Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Korea: The First Test of the Containment Policy

Remember that Paper 3 topic that probably few (if any) of you chose?

  • Assess the policies of President Truman, containment, and its implications for the United States.
This question was difficult because we understood what containment was, but how do you really describe it without coherent examples, or an actual case where the US took definitive action in order to 'contain' communism.

How does the Korean War actually show the containment policy in action?  Were there any limits to the ways in which the United States and United Nations would implement containment into military strategy?

12 comments:

  1. Well the United States entered the Korean War in efforts to defend and stop the communistic invasion in South Korea. So essentially, our being there is defining Eisenhowers containment program. As for whether or not the us and uk had limits, I found that we were pretty committed to South Korea. As it says in the reading, "he had little choice: after 1945 the United States became increasingly committed to the regime protection against communist forces in Southeast Asia." However I found one fault that could be limiting the United States dedication. "President Eisenhower continued to support containment, although he worried about the defence budgets rising costs."

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  2. The fact that the UN responded so rapidly to the North Korean invasion by stationing US forces at the 38th parallel definitely supports the fact that the containment policies were being put into action. The purpose of stationing US troops was to contain the North Korean-Soviet communist ideas from entering South Korea. This war dragged on for three years, yet, as the article states, "the war would end where it started." This paradoxical result of war shows the limits of how much the US/UN could use military strategy to implement containment. Overall, the fear of the spread of communism is an idealistic issue, not necessarily a militaristic issue. Even though the US militarily prevented North Korea from regaining South Korea, military efforts did not stop the spread of communism, which we could see being a major threat for the next several decades during the Cold War.

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  3. The US protecting South Korea from North Korea demonstrates containment in action. I think the limit was reached when the US was outnumbered and military price began to rise. Containment as a policy seemed much more ideal when there was no action taking place. Now that the US knows how difficult it is to contain the spread of Communism militarily, there needs to be some more discussion about executing the policy and moving forward from here.

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  4. I think that the containment policy was clear to see in the Korean War. The US was against the spread of communism, and had the military influence to get involved. The war did manage to stop the North Korean invasion, but communist ideologies were still able to spread across borders.

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  5. the policy of containment is pretty clear when looking at the korean war it's simple, "CONTAIN COMMUNISM" so they entered into a war that almost had nothing to do with them but for moral support for south Korea and sent their people to help them out. What nicki said about the difference between a militaristic approach and it simply being an idealist issue makes a lot of sense. Sure the UN was a force gaining momentum towards a globalized community but that doesn't mean it's our duty to be the world-police and enforce our beliefs onto others. However, north korea is kinda freaky about now so its understandable to want to protect as many as possible from a situation like that, so whether it was right or wrong to go in remains a bit unclear to me...

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  6. Going into Korea in the first place was a huge step in the Containment acts of the Untied States. North Korea's communist regime that dominated its government was a real threat to the South Koreans and to the U.S. due to it being communist but also because South Korea was seen as America's friend after world war II. America and the world saw this as the one of the first communist invasions of a non-communist country and America being weary of communism could not let the South be taken over. The back and fourth land grabbing of each side is a good representation of America fighting the communist ideals and getting some traction, then losing ground, then winning again. It is a constant battle that never really got resolved just like the korean war.

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  7. I agree with Mike's first statement: "Going into Korea in the first place was a huge step in the Containment acts of the United States." The reading also says how the Korean War became the "first real test" of the UN's collective security concept. Truman was determined to limit the Korean War and prevent its expansion for these three reasons: keep the Soviets out, protect Europe from diversion, an public opinion. The people believed he was "soft on communism" and therefore wanted to change their perception by fighting against it on the other side of the world. He was convinced that the US and its allies had to "fight to contain communism". The first limit I noticed regarding military strategy was that the US units arrived South Korea too lightly armed. They were able to redeem themselves in their air power. The war evolved into a World War II version with trench warfare and such, and as a result not as much progress was made; the negotiations were talked about outside of all the fighting.

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  8. I think Containment is a hilarious term to use. The United States was not interested in "Containing" communism, the United States was trying to secure its spot at number 1 in the world. So long as the United States was the most powerful nation in the world, they didn't give a shoot if Russia or North Korea was communist. This idea of Containment was simply a political term that happened to get the American people rallied behind the war (in the beginning). America went into the war to defend an ally. I think the American people finally realized at the end of the war that this wasn't needed (good intro into Vietnam).

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  9. It is obvious that the involvement of the US into the Korean war had the purpose to stop the north korean dictatorship from spreading. North Korea was and still is pretty megalomaniac. They seemed probably dangerous to the whole world, although communism wasn't exactly the main reason. But for the US government and containment policy, it was essential to their involvement and the victory over the north korean intruders.

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  10. The American involvement in the Korean war was for the purpose of eradicating Communism in South Korea. Americans and American government leaders saw communism as a direct threat to the power of the United States, and acted in fear of it spreading. The United States, as Mitch said, wanted to remain the big dog globally, and aided their allies in South Korea, serving the interest of South Korea and themselves.

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  11. The simple fact of the reason the US had a presence in south Korea. To prevent the North Spreading communism to the south. this is perhaps the first concrete example of the US have a definitive plan, action, and execution with regards to Truman's containment policies as well as the prevention of the spread of communism.

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  12. Consider the facts that Korea is surrounded by the Republic o China and Russia which were two biggest figure and enemies of Capitalism, adds on the moral of the Truman's Containment is to restrain the spread to Evil Communism lead goats of east-southern like South Korea to Astray.
    Limitations are the use of Nuclear weapon, consideration of public opinion and mentality to get involved another war since world war 2 and avoid direct confrontation with Soviet with successfully tested A-BOMB.

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