The Korean war was a horrible event that ended the lives of around 5 million people. In this war the communist North Korea invaded democratic and capitalist South Korea. However, the war was truly between the political beliefs of Communism and Capitalism. The South was fueled by the US, while the North was fueled by Soviet Union. This war was part of the Cold war where the US saw the growth of Communism and wanted to end it. The cold war was fueled by ignorance. It seems extremely irrational that these two superpowers went to war over political beliefs seeing that currently full communism is a failure and capitalism is embracing certain communist beliefs. Communism was not a very bad idea as it promoted equality. Nonetheless, how communism
During the Cold War was based on two different types of beliefs called Communism and Capitalism and both the U.S. with its own allies and the U.S.S.R. Its Communist allies are equally to blame for starting the war. When the Iron curtain was around the East European government adopted a communist system and fell under the control of the U.S.S.R. The Iron Curtain, political, military, and mysterious barrier raised by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependant Eastern and Western European allies from open contact with the West and other non-Communist countries. (Document 1)
Post World War II America was one of the most militarily active periods in American history, having been involved in three wars, spanning roughly from 1947 to 1992, in order to stop the spread of communism. Overall, the United States permanently broke its previous isolationist policy in an attempt to promote democracy throughout the world; however, the wars proved to have serious negative effects on America. America was impacted by the military involvement in the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War. Shortly after the end of World War II, America and Russia, the two super world powers emerging from the war, divided various parts of Eurasia—namely Germany and Korea—between themselves. Following America’s decision to maintain world
The Korean War began in the early hours of June 25, 1950. The North Korean troops carried out their surprise attack on South Korea without any declaration of war. The North and South had experienced some clashes along the 38th parallel before, where North and South Korea had been divided. However, they never had such an unexpected attack in the Southern Camp. They were completely unprepared and weren’t properly equipped for such a sudden event.
The Cold War started for a variety of reasons some being communication, “weapons,” and ideas. It’s hard to say when the Cold War began, many events lead up to the reason of this war. An event could be the Iron Curtain “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.” (Doc. 1)
Source 2 explains how this escalated into the Korean War, “The civil war between the two Koreas turned into a full-fledged international conflict in June of 1950 when Kil Il-Sung invaded the South and the US responded.” (Crash Course, 2013). This source corroborates with other respectable sources, however, due to their democratic governance and the US themed topics they cover this source may contain bias. Their reliability is reinforced through the use of their videos in school environments, proving their educational value. In addition to explicitly stating that the communist controlled North Korea sparked the Korean War it goes on to explain that.
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea, and the Republic of Korea, South Korea. This has reached international proportions since the spark of war. Concerned that the Soviet Union and Communist China may have encouraged this invasion, the United States became involved. The United States fought in the Korean War to contain communism. The United States was successful in fighting this war for the reason that they succeeded in preventing communism from overtaking and spreading while benefiting from war efforts.
The Cold War was a war of threats. After the end of World War II, there was a spread of two different types of government, democracy and communism. There was the Western and the Soviet spheres of influence. The difference between the governments resulted a conflict, which led to the Cold War. Threats were made to stop the spread of each other’s ideology, but one of them must be dominant for peace can be created when there is an unity of a single type of government in Europe.
Roosevelt gained the support of blacks and women because of his false promises and the unintentional help his program gave them. Women and blacks faced harsh discrimination even in the 1930’s. They believed that FDR was going to pass programs within the New Deal that would grant them more freedoms, like in the Progressive Era. However, Roosevelt was too preoccupied trying to end the Great Depression during his presidency that the minorities fell victim. They worked more hours and were not focused on in the New Deal’s actions.
The biggest challenges faced by America in the Korean War were, Korea not being able to defend itself, tactics Korean communist troops used against America and soldiers thinking the war as useless while questioning “What are we fighting for?” The Korean War lasted from 1950 to 1953, beginning when the North Korean communist army crossed the 38th parallel and invaded non-communist South Korea. As Kim II-sung's North Korean troops armed with soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea and the United States came to South Korea's aid. If South Korea was not able to carry itself without the Unite States and the Soviet Union getting involved then that would cause another world war, because all of Korea would become communist because of North Korea
If one would argue that the origins of the Cold War should be traced to World War II and the breakdown of the wartime alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This all started by one act of betrayal. For example in Document C where Soviet Ambassador Nikolai Novikov states that “ The foreign policy of the United States ,which reflects the imperialist tendencies of American monopolistic capital, is characterized in the postwar period by striving for world supremacy.” The belief that freedom and democracy would die under the communist rule caused the United States to start a problem or feud that would last for a long time. The decisions made by the United States in W.W.II caused tensions to start between the U. S. and the Soviet Union.
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word “watershed” can be defined as “a time when an important change happens” (“Watershed”). The year 1950 can be considered a “watershed,” or turning point, in U.S. history. Many significant events happened during this year that changed the United States as a nation and had a profound impact on its future. Some of these events include the start of the Korean War, the beginning of “McCarthyism,” the beginning of the development of the hydrogen bomb, the development of the first major credit card company, and the first organ transplant.
The Cold War did occur after WWII between the United States and The Soviet Union at the time of President Ronald Reagan administration. The Soviet union and its government had the ideology of spreading communism around the world. The United States was against communism and this why the country went to war with Vietnam. "Containment" was the ultimate goal by the U.S. to preventing communism from happen worldwide. My perception of the Cold War and the War on Terror is due to the lack of the United States government to understanding other countries language, culture and way of life.
Some historians believe the Cold War was inevitable because of the hostilities from both America and the Soviet Union after World War II. America believed that the USSR was an expansionist country trying to spread an evil, communistic idea throughout the world. Although the countries never directly fought against each other, as they only fought in proxy wars, there was still extreme conflict. The United States responded to the Soviets actions in Germany, Europe, and their national actions. These responses were justifiable, or so many Americans at the time believed.
There are three competing theories of the causes of the Cold War; the traditional theory, the liberal theory, and the ideological theory. In all three theories lie causes that could have equally contributed to the conflict, but only one is more convincing than the others. The traditional theory says that communists were at fault for the conflict. Communists, specifically Stalin, wanted more control and thus used his political ideology as a means to achieve his desires. Expansionism is a commonly mentioned aspect related the idea of the traditional theory.
In retrospect, however, the United States should not have entered the war. Not being a part of the war would have saved American lives and money, potentially eliminated PTSD in a generation on soldiers, and would have prevented the animosity that exist between the United States and North Korea that dominates the headlines today. The Korean War was fought between two major wars, Word War II and the Vietnam War. Due to being fought between these major wars, the Korean War is known as “The Forgotten War.” The Korean War started on June 25, 1950 and ended July 23, 1953.