03 - Globalisation of the Cold War - The Korean War

Hwa Chong Institution (College) Paper 1 Theme I: Understanding the Cold War, 1945 -1991 How was the global Cold War fought? 1 EXTENSION OF THE COLD WAR OUTSIDE EUROPE (THE KOREAN WAR) The graphic above lists the proxy wars of the Cold War. However, Cold war intervention was not restricted to these countries; both superpowers also competed for influenc e on the political and economic development of smaller nations, from providing moral and financial support to the supply of arms equipment and/or military training. Such intervention led to massive disruption and considerable suffering in other countries. Often, democratically leaders were overthrown, despotic regimes used violence and re pression to consolidate po wer and Cold War influence often led to the protraction of a conflict. On the other hand, foreign manipulation and involvement in proxy wars also helped alleviate Cold War tensions and decreased the likelihood of a full-scale nuclear war. The Korean War (1950-1953)  The Korean War was in origin a civil war over the unification and the future direction of Korea but it became an issue of ideological conflict wi thin the superpower rivalry of the Cold War. Gaddis has described the Korean War as a conflict where small states along the periphery of empires, through their own self-centered behaviour, could embroil the great powers in unintended confrontations with each other. It also illustrates how events can proceed for some time along parallel but separate tracks, only to converge all at once with unpredictable results. Decisions made in Pyongyan g, Moscow, Beijing, Seou l, Tokyo and Washington determined what happened; and yet no one, in any of those capitals, anticipated it. 1 1. Why was there a North and South Korea to begin with?  Once an independent unified nation, Korea came under Japanese rule in 1910 and remained a colony till the end of World War II. On 8 August 1945, the Sovi et Union declared war on Japan and marched into Manchuria and entered Korea. At the Potsdam Conference, the United States, then making plans to invade the Japanese mainland, was more than content to leave Manchuria and Korea to the Soviets. However, with                                                               1 John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, p. 70.

Hwa Chong Institution (College) Paper 1 Theme I: Understanding the Cold War, 1945 -1991 How was the global Cold War fought? 2 the prospect of the war actually coming to a sudden end after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki (9 August 1945), Washington now reassessed its future interest in Asia and decided on the joint occupation of Korea with the Soviet Union. Without any natural division to the Korean peninsula, the 38 th parallel, which roughly divided the co untry in half, was proposed to the Kremlin. The Soviet Union would occupy Korea to the north of this line, with the United States occupying the territor