The Korean War and the Cold War

Even so, the North Korean invasion came as an alarming surprise to American officials who feared it was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world. For this reason, non-intervention was not considered an option by many top decision makers. (In fact, in April 1950, a National Security Council report known as NSC-68 had recommended that the United States use military force to “contain” communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring).

At first, the war was a defensive one– a war to get the communists out of South Korea–and it went badly for the Allies. The North Korean army was well-disciplined, well-trained and well-equipped; Rhee’s forces, by contrast, were frightened, confused, and seemed inclined to flee the battlefield at any provocation. Also, it was one of the hottest and driest summers on record, and desperately thirsty American soldiers were often forced to drink water from rice paddies - dangerous intestinal (кишечный) diseases and other illnesses were a constant threat.

By the end of the summer, President Truman and General Douglas MacArthur, the commander in charge of the Asian theatre, had decided on a new set of war aims. Now, for the Allies, the Korean War was an offensive one: It was a war to “liberate” the North from the communists.

Initially, this new strategy was a success: the North Koreans were pushed out of Seoul and back to their side of the 38th parallel. But as American troops headed north toward the border between North Korea and Communist China, the Chinese started to worry about protecting themselves from what they called “armed aggression against Chinese territory.” Chinese leader Mao Zedong sent troops to North Korea and warned the United States to keep away from the boundary unless it wanted full-scale war.

This was something that President Truman and his advisers did not want: they were sure that such a war would lead to Soviet aggression in Europe, the deployment (развертывание, размещение) of atomic weapons and millions of senseless deaths. General MacArthur, however, wanted to achieve victory at any cost: in March 1951, he sent a letter to Joseph Martin, a House Republican leader writing “There is no substitute for victory” against international communism. On April 11, the president fired the general for insubordination.

In July 1951, President Truman and his new military commanders started peace talks at Panmunjom (Пханмунджом). Both sides were willing to accept a ceasefire that maintained the 38th parallel boundary, but they could not agree on whether prisoners of war should be forcibly “repatriated.” (The Chinese and the North Koreans said yes; the United States said no.) Finally, after more than two years of negotiations, the adversaries signed a peace treaty on July 27, 1953. The agreement allowed the POWs to stay where they liked; drew a new boundary near the 38th parallel that gave South Korea an extra 1,500 square miles of territory; and created a 2-mile-wide “demilitarized zone” that still exists today.