The Continuing Korean War in the Murderous History of Bombing

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
Tim Beal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Atomic Weapons ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

The Korean War, which broke out on June 25, 1950, can be considered the epicenter of bombing as an instrument of war. For one, it was the first—and, so far, the last—time since 1945 that the United States seriously considered using atomic weapons during the course of an imperial war. It was the first war that the United States did not win. It ended in a stalemate—an armistice—that continues until today. Kinetic fighting was suspended, but the war continues (though only by one side) by what is conveniently but simplistically called sanctions.

History of POW Treatment in the United States

2017 ◽  
pp. 31-56
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Grimm Arsenault
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The Core ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Domestic Law

This chapter details the history of U.S. POW treatment from the Revolutionary War through the Korean War to demonstrate the consistent importance bestowed upon the use of humane methods. Particular attention is paid to the application of the Geneva Conventions in U.S. policy, military doctrine, and domestic law, as these international legal statutes have come to represent the core of international humanitarian law. Chapter 2 shows that while the United States struggled at times to adapt to new and unforeseen scenarios, it always worked to address these ambiguities from the perspective of reinforcing, rather than challenging, the norm of humane treatment.

The Intimacies of Complicity

2020 ◽  
pp. 241-262
Author(s):  
Daniel Y. Kim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Japanese Colonialism ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Korean Christianity ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

This chapter elaborates a transnational literary critical methodology for approaching South Korean depictions of the Korean War that now circulate in the United States in translated form through an analysis of Hwang Sok-yong’s novel The Guest. This magical realist work recounts a massacre that occurred in late 1950 in which roughly thirty-five thousand residents of Sinch’on, located in what is now North Korea, were slaughtered by their friends and neighbors. This chapter situates The Guest in its domestic context, elaborating its critique of both North and South Korean nationalist narratives that tend to avoid holding Koreans themselves accountable for such atrocities, and its complex engagement with the history of Korean Christianity. Even as it does so, however, the novel also implicates Japanese colonialism and Western Christianity in the violence that erupted in Sinch’on. However, this chapter also argues that this novel in its translated form must also be read within the context of its circulation in the United States, which highlights certain aspects of it: the affinities it suggests between working-class Koreans drawn to Marxism and enslaved Africans and its critique of the bystander role adopted by the US military in relation to atrocities committed by its Korean allies.

History of Three Mobilizations: A Reexamination of the Chinese Biological Warfare Allegations against the United States in the Korean War

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiwei Chen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biological Weapons ◽  
Biological Warfare ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

AbstractChinese allegations that the United States used biological weapons against Chinese troops and Korean civilians is one of the most shocking episodes of the Korean War. While the Chinese government repeatedly reprimanded the U.S. government for its uncivilized combat behavior, the U.S. government vigorously issued denials, treating the charges as an extreme propaganda maneuver applied by China in that moment of military crisis, ideological fervor, and political passion. Since then, a huge amount of scholarship has been produced on the allegation.1 None, however, provided a persuasive conclusion on the incident, mainly due to the lack of reliable sources.

scholarly journals Distinct Eras in the History of U.S. Debt Monetization

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Godek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Reserve ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Recent Financial Crisis ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The U.S

<p><em>Here I review the history of debt monetization by the Federal Reserve, as well as the relationship between debt monetization and inflation. While it is commonly held that inflation follows from debt monetization, that has not been the case in the U.S., at least not since the Korean War. From the early 1950s through 2007 debt monetization has been modest and steady, while inflation has been highly variable. With the recent financial crisis, debt monetization entered a new era. Since 2008 the magnitude and composition of debt monetization has no precedent. Also unprecedented is the Federal Reserve’s ability to suppress inflation despite extensive debt monetization, at least through 2015. Overall, since the creation of the Federal Reserve, the United States has experienced substantial inflation both with and (more commonly) without debt monetization. It remains to be seen if the United States can experience substantial debt monetization without inflation.</em><em></em></p>

The Role of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the Korean War

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Denzenlkham Ulambayar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Korean War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American struggle generated the origins of the Korean War, namely the Soviet Union’s occupation of the northern half of the Korean peninsula and the United States’ occupation of the southern half to the 38th parallel after 1945 as well as the emerging bipolar world order of international relations and Cold War. Newly available Russian archival documents produced much in the way of new energies and opportunities for international study and research into the Korean War.2 However, within this research few documents connected to Mongolia have so far been found, and little specific research has yet been done regarding why and how Mongolia participated in the Korean War. At the same time, it is becoming today more evident that both Soviet guidance and U.S. information reports (evaluated and unevaluated) regarding Mongolia were far different from the situation and developments of that period. New examples of this tendency are documents declassified in the early 2000s and released publicly from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in December 2016 which contain inaccurate information. The original, uncorrupted sources about why, how and to what degree the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) became a participant in the Korean War are in fact in documents held within the Mongolian Central Archives of Foreign Affairs. These archives contain multiple documents in relation to North Korea. Prior to the 1990s Mongolian scholars Dr. B. Lkhamsuren,3 Dr. B. Ligden,4 Dr. Sh. Sandag,5 junior scholar J. Sukhee,6 and A. A. Osipov7 mention briefly in their writings the history of relations between the MPR and the DPRK during the Korean War. Since the 1990s the Korean War has also briefly been touched upon in the writings of B. Lkhamsuren,8 D. Ulambayar (the author of this paper),9 Ts. Batbayar,10 J. Battur,11 K. Demberel,12 Balảzs Szalontai,13 Sergey Radchenko14 and Li Narangoa.15 There have also been significant collections of documents about the two countries and a collection of memoirs published in 200716 and 2008.17 The author intends within this paper to discuss particularly about why, how and to what degree Mongolia participated in the Korean War, the rumors and realities of the war and its consequences for the MPR’s membership in the United Nations. The MPR was the second socialist country following the Soviet Union (the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) to recognize the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and establish diplomatic ties. That was part of the initial stage of socialist system formation comprising the Soviet Union, nations in Eastern Europe, the MPR, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK. Accordingly between the MPR and the DPRK fraternal friendship and a framework of cooperation based on the principles of proletarian and socialist internationalism had been developed.18 In light of and as part of this framework, The Korean War has left its deep traces in the history of the MPR’s external diplomatic environment and state sovereignty

The Burdens of Status, 1950–1954

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg A. Brazinsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Key Factor

This chapter shows how the PRC’s search for greater status brought with it new obligations. China’s desire to stand at the helm of an Eastern revolution compelled the CCP to offer assistance to other Asian revolutionaries. The chapter argues that this mindset was a key factor in Beijing’s decisions to enter the Korean War and provide training and assistance to the Viet Minh. The United States, on the other hand, sought to prevent the PRC from gaining stature through its role in these conflicts. It often cited deflating China’s prestige in Asia as a motive for both fighting on in Korea and aiding the French in Indochina.

In search of a new mission in Korea

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Wieters
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
The Korean War

Chapter 3 is a case study on CARE’s work in Korea during and after the Korean War. It traces CARE’s response to a presidential aid appeal in the United States, shows how American NGOs competed for donor dollars and media attention. In addition, it depicts the difficulties private humanitarian players encountered in a foreign setting involving a refugee crisis and a tight web of players with different stakes, meaning military players, Korean and United States government agencies, United Nations organizations as well as diverse foreign aid agencies.

Mythologizing Memories: A Critique of the Utah Korean War Memorial

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suhi Choi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Salt Lake ◽  
Salt Lake City ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Lake City

Abstract Since its fiftieth anniversary, memorialization of the Korean War has taken place in towns and cities across the United States. As a case study of this belated memory boom, this essay looks at the Utah Korean War Memorial, erected by local veterans in 2003 at Memory Grove Park, Salt Lake City. Situated in both the local and national contexts of remembrance, the memorial resonates largely with three mythical scripts, with themes of resilience, local pride, and the good war, all of which have allowed veterans to negotiate tensions between individual and collective memories. This case study reveals in particular how the official commemoration of the war has shifted local veterans' rhetorical positions from potential witnesses of subversive realities of the war to uncritical negotiators whose legitimization of the very process of mythologizing memories has ultimately alienated them from their own experiences during and after the war.

Korean Immigration to the United States After World War II

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal Mun-hye Baik
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Korean Women ◽  
World War ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Korean Immigration

Korean immigration to the United States has been shaped by multiple factors, including militarization, colonialism, and war. While Koreans migrated to the American-occupied islands of Hawai’i in the early 20th century as sugar plantation laborers, Japanese imperial rule (1910–1945) and racially exclusive immigration policy curtailed Korean migration to the United States until the end of World War II. Since then, Korean immigration has been shaped by racialized, gendered, and sexualized conditions related to the Korean War and American military occupation. Although existing social science literature dominantly frames Korean immigration through the paradigm of migration “waves,” these periodizations are arbitrary to the degree that they centralize perceived US policy changes or “breaks” within a linear historical timeline. In contrast, emphasizing the continuing role of peninsular instability and militarized division points to the accumulative effects of the Korean War that continue to impact Korean immigration. With the beginning of the American military occupation of Korea in 1945 and warfare erupting in 1950, Koreans experienced familial separations and displacements. Following the signing of the Korean armistice in 1953, which halted armed fighting without formally ending the war, the American military remained in the southern half of the Peninsula. The presence of the US military in South Korea had immediate repercussions among civilians, as American occupation engendered sexual intimacies between Korean women and US soldiers. Eventually, a multiracial population emerged as children were born to Korean women and American soldiers. Given the racial exclusivity of American immigration policy at the time, the US government established legislative “loopholes” to facilitate the migrations of Korean spouses of US soldiers and multiracial children adopted by American families. Between 1951 and 1964 over 90 percent of the 14,027 Koreans who entered the United States were Korean “war brides” and transnational adoptees. Since 1965, Korean spouses of American servicemen have played key roles in supporting the migration of family members through visa sponsorship. Legal provisions that affected the arrivals of Korean women and children to the United States provided a precedent for US immigration reform after 1950. For instance, the 1952 and 1965 Immigration and Nationality Acts integrated core elements of these emergency orders, including privileging heterosexual relationships within immigration preferences. Simultaneously, while the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act “opened” the doors of American immigration to millions of people, South Korean military dictatorial rule and the imminent threat of rekindled warfare also influenced Korean emigration. As a result, official US immigration categories do not necessarily capture the complex conditions informing Koreans’ decisions to migrate to the United States. Finally, in light of the national surge of anti-immigrant sentiments that have crystallized since the American presidential election of Donald Trump in November 2016, immigration rights advocates have highlighted the need to address the prevalence of undocumented immigrant status among Korean Americans. While definitive statistics do not exist, emergent data suggests that at least 10 percent of the Korean American population is undocumented. Given this significant number, the undocumented status of Korean Americans is a critical site of study that warrants further research.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document