library in Manila; and the entire staff of the Australian National Archives in Dickson, Australia.

Numerous scholars have facilitated my work. In particular, Zhai Qiang, Chen Jian, and Zhang Shuguang assisted me in developing the Chinese side of my story. Zhai translated numerous Chinese documents,. Lewis Bateman of the University of North Carolina Press was patient and supportive at every stage of the books development.

My typist, Bonnie Cary, has patiently and proficiently typed my many drafts, always going the extra mile in accommodating my schedule. Research assistants Leann Grabavoy Almquist and Guo Xixiao have provided timely support in looking up sources. Ms. Guo also helped in converting Chinese names into their modern English-language form and in updating my computer skills. Rita Bernhard did a superb job of copyediting.

Imprint Publications readily granted permission to use portions of an essay I had published previously in their volume A Revolutionary War, and the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont-McKenna College did the same for my essay in their The Korean War: 40-Year Perspectives.

Finally, I want to thank my wife, Pat, who tolerated firstmy absence on many lengthy research trips and then my frequent inattention through many years of writing and rewriting. She, more than any other person, made it possible to complete this work through her faith and support.

The Korean War

INTRODUCTION

THE COLD WAR has ended and World War III seems more remote than ever. In looking back over the two generations of intense competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, however, one might easily wonder why another global confrontation did not occur. From the late 1940s to the late 1980s millions of people on both sides lived in constant fear of such an event. These fears were never more intense or widespread over a sustained period than during the Korean War. Though limited in geographical scope to a small Asian country and beginning as a struggle between armies of Koreans, the conflict eventually included combatants representing twenty different governments from six continents. Of the estimated casualties to military personnel, more than half were non-Korean. The war rendered terrible destruction to indigenous peoples and failed to resolve the political division of the country, which remains a source of tension and danger to the present day. Yet it contributed significantly to the evolution of an order that escaped the ultimate horror of a direct clash of superpowers. In its timing, its course, and its outcome, the Korean War served in many ways as a substitute for World War III.

This book addresses the international dimensions of the Korean War, first, through a detailed narrative of its diplomacy and, second, by analyzing its impact on global politics. To the extent that these two purposes can be accomplished through a chronological narrative, they are integrated into the body of the book. When not, the broader effects of the war receive treatment in this introduction and in a concluding chapter.

Several interlocking themes run through the narrative. Most basic is the multilateral nature of the war, both in its origins and its course. The war originated in 1945 with the division of the peninsula into occupation zones by the Soviet Union and the United States, and the perpetuation of that division as a result of the two nations subsequent failure to agree on terms for unification. The competition that developed between the two powers led to the polarization of Korean politics and the division of the country into two hostile regimes. Meanwhile, the Communists marched to victory in a civil war in neighboring China, and the Soviet-supported North Korean leader, Kim Ilsung, used that conflict as a training ground for an army. With Moscows help, that army eventually achieved decisive superiority over the government forces sponsored by the United States and the United Nations below the 38th parallel. When, with Soviet approval and aid, Kims forces invaded the South in an attempt to unite the peninsula under his control, the United States, with UN backing, rushed to stop him. On the UN side, South Korea and the United States provided more than 90 percent of the manpower, but sixteen other governments sent forces of some kind and, unofficially Japan provided hundreds of laborers in critical Korean industries and in the peninsulas harbors operating dredges, lighters, minesweepers, and even American LSTs (Landing Ship, Tanks). On the Communist side, the Peoples Republic of China eventually contributed hundreds of thousands of troops.