U.S. and Foreign Policy with Korea
On June 25th 1950 the Korean war started when north Korea invaded the south with 75000 solders by July the U. S join the war to help south Korea the war ended on July 1953 with 5 million soldiers and civilians died in a result of this there has been a peninsula that has divided them today. During this time Harry S. Truman was president but than after one term Dwight D Eisenhower was president. Kim Il Sung was the leader of North Korea with Syngman Rhee the leader of South Korea. In terms of major communist leaders Stalin was in charge of the Soviet Union with Mao Zedong being the leader of China. The United States goals in the Korean conflict included the defeat of communist aggression as well as the encouragement of free market capitalist states surrounding the communist world. This was referred to under the Truman administration as the policy of containment. “Policy” being the actions of the United States and its allies and “containment” being the control of the spread of communist influence in the world. The Korean conflict was the first battle zone in the greater conflict known as the Cold War. The type of foreign policy used during the Korean War was Collective Security. This is due to the fact that The Unites States lead a United Nations force to repel a communist advance into the Korean Peninsula. The Unites States whereabouts throughout the Korean War were all done in alliance with the UN to reinforce South Korea. The United States contribution in Korea was a team effort. Nevertheless, the type of foreign policy could also be argued to be internationalist or world policeman due to the fact that the Korean War was a means of the United States containment policy. This policy is different than many of its past foreign policy because since its inception the US was very much isolationist but as time moved on it slowly broke out of this mold leading up to World War One. The US was dragged into this conflict unwillingly and the foreign policy became much more isolationist after that. However the US was once again dragged unwillingly into World War Two but after the war America emerged as a global powerhouse and immediately their foreign policy changed into much more of a Collective Security or Internationalism standpoint. This idea of collective security was mainly targeted against communism as America was worried about its potential spread and their beliefs led them into a large series of proxy wars and conflicts with the Soviet Union including the Korean War.