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Discuss the impact of the Korean War on two countries of the Americas.Events in Korea tested the political boundaries and impacted upon the broader Cold War conflict. The Korean war
brought most of the America’s into a much closer relationship with the US, forged by economics, but ultimately
influenced by anti-communist politics; it also accentuated the arms race and, accordingly, it bequeathed to the US
the role of leader of the free world. But with this leadership came growing domestic unease. The Korean war also
had an impact on Canada which increased military spending and distanced itself from the US.
The Korean war greatly damaged Truman’s presidency, which meant that by the end of his second term, Truman had
lost popularity and would not run for re-election . It cost the country $64 billion, and this massive expenditure
generated inflation which caused over half a million steelworkers to strike for better wages in April 1952. Truman
seized steel mills, which led to a constitutional crisis when the Supreme Court ruled that his actions were
unconstitutional. Truman’s failure to obtain a congressional declaration of war helped saddle him with all the blames
for ‘Truman’s war’, and according to the historian James Patterson rendered him ‘virtually powerless’ either to
control Congress or to effectively lead the country. It made him decide against standing for re-election in 1952 and
helped ensure the victory of the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower who named ‘Korea, Communism and Corruption’
as the three weaknesses of the Democratic administration.
Military strategy was influenced by the US experience in Korea. On becoming President in 1953, Eisenhower asked
the Joint Chiefs of Staff to suggest ways in which defense costs could be reduced and a consensus emerged that the
build-up of nuclear weapons would be a cheaper and more effective deterrent than a large conventional army. This
was known as the ‘New Look’ policy and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced in January 1954 that the
US response to further Soviet aggression would be a ‘massive nuclear retaliation at a time and place of our
choosing’. This strategy was known as ‘brinkmanship’ and meant that a crisis would be escalated by the US until the
Soviet Union backed down or took the huge risk of a nuclear war.
The Korean war also had a great impact on US alliances. As historian Derrick Murphy comments, “the Truman
Doctrine, it seemed, was going to be applied to the East as well as to Europe… both military and economic aid was
sent to US allies in Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand’. Such policies marked a significant move away from those
outlined in Kennan’s Long Telegram, which had focused on political and economic methods for containment in
Europe. Additionally, the creation of SEATO (the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) in 1954 was an extension of the
policy of containment intended to provide security that would be equivalent to that offered by NATO to Western
Europe. Furthermore, West Germany joined NATO in 1955, and in response, the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw
Pact. In this way, the Korean War led to a strengthening of military alliances and further preparation for what
seemed an increasingly likely future standoff between the USSR and USA. Historian James Matray sees the ‘main
legacy’ of the Korean was as that the ‘United States thereafter pursued a foreign policy of global intervention and
paid an enormous price in death, destruction, and damaged reputation’, which can be seen particularly later on in
the Vietnam war.
More significantly for the US, events in Korea caused the American public to see China and the USSR as a new axis’ a
combined communist force, intent on world domination. Such fear permeated the US throughout the 1950s and
unleashed an anti-communist witch-hunt (also known as the Red Scare), with calls for a tougher stance against
anything vaguely perceived as being too liberal.
In Canada, the Government’s response to Korea was to initiate the most massive and costly peacetime rearmament
in the nation’s history. By the middle of the 1950s, 45% of the annual budget went to defense and Canada’s NATO
contribution in Europe was 10000 soldiers, sailors, and aircrew – a big commitment for a small nation. The
contingent was reduced during the 1970s but Canadians stood on guard in Europe for 4 decades until the Cold War
ended. Canada’s relationship with the US was also negatively impacted by the war due to disagreements such as
Canadian opposition to US plans to invade North Korea. Canadian Prime Minister Pearson said that after Korea, he
know that the age of easy relations with Washington was over. Hence, Canadian foreign policy began to emerge and
become noticeably separate from American policies through their involvement in the Korean War. This meant that
Canada distanced itself from future US intervention and began focusing on developing its own international role
through the UN.
, Evaluate the reasons for US participation in the Korean War.
1. Truman Doctrine + Domino theory: US promised to defend South Korea against communist aggression,
according to the terms.
The main reason for the USA’s military intervention in the Korean war was to contain communism and prevent the
domino effect. According to the traditional interpretation by Michael Dockrill, the USA was motivated by anti-
Communism and containment. Similarly, other historians emphasize the Cold War credibility of the USA as a major
cause of American entry into the Korean war: the USA had to be seen to be able to contain communism following
the communist victory in China. The American aims was to work with its allies to contain the spread of Soviet and
Communist Chinese power using political, economic and if necessary, military pressures. Any failure of containment
was potentially disastrous. According to the USA, the loss of South Korea might well lead to a chain reaction leading
to the loss of much of the rest of Asia, including Japan which was very important for American Trade. This was called
the domino theory. Additionally, as per the terms of the Truman Doctrine, the US promised to defend South Korea
against communist aggression and therefore had a responsibility to attack.
2. Domestic pressure
Moreover, the USA intervened in the Korean war because of domestic pressure placed on Truman and the
Democratic party within the US government. Truman and the Democratic party were accused of being too soft on
communism by their opponents the republican party. The two major cold war events in 1949 provided the
republicans with the perfect arguments to exploit the weaknesses of the democrats. In august 1949, the USSR
successfully tested its atomic bomb, which the Americans didn’t expect to happen until the 1950s and therefore
brought the US atomic monopoly to an end. Soon after, in October 1949 Mao Zedong’s communists emerged
victorious from the Chinese civil war. This was perceived by the republicans as the fall of China and the Truman
administration’s failure to be tough on communism. With the congressional elections coming up in November 1950,
Truman had to be seen to be tough on communism. The domestic position for Truman worsened when the
republican senator Joe McCarthy began to make accusations of communist sympathizers and supporters within the
state department. Although he had no real proof Americans believed him, as McCarthyism provided the only simple
and persuasive explanation for why the communist powers appeared to be winning the cold war. Therefore, the US
government’s internal political difficulties made a firm response to the North Korea attack on South Korea inevitable.
3. NSC-68
John Lewis Gaddis stressed that the American intervention was a response to a Communist challenge to the entire
structure of post-war collective security. This challenge was highlighted in the NSC-68. In early 1950, Truman
commissioned the National Security Council to produce a planning paper to suggest how the USA should handle the
Communist threat. This resulted in the issuing of the NSC-68 which depicted a polarized world, in which enslaved in
communist countries faced the free in countries such as the USA. The document argued that the Soviets were
determined to expand in both Europe and Asia and that the USA had to prepare for potential armed conflict. It was
recommended that the USA develop a more powerful bomb, build up its conventional forces to defend its shores
and enable it to fight in limited wars abroad, raise taxes to finance the struggle, seek allies, and mobilize the
American public in a united Cold War consensus. These recommendations make it easy to see why the US was ready
to intervene in Korea.
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