Why Did America Fight the Korean War?|5-Minute Videos

What was the Korean War? And why was America associated with such a far dispute? Was the United States’ sacrifice– 35,000 eliminated, over 100,000 wounded– worth it? Historian Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, shares the fascinating story of the transformative war that many have forgotten.

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Script:

Mention the Korean War today and the majority of people will look at you with a blank gaze. At the time it was battled, just 5 years after World War II ended, everybody recognized it as a world-shaping dispute, a plain confrontation in between the forces of democracy and communism.

It began on June 25, 1950 when Soviet-backed communist North Korea crossed the 38th parallel and attacked its US-backed anti-communist South Korean next-door neighbor. America had slashed its military budget after the end of World War II and was short both males and devices.

The Soviets– buoyed by their own current advancement of an atomic bomb and Mao Zedong’s communist victory in China– sensed America’s lack of resolve and encouraged the North’s hostility. Within weeks President Harry Truman hurried soldiers to conserve the shrinking Allied boundary at Pusan on the southern idea of the Korean Peninsula. And by late September, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur had actually successfully completed the Inchon landings and introduced counter-attacks.

He rapidly reclaimed the entire south and sent out American-led United Nations forces far into North Korea to reunite the whole peninsula– just to be amazed when numerous thousands of Chinese Red Army soldiers crossed the Yalu River at the Chinese border and sent out the outnumbered Americans returning into South Korea.

Thanks to the genius of General Matthew Ridgeway, who arrived to presume supreme command in South Korea in December 1950, over the next 100 days United States led UN forces pushed the communists back throughout the 38th Parallel. The combating was intense. Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, exchanged hands in between communist and US led forces five times before it was finally protected.

Throughout the years 1952 and 1953, the war grew fixed, neither side able to provide a knockout blow. Ultimately the conflict ended with a tense armistice in July 1953. For over the next 60 years, a cold war persisted between the Stalinist North and what, by the 1980s, had actually developed into the democratic, financial powerhouse of South Korea.

Over 35,000 Americans passed away in the Korean War. The war marked the first significant armed dispute of the Nuclear Age, and one in which the United States had not plainly beat the opponent and hence not determined terms of surrender. Was fighting the Korean War and bring back the South– without unifying the whole peninsula– worth the big expense in blood and treasure?

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Why Did America Fight the Korean War? What was the Korean War? For over the next 60 years, a cold war persisted between the Stalinist North and what, by the 1980s, had evolved into the democratic, economic powerhouse of South Korea.

Over 35,000 Americans died in the Korean War. Was battling the Korean War and restoring the South– without unifying the entire peninsula– worth the big cost in blood and treasure?