The Background Of Korean Peninsula Crisis History Essay

The Background Of Korean Peninsula Crisis memorial EssayCHAPTER 22.1 IntroductionThe Korean Peninsula with the issues of northeast Koreas thermo thermo atomic system whizz of the worlds main concerns that pose a potential little terror to regional security.16The relationship amongst the deuce Koreas has pass uped considerably during the recent old age due to lack of trust and confidence, as well as the severalize ideas on reaching a solution on the thermonuclear issues. after fightd the end of the Cold War, few attempt to change the situation in Korea and to end the confrontation failed, mainly beca mapping of mutual distrust and of lack of contacts among its people. A new round of cautious approaches has bl terminate after Kim Dae-jung became president of s bulgeh-commutation Korea in 1998. The historical June 2000 summit meeting between the top leaders of the dickens Koreas has brought hopes for unification and a peace edge. Since then, there is increasing official inter trans action at law, merely still unless limited and have gotled contacts among the people of the two countries.2.2 Origin of the unsolved ConflictAfter being under the Japanese occupation for the end four decades, there was hope for the Korean people to regain their fully soereignty at the end of the World War II. In opulent 1945, Japan was forced to surrender after atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The judgment of dismissal of the Korean Peninsula started by Soviet troops from the north and later by the Statesn troops from the south, with the thirty-eighth parallel retrace became the line of communication channel between the two allies. But instead of becoming a guiltless and sovereign country, the Korean Peninsula was once again put under pressure. This time, it was the forthcoming rivalry between the Soviet Union and the U.S, which would shape Koreas history. Thus, Korea came to be divided into two temporary zones of occupatio n that, as the Cold War deepened, became two separate Korean regimens with opposed principles and sponsors.17In 1948, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two sovereign states due to constitution-making infiltration from the two so-called liberators, that is, Soviet Union and the U.S, and the increasing radicalisation of Korean civil society and its leaders. The two Koreas, notably the Republic of Korea ( southeasterly Korea) and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) or DPRK, started their new life in dependence of their forces machine and political protectors, the U.S, the Soviet Union, China and in an aureole of the growing tensions between East and West.When the U.S and Soviet withdrew their troops from Korea in 1949, southeastern Korea wanted to restore the lost land and DPRK wanted to liberate the gray half of the Republic.18The economically and militarily stronger DPRK dogged to solve the problem of non-recognition and of the sectionalisation by mil itary direction. Its leader, Kim Il-sung went to Moscow in April 1950 to convince Stalin, and in whitethorn to China to obtain the approval of Mao. In Moscow, he could secure Stalins mount in return for political as well as few material gains for DPRK. At the beginning, Stalin was cautious and against the plan, yet was convinced by Kim Il-sung that the struggle could be won quickly without U.S intervention.As the DPRK troops launched a admiration attack against South Korea in the premature morning of June 25, 1950, U.S prexy enthalpy S Truman responded quickly by sending troops from Japan to Korea and mobilised the UN to go about its first gear-ever international military action. Unfortunately for DPRK, the Soviet Union was not deport to veto during the UN guarantor Council session at that time. However, on the same day, the UN Security Council condemned the invasion and called for immediate ceasefire and breakup of the troops to the 38th parallel. When DPRK ref ingestio nd to withdraw from South Korea, the U.S decided to intervene in Korea, and on June 27, 1950, the Security Council called for members to support the U.S intervention.2.3 The Korean WarOn 7 July 1950, the UN Security Council decided to establish a Unified Command for the UN Forces in Korea and mandated a joint military action to repel DPRK troops and to restore the status quo in Korea. The UN military action in Korea, taken by the U.S Eight Army under widely distributed MacArthur, was able to accomplish its mission and the struggle could have cease by 7 October 1950. However, sensing an opportunity to roll back communist working out and to amalgamate the country by force, public MacArthur and South Korean President Rhee Syng-man, decided to march further into DPRK. They were confronted by unexpected enemy, the Chinese volunteers who had travel into DPRK in massive numbers. Together with North Korean troops, the Chinese started an vile and pushed back UN forces to below the 38th parallel and recaptured Saigon in January 1951. The conflict had positive into a limited international war involving the U.S and nineteen other nations on one side and China and North Korea on the other.As the military situation unquestionable unfavourably for the Allied forces, General MacArthur asked Truman to authorize the use of nuclear weapons against China and DPRK. Fortunately, although some U.S military leaders favoured the nuclear option, Truman decided not to use the weapons for a number of reasons.19He discharged General MacArthur over this issue and redefined American policy by abandoning his objective of military reunification of Korea. His aim was now a return to the status quo, veritable(a) as the Chinese and North Koreans were advancing southward. Truman was unwilling to engage in an all-out war which could have led to a world war involving the Soviet Union.However, instead of no nuclear weapons were apply, the U.S resorted to massive air bombings, including the use of napalm. It is quite obvious that not only its governing but in like manner the people of DPRK have no good memories of the U.S. Linking the U.S capability to use nuclear weapons in the Korean War and the present debate on the North Korean nuclear broadcast, Michael J. Mazarr stated thatThe U.S thus exposed North Korea, during its infancy as a nation, to the fearsome power and enormous political regard as of nuclear weapons. The lesson was apparently not lost on North Koreas leaders, and early U.S nuclear threats are one important thread in the tapis of the Norths motives for a nuclear political platform.20The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs turn outed to the world that conflicts in the 20th century could be decided within seconds.21This experience and the possibility that those weapons could decide a war again left a deep impression on the DPRK regime and its population. Furthermore, the U.S foreign policy on the Korean Peninsula made it almost surplus for Pyongyang to spread the impression of a brutal and arrogant America the behaviour of the U.S spoke for itself. Until today, the sorrows of the Korean War have a redundant meaning to the North Korean resentments against the U.S. With the American considerations about the use of nuclear force during the Korean War, the nuclear issue touched ground in this region for the first time.As the war reached a new material body with massive intervention of Chinese volunteers, the UN General Assembly formally proposed a ceasefire in December 1950. The representatives of the UN and communist commands began formal truce negotiations in July 1951, but only in 1953, with the death of Stalin and with Dwight Eisenhower as the U.S President, did the bitter fighting cum to an end, with heavy casualties on both sides. An armistice agreement between the UN forces, represent by the U.S, and China and DPRK was drawn up and star signed. South Korea, however, wanting to immix the country with the help of the U.S, r efused to sign the truce agreement.22Instead, a mutual self-denial treaty was signed with the U.S in October 1953 and an arrangement for the continued presence of U.S forces in South Korea. The subsequent Geneva Conference on Korea in April 1954 failed to picture a political solution to the two Koreas issue. The failure of the two attempts to unify the peninsula only deepened the division, making any contact with each other impossible.The Korean War began with the aim of reunification by military force, but ended with hundreds of thousands of deaths and a nearly totally devastated peninsula in July 1953. The victimization on the Korean Peninsula has gone through a lot of critical situations since the war ended. In succeeding years, the Cold War seemed to make it impossible for the two Koreas to start a policy of conciliation and to smooth the way for reunification.2.4 North Koreas atomic ProgramToward the end of the Cold War, South Korea became one of the major(ip) economic powe rs in the region while DPRK seemed to become totally isolated with political changes. The decline of the Soviet Union, the collapse of former brother-states in Eastern Europe, and the cleanse process in China, left deep uncertainty in DPRKs leadership. Since the first indigenous North Korean reactor was detected in the early 1980s by U.S spy satellites, the attention of the world community has pore on the question of whether DPRK is using its nuclear facilities to produce military-grade nuclear material. The expiry of important economic partnerships and natural disasters has brought Pyongyang into a position where the government was unable to provide food for its own population, it was quite logical that DPRK used the uncertainty of the world community about the status of its nuclear program to broaden its clearance in gaining economic support without losing political control over the country.Indeed, since 1990 and the withdrawal of Soviet support, DPRKs economy has declined shar ply, though according to South Korean reports, 1984 was the last time the country achieved economic self-efficiency.23A central tool in DPRKs efforts to maintain the communist regime has been the use of weapons development in order to gain concessions, aid and favourable treaty outcomes with its prospective adversaries. At a glance DPRKs behaviour mightiness seem to show that it is making threatening acts for no other reason than to disrupt the process of warming relations with South Korea, the U.S, and its other neighbours. However, re-examination shows a careful policy of developing a threatening system or capability, and using that threat to gain attention, and hopefully concessions from negotiating partners.Figure 1North Koreas Nuclear Facilities bloodline Interactive Map of DPRK Nuclear Facilities (2002).24DPRK first employed this policy over its nuclear power and weapons program in the early 1990s. An indigenous nuclear program had been underway since the 1970s, but it was on ly in 1992 that the UN nuclear observe body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was allowed to inspect all DPRKs nuclear facilities as illustrated at Figures 1. After three inspections, the submitted data showed discrepancies which indicate that DPRK might have been concealing enough plutonium to build one or two nuclear weapons.25After an abortive declaration of withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), DPRK has agreed to give up its nuclear program with the condition that modern light-water reactors were supplied to fulfil its energy needs. After a stopover of crisis, war was averted when this formula was included in the Agreed Framework of October 1994 between the U.S and DPRK.26The recent confrontation between the U.S and DPRK flared after the country was named as one of the three countries in the Axis of Evil by President George W. crotch hair in his annual State of Union speech in January 2002. It seems presumable now that this was the by-produ ct of a speech intended to justify a war with Iraq.27However, when publicly labelled an evil state by the worlds only superpower, tensions apparently heightened within the DPRK regime. In any case, when James Kelly, U.S assistant secretarial assistant of state, confronted the North Koreans with evidence of a uranium enrichment program in October 2002, they admitted the worldly concern of the program. DPRK then proceeded to remove seals on the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, and declared its withdrawal from the NPT on January 10, 2003.282.5 SummaryAs discussed, the two Koreas were divided at the 38th parallel at the end of the Second World War. That line became the line of demarcation between the Soviet troops advancing from the north and the American troops coming from the south. It was the beginning of the rivalry between the two major world superpowers. Thus, Korea came to be divided into two temporary zones of occupation that, as the Cold War deepened, became the sites of two d ifferent regimes with different principles and ideologies.The problem worsen with the North Korean invasion of South Korea which sparked the Korean War. The conflict had developed into a limited international war involving the U.S and nineteen other nations on one side and China and North Korea on the other. The war ended with the signing of an armistice between the U.S, representing the UN forces, and China and North Korea. South Korea refused to sign the truce agreement, but instead signed a mutual defence force treaty with the U.S.In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union which means the withdrawal of Soviet support and the reform process of China, DPRK felt isolated. At the same time, with collapsing economy and widespread famine it had to survive by bolstering its accomplished forces and embarking on nuclear program. This was also because DPRK wants respect and security guarantee. Further, DPRK develops nuclear weapons out of fear and to attain a more positive deal in negotiations. That is the more positive view alternatively, the North Koreans simply see the nuclear program and the bomb as their right and a necessity.