In October, the United Nations, urged by the United States Government, approved the movement of UN forces across the 38th parallel into North Korea in an effort to unify the country under a non-communist government. After the front stabilized at the Pusan perimeter, General MacArthur surprised the North Koreans in September 1950 with an amphibious landing at Inchon behind North Korean lines, forcing the North Koreans to retreat behind the 38th parallel. The initial North Korean attack drove United Nations Command forces to a narrow perimeter around the port of Pusan in the southern tip of the peninsula. The first several months of the war were characterized by armies advancing and retreating up and down the Korean peninsula. President Truman designated General Douglas MacArthur as Commanding General of the United Nations Command (UNC). Truman committed United States air, ground, and naval forces to the combined United Nations forces assisting the Republic of Korea in its defense. Concerned that the Soviet Union and Communist China might have encouraged this invasion, President Harry S. North Korea aimed to militarily conquer South Korea and therefore unify Korea under the communist North Korean regime. Robinson describes the border as “hermetically sealed,” which helps to explain the drastically different paths the two nations have taken, and the continuing divide between them.After five years of simmering tensions on the Korean peninsula, the Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when the Northern Korean People's Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated general attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel, the line dividing communist North Korea from the non-communist Republic of Korea in the south. Unlike another Cold War-era separation, between East and West Germany, there has been extremely little movement across the DMZ between North and South Korea since 1953. “They destroyed every city.” The armistice that ended that conflict in 1953 left the peninsula divided much as before, with a demilitarized zone (DMZ) running roughly along the 38th parallel. “They leveled the country,” Robinson says. military bombed villages, towns and cities across the northern half of the peninsula. It did, however, firmly establish the United States as the permanent b ête noire of North Korea, as the U.S. The Korean War (1950-53), which killed at least 2.5 million people, did little to resolve the question of which regime represented the “true” Korea. (Credit: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images) Korean War Syngman Rhee, President of Korea, meeting with General Matthew B. “The trouble was that the Cold War intervened….And everything that was tried to create a middle ground or to try to reunify the peninsula is thwarted by both the Soviet Union and the United States not wanting to give in to the other.” “The ultimate objective was for the Soviet Union and the United States to leave, and let the Koreans figure it out,” he explains. Meanwhile, the U.S.-supported regime in the South clearly favored anti-communist, rightist elements, according to Robinson. While the Soviet policies were widely popular with the bulk of the North’s laborer and peasant population, most middle-class Koreans fled south of the 38th parallel, where the majority of the Korean population resides today. South of that line, a military government was formed, supported directly by the United States. Over the next three years (1945-48), the Soviet Army and its proxies set up a communist regime in the area north of latitude 38˚ N, or the 38th parallel. In August 1945, the two allies “in name only” (as Robinson puts it) divided control over the Korean Peninsula.
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