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Monday, June 19, 2000
WRITER: Phil Williams, 706/542-8501, pwilliam@franklin.uga.edu
CONTACT: William Stueck, 706/542-2506
50TH ANNIVERSARY: KOREAN WAR MAY HAVE SERVED AS SUBSTITUTE FOR WORLD WAR III, SAYS HISTORIAN FROM UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
ATHENS, Ga. -- On June 25, 1950, along the line separating North Korea from South Korea, all hell broke loose.
Under cover of small arms fire and an artillery barrage, thousands of North Korean troops pushed southward, touching off a three-year conflict that was to take the lives of some three million men, women and children. Roughly the same number of American soldiers died in Korea that died in Viet Nam. Like Viet Nam, the Korean War’s place in history has been the subject of argument, even controversy for decades.
Despite its horrors, the Korean War may well have served as a "substitute" for the third world war that never came -- a war that could have erupted in a nuclear holocaust.
"In many ways, the Korean War was the dress rehearsal for World War III," said William Stueck, a University of Georgia history professor, expert on the conflict and author of The Korean War: An International Perspective (Princeton University Press.) "Since we avoided that third global war, veterans of Korea should have a sense they were involved in a very important event that was absolutely critical to shaping the world of today."
Stueck will be featured on a program about the Korean War on the History Channel. The show will premiere on June 25 at 10:30 a.m. -- exactly 50 years after the beginning of the war. He will also speak at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., on June 21 at 11 a.m. and on a program sponsored by the Korea Society at Georgetown University on June 24 at 8:30 a.m.
Though the Korean War has been in the news lately largely because of an alleged American massacre near the village of No Gun Ri, the wider, diplomatic background of the war makes it vitally important, and most Americans may not be aware of it. In fact, the Korean conflict is often called the "forgotten war," though that may be changing. Stueck said one reason Korea has received less attention from Americans than other wars is that it "came between a heroic victorious war and a tragic unpopular war," and that it ended with an armistice rather than a clear winner.
While the battlefield of the Korean War was regional, the war was seen as a threat to
U. S. credibility and to the viability of the United Nations. The conflict eventually included 20 governments from six continents. Some 1.3 million South Koreans died, as well as 1 million Chinese, about 500,000 North Koreans and some 54,000 American troops.
Stueck, who is a historian of diplomacy, has been studying the Cold war for more than 30 years and repeatedly visited the Korean peninsula during the fifteen years it took him to research and write The Korean War: An International History. His findings, often uncovered through years of painstaking examination of documents, include:
- The Korean War played a pivotal role in rearming the West and expanding U. S. global military commitments;
- There were several times when the Korean War could have flashed into a wider conflict, but secret political pressures from numerous quarters kept it from expanding;
- The Korean War contributed significantly to the prestige of the "new" China after the country was taken over by Communists in 1949;
- The conflict enhanced the long-term prospects for a Sino-Soviet split;
- The Soviet Union was the prime loser in the war.
Though the attack on June 25, 1950, came as a surprise to American and South Korean troops, it should not have, said Stueck. There were numerous warnings that an attack might have been imminent, but South Korea was simply unprepared. (The attack was approved and even urged by Josef Stalin, though Soviet troops played only a limited part in the war and that much later.)
"Many of South Korea’s military leaders were abroad, either in Japan or the United States," writes Stueck in The Korean War. "Numerous officers assigned to units along the tense boundary were away from their posts on weekend passes, as were many of the U. S. advisers attached to those forces."
The "gross lack of preparation" allowed North Korean troops to sweep southward at an alarming rate, pushing U. S. and South Korean troops all the way to Pusan on the peninsula’s southeastern tip. Only with the landing of a large contingent of American troops at Inchon, a city on the coast about 30 miles south of the North Korean border, did the United Nations troops regain the upper hand. The North Korean Army’s supply lines were cut, and more than 125,000 prisoners were captured by the allies.
China warned the U.N. forces not to come into North Korea, but the allies under legendary U. S. General Douglas MacArthur, who had planned the Inchon landing, ignored the warnings and advanced
northward with the intention of unifying the country. China then sent some 180,000 troops into the fray, driving the allies back to the 38th parallel–the border between North Korea and South Korea.
Battle lines soon stabilized along the border, but fighting continued for more than two more bloody years until an armistice was concluded on July 27, 1953.
Though MacArthur actually suggested the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Korea, Stueck said that option was never seriously considered by American officials. MacArthur’s constant bickering with President Truman led to the general’s very public dismissal in April of 1951.
"I came away from my research with a strong distaste for MacArthur," said Stueck. "He certainly does deserve a huge amount of credit for the precision of the landing at Inchon, though there was no heavy resistance there. But as a historian of diplomacy, I think in certain respects the landing at Inchon was unfortunate. Its success created a fast-paced reversal of the military equation and didn’t give either side time to exercise effective diplomacy. After Inchon, the tragic U. N. march northward inevitably followed."
Stueck’s book makes clear the tortured history of Korea, and how it came to be occupied by other nations for decades at a time. Japan occupied Korea during World War II, and after Japan’s surrender, Allied forces agreed that the Soviets would accept the Japanese surrender north of the 38th parallel, while Americans would accept the surrender south of it. That act effectively split the country -- a split that exists until this day. Negotiations to unify the country after World War II failed, and the stage was set for the Korean War.
The terrible consequences of the war went a long way toward convincing the global powers that though a Cold War might be inevitable, World War III might be unwinnable for anyone.
"In World War II and in Viet Nam, the outcome was decisive, but in Korea the outcome is usually regarded as ambiguous," said Stueck. "In truth, however, the Americans won the Korean War. We achieved our initial objective, which was to push the North Koreans back to the 38th parallel. Unfortunately, we changed our objectives."
Still, the Korean War may well have prevented other more horrifying wars from beginning during the ensuing 40 years. In fact, Stueck, in early drafts, called his book The Necessary War. In that sense, the 50th anniversary of the conflict should bring meaning to the hundreds of thousands of American veterans who served there, said Stueck.
The Korean War happened, and 3 million died, but World War III didn’t happen, and untold millions lived.
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(Writers/editors: Stueck will be in Washington, D. C., during this time for research and meetings on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War; however, he will return phone calls. Please call 301/277-9633 to leave messages for him. Also, he can be contacted by e-mail at kimfollin@aol.com.)
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