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The Korean War Revisited
DONALD W. BOOSE, JR.© 1998 Donald W. Boose, Jr.As the 50th anniversary of the Korean War nears, more is known about North Korean, Chinese, and Russian policy and decisionmaking than ever before. Sufficient gaps and inconsistencies exist to assure that speculation and conflicting interpretations will continue, but we have a clearer picture of the sequence of events and even of the motivations of the key decisionmakers than at any time since the war began. The five books reviewed in this essay, all published in the mid-1990s, have helped produce this clearer picture and richer understanding of a conflict that has cast long shadows. While their authors accept James Matray's sensible contention, made in his review essay in this issue (pp. 150-62) that the Korean War was both a civil war between Koreans and an international conflict, their focus is on the international aspects. In The Korean War: An International History, William Stueck makes use of all the scholarship to date, including his own research, to examine the war at the strategic and international political level, touching on military operations with only the broadest of brushes. Because of this focus and the complexity of the issues with which Stueck deals, his book is most suitable for a reader already familiar with the war. But for such a reader, Stueck's account is informative and thought-provoking. Reflecting the current emerging consensus, he sees the civil and international aspects of the war as interlocked. Ideological polarization between Koreans of the left and right made conflict in Korea likely in any event, but the close ties between Korean nationalists of both camps and foreign countries internationalized the struggle. This international dimension was magnified when geography and world events placed the Korean peninsula on the post-World War II boundary between the antagonistic Soviet- and US-led blocs. Stueck emphasizes this multilateral nature of the war, the interplay between US domestic politics and events in Korea, and the relationship between the course of the war and regional and global issues. These included the formation of NATO and German rearmament, Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Soviet bloc, negotiations for a peace treaty with Japan and the establishment of the postwar system of US bilateral security arrangements, Chinese efforts to replace the Nationalist regime in the United Nations, and events in Taiwan, Indochina, Southern Europe, and Southwest Asia. Read the rest of the essay at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/korrev.htm
This is about the best picture I have read of the Mao Zedong, Joe Stalin and Kim Il Sung triangle. It pieces together the puzzle: was it Mao or Stalin who wanted to help Kim? Boose shows that both Mao and Stalin vacillated over the issue of Stalin providing air cover to Mao's poorly equipped troops. Mao wanted to help Kim but his top generals convinced him that Chinese troops could not stop the Americans from invading North Korea - unless they were reequipped with Soviet arms and received Soviet air cover. For some reason, this position was misreported to Stalin by Zou Enlai and Lin Pao, and Stalin got the impression that Mao did not wish to get involved. The fact of the matter is that Mao had Pen building up an army in Manchuria at the time and a vanguard of Pen's army was already in place in North Korea. Mao had decided to go in with or without Stalin's help. Later Stalin changed his mind and decided to send his air force units to help Mao. I do have some questions, though: - Boose says that Soviet military advisors stayed in Korea in 1950. I believe they left Korea before the war. - Boose says Stalin issued operational orders to Kim. I don't believe this was the case. - Boose says that both Mao and Stalin warned Kim of the impending Inchon invasion but Kim ignored their warning. Kim did indeed rush several divisions to Seoul but they were decimated by the US air planes. - Boose says Stalin ordered Kim to withdraw from South and form a defensive line north of Seoul but Kim ignored his order. Kim gave a general withdraw order but his troops were boxed in and could not move. By this time his front commander Kang Gun was dead and everyone was on his own. Only 2 or 3 divisions returned home more or less intact. - Boose says that Choe Yong Gun was in charge of Seoul defense - I believe Mu Jong was. Mu Jong was a professional officer with years of service with Mao's army. He believed in the age-old doctrine: stay alive to fight another day - and salvaged as many of his troops (disobeying Kim's order to defend Seoul and Pyongyang to the last man). Kim fired Mu Jong. In fact, Kim fired most of his senior commanders - Kim Chaik, Choe Yong Gun, Choe Kwang, Choe Hyon, etc. in late 1950 He blamed everyone but himself. See http://www.kimsoft.com/2002/mujong.htm for info on Gen. Mu Jong.
ysk
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