What were the Repercussions of the Korean War for the Global Cold War Strategy of the United States?

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What were the Repercussions of the Korean War for the Global Cold War Strategy of the United States?

The Korean War of 1950 was a major turning point in United States global cold war strategy. Whilst the Cold War is traced back to the mid 1940’s (and has its roots even earlier), United States strategic policy before Korea was built around a disjointed set of beliefs and conclusions in regards to the perceived danger of the Soviet threat of war. In fact, whilst war with the Soviet Union was seen as a high possibility, the resultant strategic response from the United States policy makers was highly unbalanced. Therefore, the Soviet Unions continued heightening of tensions through their indirect  [at least at first] military support of North Korea’s invasion of South Korea forced a rethink of United States policy in terms of the further heightened threat of the Soviet question. In this essay, I will discuss the repercussions of the Korean War on United States Policy, by firstly investigating United States policy pre-Korea War. I will argue that United States policy during this time was a series of policies built around the perceived threat of the Soviet Union, but largely inadequate in terms of dealing with any possible “real” conflict. Such policies included that of diplomatic negotiation immediately post World War II, to a policy of “containment”, adopted largely in response to the perceived threat that the Soviet Union were posing. Secondly, I will investigate the immediate impact of the Korean War as the ‘perceived’ Soviet threat became ‘real’ as the Cold War became ‘Hot’. And thirdly, I will look at the consequences of the Korean War on United States Cold War strategy, in particular the change in stance from a policy of negotiation and containment to a policy of confrontation, and argue that the reasons for such a shift were borne from the change in public perception regarding the Soviet Threat, which had resulted from their push into Korea.

The first building blocks of confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States were built around a number of issues emanating from the defeat of Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War. At this stage, with all but the United States deeply affected by war, there had been little reason to assume a Soviet threat to world stability. The Russians had been decimated by war and US foreign strategy at the time was geared much towards this perceived lack of threat from this sphere.  President Truman, understanding of their ‘allies” insignificant strength and utter decimation following World War II, continued to deal with the Soviet Union through a series of negotiation and compromise (Gaddis, pp. 284). George F. Keenan (1987, pp. 15), the first advocate of containment, stated that during the time, “In no way did the Soviet Union appear as a threat”. This insight into the thoughts of some members of the US foreign administration is important when questioning the validity of US foreign policy towards the Soviet Union at the time. It is quite clear, through such comments, that it was thought that a debilitated Soviet Union posed no clear threat to world stability or US interests, at least immediately following the Second World War. In saying this, however, there was a concerted push from a number of military statesman for a “hard-line” attitude towards the Soviet Union, as realised by the NSC-68 document, which outlined the extent of the Soviet Threat, and petitioned for an unprecedented military build-up to counter an enemy “unlike previous aspirants to hegemony…animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own” (). However, this push for extended military build-up was quelled by the fact that public opinion would most likely denounce it, in light of the fact that the Soviet Threat seemed less vivid given its ‘unlikely’ nature previously. It is clear then that perceptions on the Soviet threat were mixed, and whilst there was in fact a large degree of conflict between the two rivals, military build-up during this period of Cold War would have been politically unattainable.

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Further to the United States policy of negotiation, geared around the perceived lack of threat from the Soviet Union due to their weakness following world war, was the policy built around the American perception of power, attributed to a number of key factors, namely the American ‘nuclear monopoly’ and the US industrial dominance over any possible aggressor. Both factors were seen as vitally important to maintaining US foreign interests and staving off any possible war from their likely aggressor. Firstly, the fact that the United States had possession of the sole nuclear bomb, and were the only nation capable ...

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