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Review
| Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History, by William Stueck. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002. 285 pages. $29.95, cloth.
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| Stueck's monograph is not a reprise of information presented in previous studies concerning the Korean War (1950–1953). Drawing upon considerable archival sources, including material from Communist China and the former Soviet Union that became accessible only within the last ten years, he effectively challenges the revisionist view that the conflict was merely a civil war and demonstrates that the event was instrumental in preventing the Cold War from developing into the Third World War. Blending narrative with in-depth analysis, the author presents a balanced and thorough examination of the conflict that provides the reader with a truly international perspective. The monograph is divided into three parts. The first presents the various factors that led to the administrative division of Korea and the subsequent North Korean invasion of South Korea. Stueck notes that after the USSR entered the war against Japan on 8 August 1945, it quickly dispatched troops into northern Korea to capture and occupy what had been a colony of the Japanese Empire since 1910. In consultation with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, the U.S. committed occupation troops of its own and established the thirty-eighth parallel as the boundary between the two zones of occupation. Accordingly, the Cold War spread to Korea because the Koreans had themselves never freed themselves from Japanese domination, and it prospered there because the U.S. and USSR, convinced that Korea was not ready for independence, proved unable to craft a national government ideologically agreeable to each other. |
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Concurrently, the two superpowers had other concerns in the region. Near the turn of the century, Tsarist Russia had acquired territory along the western Pacific and went on to fight an abortive war with Japan over interests in Korea. Mindful of their forefathers's aspirations, the Communists understood the potential economic benefits of access to warm-water ports on the Korean peninsula. Also, the USSR feared the creation of a hostile state might threaten its security. The U.S., having witnessed the serious consequences that resulted from its self-imposed isolation during the interwar years, determined that it had to participate in international affairs—particularly where the Soviets were involved. By late 1948, permanent division of the peninsula was complete with the formation of the Republic of Korea (ROK) led by Syngman Rhee in the south, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), under Kim Il-sung in the north. Intensely nationalistic and committed to reunification, each viewed his regime as the legitimate Korean government. Consequently, once the Soviets and Americans withdrew their forces in 1948 and 1949 respectively, the likelihood of war in the region was quite high. Consequently, Stueck argues that the DPRK's invasion of the ROK on 25 June 1950 commenced what was not a civil war because, even though the conflict held a strong civil component, the two Koreas never conducted the struggle independently. The Soviets made Kim's offensive possible, providing substantial numbers of tanks, artillery, small arms, and aircraft and pilots; the immediate and increasing U.S. military presence kept the erstwhile under-equipped ROK armies in the field. In time the U.S. obtained a United Nations mandate and the support of other nations. The Chinese intervention later altered the scope of the war altogether. Almost from the outset, the parameters of the fighting were determined by the U.S., USSR, and China. |
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Part two analyzes the reasons behind the Chinese intervention and why the war did not spread beyond the peninsula. According to Stueck, Mao Zedong truly believed that imperialist designs not only on Korea, but also on the rest of Asia had prompted American intervention. Mao therefore determined to commit troops once UN forces commanded by General Douglas McArthur crossed the thirty-eighth parallel. The author asserts that the primary reason why the war remained limited is that the U.S. and the Soviet Union did not wish to expand it. Despite MacArthur's desire to march across the Yalu River into Manchuria, President Harry S Truman and other "Europe-firsters" at the State Department believed that diverting military resources to Korea could embolden the Soviets to strike Western Europe. By late June 1951, after retreating from the north, UN forces had stabilized a line just north of the thirty-eighth parallel, and the U.S. determined to work toward the negotiated peace that came finally on 27 July 1953. In part three Stueck ends the book with a look at broader issues. He contends that throughout the war and after, the American led Western alliance maintained focus and measured responses to international totalitarianism that gave it a distinct advantage in the continuing Cold War. Moreover, it did so without resorting to totalitarian tactics at home. This study should be assigned in graduate courses in U.S. foreign policy, the Cold War, and military history, but would also prove useful to instructors teaching U.S. history at the undergraduate level. |
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| Rogers State University |
Paul B. Hatley |
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