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American History of the Korean War

American History of the Korean War

As history has shown the effects of war are both devastating and long lasting. In the case of the Korean War, these effects are still seen today as hostilities continue even after 50 years. The Korean War was a war that had developed from an interesting situation after World War II. Towards the end of World War II, the Soviet Union had entered the war to seize control over Japanese territories which included Korea. The strategic position of Korea led the United States to step in to stop communism from spreading. A truce was agreed upon in which the Soviet Union would occupy all of Korea north of the 38 parallel and the United States would occupy all of Korea south of the 38 parallel. From this event began the separation of Korea into a democratic and communist party which would later erupt into a war.

Strangely enough, the initial objective of the Soviet Union and the United States was to establish a unified Korea and then evacuate all military forces, but ironically, their actions led to a greater division of Korea and increased tensions between the communist ideologies of the north and the democratic ideologies of the south. As time progress and tensions mounted, different factions began to struggle for power until Kim Il Sung seized power and became a political figure in the north. At the same time in the southern part of Korea, Syngman Rhee took political power and advocated anticommunism. Now that there were two provisional governments in place in Korea, it was decided in 1948 by the United Nations that a general election decide who would be the political figurehead of Korea. After the votes were tallied, it was declared that Kim Il Sung was the president of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea although the communist party and communist countries supported him. The election of Sung led to the permanent division of Korea at the 38 parallel. The election of 1948 and the official division of Korea were the two main events which set the stage for a civil war along with the fact that both North and South Korea were preparing their armies. On June 25, 1950 the first shot was fired, by which side is still unknown today, and the Korean War had begun.

In the early stages of the war, both the United States and the Soviet...

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