our time with the same valor and selflessness. now, grant colonel ralph puckett rest from his labors and to him your faithful servant. grant him the reward of your own. well done in your merciful name, we pray. amen.

this year's symposium focuses on korea the first forever war. and while americans think of the war as forgotten, intend to remember and to consider the legacies of the war for the peoples and the nations who

fought the war in korea. inaugural aided police action is a new kind of warfare. it made the cold war hot and it began a series of forever wars that continue shape international politics and diplomacy. today we're honored to have with us some of the leading of the war who bring a variety of scholarly expertise and public policy experience to bear on the war's causes, experiences and its legacies will begin a panel on the war's causes. and i am delighted to introduce our panelists, to you. so to my immediate left is gregg brazinsky, who is professor of history and international affairs at george washington university, a historian, u.s. and east asian relations, east asian international history. he's the author of winning the third world and nation building in south korea. steven casey is professor of international history at london school of economics and political science. he's a professor of foreign

policy and the author of several, including selling the korean war and when soldiers fall how americans have divided combat casualties world war one to the war on terror. marielle dusek is the asa griggs candler of law at emory university, a leading scholar of legal history in the united states in the world is the author of wartime an idea its history and its consequences and her next going to war an american history is under contract with oxford university and is very eagerly anticipated by some of us in this room. so as a saw, as a historian, i'll for myself as a historian, i like to start at beginning. and if we start at the beginning, maybe we could talk and today with a little bit of discussion, the beginning of the korean war, it's partly, i think for many americans, it's an episode of the cold war. but it's also war of decolonization. it's a war of nationalism.

it is a war with so many individual threads, each of which become magnified and intensified as. they become entangled. so it might be an unfair question, but i love the question anyway. and i wanted to just ask each of our panelists, when did the korean begin? would you should i start? you can go right ahead. thank you. thank you, for inviting me to this colloquy. it's a great privilege to be here amongst so many other fantastic scholars so. i think, you know, even today when the korean is taught in american schools, a lot of times still emphasized that it began on june 25th, 1950, when north korea invaded, south korea. but i think over the last 30 years, it's become pretty commonly accepted among that, if you to understand the origins

of, the korean war and how it started, you can't really just start with that date in 1950. you to look at the previous years and understand what was on in korea. between 1945. in 1950, because there already a lot of social conflict within korea by the end of world war two, in part because japanese colonialism had created such sharp divisions between some koreans who had benefited from japanese colonialism different ways and some koreans who had suffered partially because had resisted japanese colonialism. so when japanese colonial wisdom and, you know, japan surrender its colonies in 1945 when this long suddenly comes to an end all of these tensions, frictions

between and among koreans are rising to the surface very quickly. and so a lot of the histories know a lot of what's been written about korean war in the last 30 years, as that there probably would you know, there was an emerging civil conflict in korea in, you know, in the years between. 1945 and 1950. and there were already a lot deaths in borders, issues between north and south korea, between 1948 and 1950. so so, you know, there's historians of sort of debated what is relation between this ongoing conflict and the korean war is is what we call the korean war. did it grow out of this civil that was occurring korea? did it occur at the expense of this ongoing civil conflict or

was it some combination of both and. i think that's that's what historians who study the war have been talking and debating. thanks greg. and i'm historian of america so my starting place actually would be this nasty sort of waste. it will talk because i think for for the treatment, the thing that really struck when i was first researching this is that unlike america's other 20th century wars, where were long leading times of the months, even years of debate about should america go to war in world war one, world war two, vietnam and so forth. outbreak of the korean war in the korean on june 24th, 25th does really take the truman administration by surprise and there is a real shock there. and i think the lack of awareness of of the issues that historians are now debating about what's going on in the korean peninsula, i think is quite striking. the truman administration and pretty much everybody in washington over that weekend

almost emphatically disagree that this is a korean civil conflict. the first instinct is that this is directed by stalin. and the big question is why stalin now seeking to expand military force? and i think that's the thing that really washington by surprise. yes. there's been a cold war from truman's perspective for the past three years. but that cold war quite limited. the american seen the threat as being largely economic, growing out of the dislocation of world war two and the american response have largely economic aid. the marshall plan is sort of the signifier of that and also the areas of the cold war have become familiar and been fought over a divided germany. berlin when americans are thinking about asia in? the first half of 1950, it's very much the end game with the chinese civil war. what's going to happen in taiwan and, the fact that all of a sudden north korean troops are going across this recognized border that does shock, surprise

as and horror. truman, in his first press statement, says that the threat has gone from internal subversion to direct military attack. and i think that really explains the american response, which is to send ground troops within a week, which i think is an unusual response. ten years earlier, france had fallen in world war two. an american pretty much done nothing. now, exactly ten years later, north korea, south korea, according to the truman, within a week, ground troops are being sent. this is a new transformed nation and that american involvement does transform this civil conflict into something much bigger, which then subsequently gets transformed in something even bigger in sort of october, november, december, when the people's of china then also intervenes. so there is an escalation of what the korean war is over course of 1950 from the civil conflict into the united states, being at war with the communist regime of china and so thank you all for being here morning and

thank you for including me in this conversation usually the question of when a war that the united states is involved when it begins for the united states. it's an easy question, right? when was the war declared? the thing about the korean war is not only did truman not seek a war, a very action going forward, but he also to even call it a war. and so, you know, at a press conference, a reporter says, well, is a police action. and he says. oh, yeah, it's a police action. so he called it by euphemism. interestingly, the war never began in the at the truman administration, because when you look at the folder titles in the boxes and they retain usually the folder titles from the administration they say korean emergency. and so the korean, the truman

administration is basically deep denial about fact that they've started a war without asking congress to authorize it, without it, you know, and then, you know. not only sending troops, deciding to send troops quite quickly, even before the u.n. security council authorized the use of. so he was acting on presidential power alone. so, you know, you know, there's another date of, u.s. action that's important which is in 1945, american officers chose 38th parallel as a place divide who, you know, who would be occupying which part of korea. and so on some level it's american from the beginning that helped create this division that then the conflict in that was

ongoing ends up being sort geographically organized pursuant to artificial pick. you know, they wanted seoul to be the capital in the south. so let's find a line above that. and they knew that there were actually no geographic or cultural reasons for that line. but that's on some level part of how things how things affected the conflict on the peninsula going forward. that's fascinating think because the one area of course this is not just the civil conflict, not just the cold war conflicts. is it the first united nations war as well which is which is interesting and actually when because of the time difference state department first learns about north korean attack saturday the 24th and the first instinct of acheson before he informs the president is to convene this emergency as the security council. the next day. and so exactly why that kneejerk reaction there, why the u.n. almost is taking priority over congressional is an interesting fact of and the way in, i think,

the issue of congressional is relatively muted in america the summer of 1950s, because of the un. but the fact that truman hasn't gone and got a congressional declaration becomes increasingly controversial as the war drags on and as the war unpopular. yeah there was deep concern about to war with the out of declaration at the time. there is no constitute there is no legal authority for what he has done you know was of the arguments so you know many in the internal meetings within the white house the blair meetings sometimes would have a congress member there who would say, wait a minute, you know, you know, you know, it was whether it was a war and whether it was something which truman needed authorizing action was something, although it didn't rise to, the level of congress standing up and saying, no on

some level, he didn't have an opportunity to do that. but, you know, once troops are on the ground, what always happens is, is political figures are going to their troops and going to rally behind the president. and that's so ends up being what happens initially. you see why i like this question. right. there's not one easy answer. it's all of the above. perhaps maybe it depends on one's perspective, right to the date. if there is a date might be different for the united states or the u.n. or china or or you know, we've talked sort of about the korean perspective here. right. why how would koreans the beginning of this war? so historians will just say it's complicated and leave it there may be. right? well, i mean, i think i again, i mean, i think it it depends a lot on on the perspective that you're taking and sort of, you know, which national experience you're viewing it through the

lens of primarily. and i mean i think historians may still have work to do in terms of you know how do you view it through sort of multiple different of national experiences at the same time but you know i they were speaking a lot of from the u.s. perspective and this issue of it being in on, you know, an undeclared war and that's you know, that's often what's on the u.s. side and lot of those debates, you know, interestingly, the chinese side, they don't the troops that they send to korea are called volunteers. and so they're volunteering to help the north koreans also not a declaration of war against the united states on the chinese either. so, you know, so so there's some when it comes to the larger powers that got involved in the korean war and what their

perspective and how they see it. and i also think you there's just you know so there's multiple dimensions about when people think the korean war began. also you know what really changes on june 25th, 1950 from the perspective of koreans less changes then from the perspective of americans, i would say yes. so can you talk a little bit about how something that began with roots that were in local conflict and civil conflict sort of starts to escalate after the second world war and through colonialism why would something particular to the korean peninsula become of such significance of such great concern to the united nations or to china or the soviet or the united states? i think there's lot of reasons for that. one thing a lot, of people look

at dean acheson's famous defense perimeter speech, where he lays out what he says, you know this is the defense perimeter. it runs from the aleutians and so forth. and on. and he leaves korea out of the defense perimeter. and a lot of people say, well, that's why the korean war started. it's because acheson didn't put korea south korea in the defense perimeter. but if you look at other parts of the one of the things that he says is that the united has already made a significant investment and in trying to build south korea and and even you know in 1948, you have to korean states that represent influence of the cold war superpower. you have the united states try to build liberal in the south, even though it was not very liberal or very democratic in

1948. and of course, you have in the north. and so much like divided germany in europe, a lot of people, you know, americans think that people around the world are going to look at the korean peninsula and see it as sort of a showcase or a test where the relative merits of communism versus the free world are going to be to people all around the world. and so i think even in 1950 and so south korea was much more important to the united states and to policymakers in particular larger than is commonly. so so one thing that's interesting is if you go about the defense perimeters, right, where acheson is saying we're not going to defend south if, you go to the war memorial of korea, seoul, which is their big

their big is you know, museum memory, remembering the war when you go into the exhibit about the war itself, the first thing you see is an exhibit on the defensive perimeter speech. so it's as if to say this is why this war happened because because dean, the united states basically said that that they're not going to defend us, even though the the memorial as a whole. and the grounds are deeply respectful of the american soldiers participated in the war who died. as you walk towards entrance it's extremely powerful. you know on all either side you are names of of soldiers who who died in the war by country by country and while i was there you know how go to the the the

vietnam war memorial and at nathan's i saw a man up on his steps to all edge you know sort of using material to sort of you know etch the name of of of of a soldier who had died doing on behalf of family who who wasn't able to be on the trip with him. so but i you know, in terms of the sort of u.n. and the seeing it as a major cold war battle, you know, the united states, the nations was the that was governing south korea at the time. there were supposed to be elections in, the north and in the south. instead, there was only an in the south. and so the united nations thought of south korea as that's the, you know, a united nations

entity were protecting them and the, you know, even now in the legal doctrine, a that it's argued that it was appropriate for president truman to unilaterally decide to go to war is that he was protecting an important american interest. and what that interest the united nations as there was great concern about would the u.n. survive. you know what happen if this big u.n. objective failed so that's that's one of the reasons that that action on behalf of the united nations was seen to be as it seemed to be tremendously important of my perspective. i think one of the things, despite not getting declaration of war, truman is very successfully able in the summer of 1950 to build both a domestic an international coalition behind the deployment of troops. so that evaporates by the end of

the year. but he does, i think, because two overlapping factors here that coincide. one is the cold war, the fact that korea is is important is important strategically because of its geographic position vis a vis japan, as well as its symbol. but it's also important when truman is in independence, missouri, on the 24th, when he learns of the attack, he flies to washington the next day. and in his memoirs, he says, as i'm looking out the window, i'm thinking about the 1930s and in the 1930s, when the west allow totalitarian dictatorships to expand, the news falls without any comeback. that led to world war three. so and he's thinking well, we need to stand up to stalin's aggression here in the third world war three to show our credibility and resolve to show stalin we mean business. that also, i think for would have valuable for america's new allies in nato sort of worried america might be a bit unreliable and it also ties together domestic coalition american politics have been enormously turbulent in.

the eight months which truman had won a shock reelection victory, the republicans had lost five last five presidential elections. they are looking to be truman with any foreign policy issue they can. they've been arguing lost china had he have not done anything to defend south korea. they would have been all hell to pile on the republicans side. at the same time, the fact he brings the united nations in also, there isn't much of a left in america in 1950, but the people who are on the left when henry wallace, former president who'd won as a progressive candidate in 1948, he's willing to support harry truman because truman's gone to the united nations. and the final point like to make as well, which is connected with your question carl which is why do other countries support the united states. in 1950 my own country has a labor government. many people on the labor backbenches aren't comfortable following america's lead and comfortable with the cold war logic. but they are old fashioned left collective security advocates who had been supporters of the league of nations in the 1930.

so even the british government, which has all sorts problems, both domestic and imperial in 1950, is willing to commit troops to korea by the end of the summer and follow america's lead. so there is a successful coalition takes place in this early war, as america would see against north korea. that starts to evaporate when the war becomes war against the volunteers of the people's republic of china. you know, if i just pick up on what he was mentioning about stalin, i mean, there's there's there's also sort of a lot of interesting debate how important stalin was in the soviet union in terms of transforming this sort of you what was going on in korea to a broader international conflict in. 1948 when there are elections in the in the south, those are unsupervised election, but there are there also are elections in the north. it's just that the un is shut

out of the north. and so that's where you get these two separate states. but from the outset. the south korean leadership under syngman rhee keeps this north korean state is illegitimate. we want to attack it. we want to unify the peninsula. we want have a war and il and he keeps saying this to truman and the united states and the united states keeps saying, no, no, no, we don't need to get dragged in. know, we don't need you to do something that could potentially drag united states in and create conflict and in asia that could have wider ramifications. kim il sung is doing the same thing in his discussions with stalin and over the course of the period. 1948 and 1949, 1950, he keeps going, we want to invade the south. it's an imperial puppet. it's not legitimate. we want to reunify peninsula on communist terms and so, so difference is, though, that some time in about the spring of 1959

and this also speaks to the origins of the korean war stalin changes from being relatively cautious to being more adventurous and saying go ahead. and of course, one of the reasons that he's shifted because the chinese communist party has triumphed on the chinese mainland by the end of 1949, and all of a sudden it's looking like, well, maybe communism is going to be in asia after all. so it might make sense. allow kim sung to finish the job that mounted dong started. and i would reiterate point actually the interesting of both the superpowers about night, the spring of 1950 are actually putting a lid on the conflicts both the korean new regimes are desperate to unite the peninsula both of the superpower leaders are a cautious. they don't really want conflict. america, america's practicing double containment is trying to contain north are trying to

contain south korea as well and the thing that changes is that stalin's decision and that then unleashes this into a much bigger and i think a key part of all of this is role of nuclear weapons. right. that this is the dawn of the nuclear age and so a conflict that may or may not have remained local to the korean peninsula is part a concern of the world because. the superpowers have nuclear weapons. so could you speak to the role that nuclear power plays in all of this? i think one of the interesting things as both the way in which america views the cold war in that year before the korean war is that big things happened. one is that china goes communist and the second is that the soviets test the atomic bomb. both of those things, from the administration's perspective, seem to give starting the confidence, to unleash act of aggression. that will be how they would view it. but the thing from america's perspective america had a nuclear monopoly until 1949, although the soviets tested the

bomb, they won't have a deliverable bomb probably for another four years. so 9054 looks like being the year of maximum danger. so the united states has a four year window to try and do something about. the soviet union's impending acquisition of deliverable nuclear weapons. and they also two schools of thought here the dominant truman acheson school of thought is that stalin can be deterred as long as america builds up its conventional forces. this is the message of nsc 68. truman doesn't initially. by that truman wants to keep defense spending. but in the wake of the korean war, truman okays the approval for a massive rearmament drive, which gathers pace after the chinese intervention. and that comes from the fact that if america shows resolve in korea. if america builds up its military capacity, stirling can be deterred. but there's an opposing school of thought behind closed doors within the pentagon sometimes within the republican party, which argues that if war with the soviet union is inevitable, if the soviets will have nuclear weapons within four years, probably best to get the war

over and done with now and the whole notion of a preventive strike, louis, who's defense secretary, started the war, is muttering about this. certain journalists secretary, navy francis matthews makes a speech in august 50 advocating a preventive. and it's quite a lot of muttering behind closed doors, which gathers pace at moments when the korean war is going badly. so in the summer of 1950, but particularly in december, january 1950, 51, when there are moments when it looks like america could be pushed off the peninsula. then all of a sudden the pressure starts, the building. there's a lot more advocacy. let's use nuclear weapons. and of course, truman is the only leader who has dropped nuclear weapons. five years earlier in japan. and he's under quite a lot of pressure of certain moments. the interesting counterfactual would have been had the us military not been able to contain, say, the chinese attack in early 1951, would that pressure been insurmountable, as it turns out? i think the key dynamic is ridgway is able to discern the

battlefield situation around by march 1951, and that pressure dissipates. and so that's sort of the key dynamic there. well, other factors involved, the i think is a fascinating because the whole idea of nonuse, which does develop over the course of the cold war is not really decades. and there is a temptation, i think, in washington to perhaps use these weapons. let me just that the fact that nuclear weapons were not used on the korean peninsula does not there wasn't incredibly horrific destruction. the korean war, the first year war where there was widespread use of napalm killing through fire and there was also sort of massive aerial bombardment. the photographs, pyongyang, the north korean. from this after bombing pyongyang. remind me of the photographs of hiroshima. so there were massive

indiscriminate civilian casualties where with the use of weapons like, napalm, they also affected american sometimes napalm would be dropped too early on. troops, u.s. troops and robert nurse searing book on napalm tells the story. a soldier begging his comrades to kill him because he was fire. so i bring up these terrible, you know, thoughts because. it's so tremendously important to keep in mind that that this was terribly devastating war during the american people sat in comfort at home often had little interest except for the families whose so who's whose family were deployed writing to president truman and to and to others saying, why doesn't a

soldier wrote home? why doesn't someone tell the people what's happening here? a father said, how would you feel if your son was surrounded at to one? and this was related to. the us invasion of the which ended up being just a terrible catastrophe. so so so the korean was horrifically destructive not withstanding the fact that nuclear weapons were not used. yes. and i think what mary is saying about the us aerial bombardment of north korea is also just so to understanding north korea today. a lot of people you know what happens of course, in the korean war is it has this sort of yo yo type course where north korea is initially very successful in invading south korea and korean forces occupy south korea for a

period of time and that occupation is brutal and violent. but then after the inchon landing american forces occupy north korea with south korean forces. and during that period they basically try to completely overturn the north korean government and set up a new government. and so that period is also massively destructive, violent with you know, massacres occurring, civilian deaths, people looking for revenge because again, the civil the elements of the civil conflict are still ongoing throughout. the korean war period. so there's a lot of sort of sort of violence at the societal level that's occurring all through the korean war. but, you know, when you want to understand north korea today, you have this period in which american are occupying north korea and it china does, of

course, eventually intervene. but it's not immediate. and then, of course, during the war you have these the us pretty much air superiority through most of the conflict and i heard, you know, i've spoken with former chinese veterans and other chinese who who were in korea as nurses as and part of entering when you know there were sort of groups end entertain the volunteers and they say like you know american bombing was was so powerful. the first words of that a chinese volunteer here learned was typically jehangir. so which means is there is there an airplane? so, you know, they were very traumatized by the bombing. and so, you know, think today, like, why nuclear weapons so important to the north korean

state? because they remember the bombings of 1950 and the people who who don't remember it have still been told it and they don't. you they want to have a deterrent to make sure it doesn't happen. and they're not going to be willing give up that deterrent until they're very, very sure it will never happen again. know it's interesting how this discussion is sort of leading naturally to. my next question about why we've called this the forever war right. it would have been an easy, maybe an obvious thing to call this korea the forgotten war. and as i said, trying very much not to forget, but to think about it as as a forever war, the sense of its legacies and the ways that it's still remembered today in the ways that it started, ways of going to war as mary or conflict or emergencies or whatever, whatever they call them.

so if we think korea not as forgotten, but as forever or how might that change the way we talk about it, the way we teach it, the way that just its meaning in our society today? well you know what, just the sort of old fashion way of thinking about how wars are bound in time. there's, you know, there's a war declaration and then there's a peace treaty at the and we don't have kind of closure start and we don't have that kind of closure at the end. things sort of come to a to a to a stop with that sort of, you know, to line at the border that that the u.s. maintains troops stationed in korea continuing continually if you look at the i

did a chart in my wartime book of to sort of plot you know one exactly our wars american history since don't all get declared and they don't all break through the radar screen and i wanted to use a database that i wasn't making up so we used a u.s. government database as u.s. military campaign service medals picking, medals that were about sort of service under fire or or potential conditions under fire and. what you see is there's almost no moments of peace from perspective of deployed soldiers on in the 20th century, but especially world war two on and korea and war service medals continue well after the you know armistice in in in the korean so so so that conflict itself on some level continues but it also

provides model in terms of how present it's go to war. right it unilateral decisions to go to war it makes war declarations or even authorizations which the functional equivalent like the tonkin gulf resolution in vietnam it makes them exceptional. and so that most american war is more smaller scale and especially off the radar screen of the american when you're calling for a war declaration and you're saying to the populace, hey, we're doing something really important, the entire country needs to be mobilized. support, support, it. and i need you to support because members of need to hear from their constituents and support it. well, what happens that doesn't happen. the war goes on without bothering the american presidents have a if the american people alive and

focused on it because they've been notified that there's going to be a war declaration instead presidents have more autonomy to make choices on their own when. military action then becomes a way of executing, you know, just normalized way of executing u.s. international. you in foreign policy decisions then the fact that it can without an engaged populace because no one's being asked to declare it that is the sort of the best legal and political part of a broader story. why do we have ongoing, unending u.s. in conflicts around the world without ever, almost ever having congress declare or authorize it and making the same point, but looking at different not the angle i necessarily, but the angle that say the

administration 1950 saw both cold war and the korean war. i think they were very that there wouldn't be public support, a forever war or even a forever war. i think there was a real concern in 1950. yes, the united states needs to combat soviet aggression in korea and yes, it needs to build up this industrial military industrial complex. but i didn't think that the american public would stomach a long cold war military complex or even a long term or military presence in south korea. their view, historians now challenge this view. their view was america was traditionally isolationist and have been very light into both world wars and demobilized right afterwards. and i the korean war would sort of fit a similar pattern and part of what they're doing when they're trying to sell the korean war is to generate long support for the types of things that you're talking about. and part of that is trying to tamp down knowledge of exactly what war means. and so you get this sense here. i'm looking at it from america's

perspective, which is quite a detached view of the korean war. and gregg is very eloquent in talking about what it's like to be on the end of american power. and those two things are often quite different. right. and i think when you talk about the korean war being a forever war, it's also very important to look at what that's for north and south koreans, even to this day. you still have divided family ways. and one of the people will speak later. nan kim has done some very, very great research on the divided families. there's still reunions, as there were until recently sort of these reunions arranged between brothers, between parents and children that, you know, they hadn't seen each other for 50 or 60 years and of a sudden they were being reunited with each other. so that you have that issue and you also have the issue at the societal level for instance in

south korea, if you know for a long time, if was any hint that you had collaborated with the north koreans when they invaded south in june of 1950, in any way that was a long lasting stigma that affected how you were treated and perceived and your job prospects. and you know what you could do with your life so on and on both sides of the peninsula the impact been you know was was just so socially dramatic at so many levels. well and it didn't end in 1953, you know other aspects of the war and how it was fought were continued. and i you know, i also think if you look at the governments that remain in power sort of south

and north korea during the cold war. you know you have some of the most conservative anti-communist governments in the world, in south korea. and you some of the, you know, staunch ist, you know, whether people, you know, today, people debate whether north korea is really, you know, this, you know, is it more communist or more traditional korean with some communist elements, whatever you want to say that it is, though it's lasted a lot longer than anybody thought that it would. so i'll ask one one final question and then we'll open it to the audience for questions. from your perspective and your your own research background, why did people around the world care about the korean war when it happened and why we care today? well i mean, i think they they

cared for a variety of different reasons as it is. it was ongoing. i mean, i have already before sort of the way the korean peninsula was perceived at the time i saw it. so i think that one issue, you know, there's this sort of juxtaposing of democracy and communism on, the peninsula. i think, you know for the united it was looked at possible as a test of credibility. one of the things that's interesting in terms of the united states is you before world war two, it it it had been, you know, one of the wealthiest had a lot of potential a military power. but it had been reluctant to take a position of global leadership. and so from the perspective, the united states, this war, really

a test of american global credibility, american leadership and from the chinese perspective, it was viewed this way as well one of the things that's going in the chinese communist party is that mao zedong believes that there's going to be a new eastern revolution that's going to sweep asia and turn it communist. and, of course, which countries should be at the center of this eastern revolution, the leader it should be china. and so china also saw the korean war as being very important to its own status as a leader of communist movement or the socialist movement among, asia and to some degree among nonwhite people of the world, because there was this idea that

the soviet union was going to spread and sort of be in charge of. communism in europe, but that china was potentially going to be more successful in asia and the developing world. so it was it was very important the mentality of a lot of a lot of people. well, and of course, you know, everybody's looking at the war and seeing, you know, how successful can china be at standing up to the wealthiest and most militarily powerful country in the world at the time. i just picked up on how you started off there. for my own perspective, one of the interesting things, as i mentioned before, is that the truman administration is not only trying to contain what it sees as soviet aggression in korea, but it's also trying to deter stalin from acting elsewhere, showing credibility and resolve and that is an important message because going back to the history of just ten

years earlier, when and belgium, netherlands had fallen to nazi germany in six weeks in 1940, america hadn't done anything. how does the united states convince these new allies in europe? and it's actually dependable the north atlantic treaty? having concluded in 1949. but there's really amounts of very much, much takes the re mobilized section of the american military in the wake of the korean to give the north atlantic substance and become nato, particularly in the wake of china's intervention in the war when the war was going quite badly in late 50. it's quite revealing of truman and acheson's motives what they want to try and do is actually send more troops to europe to nato and they then bring eisenhower on board. eisenhower becomes the first supreme commander nato, because they're worried that if stalin's going to attack a divided korea, you might be taking a divided berlin. and what you get, i think throughout the course the korean war is a growing faith amongst european leaders that is a dependable ally and. you get substance, the nato, and that's the big success story.

and i think in the europe of today, there is still very much a yearning for a reliable american. we've seen only in recent weeks and months both finland and sweden conceding their traditional neutrality, becoming part of nato because they want that security umbrella. so it's that sort of view of america that of america which i think is still an important lingering consequence of the korean war. so just going back to kerry's starting point, why should americans have about the korean war at the time why should we care about it today? i would say that when you when the united states uses military in another country, the united states putting with u.s. soldiers on the line with not only enemy soldiers on the line with civilian killing in all american wars, the those are

happening in our name, right? if there is carnage that's being experienced in countries in our name. shouldn't we pay attention it aren't we implicated in it don't we have we actually responsibility in this because the american people are political agency that is the that that has the capacity should they to exercise it to to restrain american war right so so the you know, the you know, one question is, you know, are there really any restraints on presidential war? and i think the most powerful examples in the aftermath of world war two were in the later years of the war in vietnam and and and work on the later years of the war, including eisenberg's new fire and rain

show that the antiwar movement when americans were out in the street saying no more bring an end to this war and was after you know nixon had decided not only to bomb but to to to invade cambodia. you know, americans were tired of. the war wanted it to come to an end. and that those antiwar, you know, shutting down american cities, thousands and thousands of, you know, young people and young people in the streets one of the demonstrators was jeanette rankin, at least at one point in the war, who been the only no vote on world war two. actually, she thought there needed to be more debate. and there was such a rush to a declaration and she her first vote, first woman in congress, was against world war one. so an older peace activist, she was of on the line in the peace movement, too.

so the americans should care about the korean war and any war for two reasons. one is the action is in our name and if it's something that you support, it's only collective political action. there's any meaningful political restraint now. and there's also memory of war that's deeply in american legal doctrine and so the korean war doesn't get forgotten in the in the law. instead, it serves as a precedent for the legitimacy of unilateral presidential action, in spite of the fact that the constitution has a clause that says congress declares war and and, you know, once it's sort of built into sort of legal doctrine as precedent, then it justifies later unilateral uses

war. some scholars say, well, it doesn't really matter because there haven't been any wars that haven't had an authorization that are as big as well that completely misses point, because the the the the the legal logistic history of unilateral action for a big war and then the trajectory of american war is most wars are small wars they're all with the exception of the war in vietnam smaller than korea. so the kind of war that the united engages in today would, according to that logic, be, by definition of wars that that don't require congressional authorization. so you again, the only counter to sort of embedded doctrine lawyers, you know, legal scholars can arguments. but the ultimate corrective is

political. and so the more the korean war and even contemporary wars are ignored or forgotten, the more presidents have ability to go it alone and, your your right to have a say to your members of congress is, thereby silenced. and so i think we're all complicit in the inability of american politics really have a firm purchase on that signal moment whether to go to war. so we'll open up for some audience again. remember teacher voices not work. we have a microphone here. please just introduce yourself really briefly and ask a question if you have one. hello. that's a great, great talk. my name name's joe harris. i'm a senior undergraduate student here. i hope i'm not broadening our time span here too much with my question. but i was thinking back to the 1919 peace conference and some

of the consequence is of that conference the field of international politics is kind of completely overhauled with that event, with some new identities being formed, namely american identity is the international policeman. despite their isolation is policy up until world war two argue. but my question is, it's a bit a three parter is the we see of the league of nations to for united nations in the korean conflict and also the inability of the peace conference to contain russian bolshevism and concessions they made to japan and without korean ambassadors present at the conference. can i take the first part of that first and perhaps then because interestingly, of course, america doesn't participate in the league of nations. franklin roosevelt been part of the wilson administration. he sort of closed in world war two. so this is the second chance to get america membership.

and he also sees united nations as a way of rectifying some of the perceived flaws of the league and. so that's where you get the the general scholarship and you get the general assembly, you get the skewed on general assembly, and that in roosevelt's mind, is the great powers having a lot more say. one of the things we haven't talked about yet in the korean war is that the reason why truman was able to get united nations authorization is that stalin is boycotting the organization he's boycotting in protest the communist china is being given communist china's position. so in one sense, this is a very unusual in time. it's very, very difficult particularly the cold war to mobilize the un. you get the vetoes and it's not until 19, 1991 with the persian first persian gulf war that a guy in america can take leadership. and then just about get the soviet union and chinese support that. so in many respects, the whole subject of issue of international organization in these big wars is fraught with how do you get a coalition?

roosevelt tries to rectify that. and the korea in many respects is unique because of the particular political dynamics. 1952. and so i would say know one other point on 1919, i think know what happened at in versailles actually, a you know, a pretty significant influence on asia because wilsonian ism was influential in parts of asia including korea in know 1918 1919 because you know, a lot of people in asia believe that wilson was when he was talking about self-determining asian. he was talking about them. but he wasn't. but there were all of these delegations from various asian countries, went to visit and they were pretty much shunted aside. and that resulted a lot of

disillusion and mistrust. you know, later on when sigmund becomes the president of south korea, even though he's staunchly anti-communist, there's plenty of friction and tension between. him and washington and a lot of it, you know, dates the fact that, you know, he couldn't trust the united states to support, you know, south korea, because it didn't support korea's independence in 1919. and, you know, he very much aware of of the fact that at the time so he. and david schmidt, you talk about stalin and then the chinese communist what was their relationship. in 1950. oh yes think you know that's

what was interesting is that first stalin had been really locked in to embrace mao zedong. i think he even called him mama during communist at one time, meaning, you know, he's not like a real communist then and at the time, to be honest, like communism was supposed be born of the industrial protest it who would overthrow the capitalist class but you know china had never in in sort of formal marxist terms been a bourgeois national list. you know, it had never developed a bourgeoisie. so how were how is it overthrowing the bourgeoisie? but once mao zedong succeeded, all of the sudden and mao starts giving, you know, these the sort of links he he sort of seeks this lean to one side approach. and, you know, the between mao

and stalin, though, it's you know, there's always some underlying tension. but i think the the this this period between the 1950 and maybe late 1950s, when you start to get the sino-soviet split. that's probably as good as the sino-soviet alliance would ever be. and i would say, you know, whatever you, know sort of underlying mao had about stalin were he always had a lot more respect for stalin than he had for khrushchev, who he, you know, had never had, you know, a great of respect for at all. so so there was sort of, you know, relative high point in the relationship even though, you know, there is still some of mistrust during the korean war,

you know there had been sort of a complex series of negotiations that mao had promised that he would reveal the song, if he got into trouble. but the soviets were also supposed to supply air support, which they eventually reengaged on and there is you know, there's always sort of a combination of, you know, on the one hand, fraternal socialist, but there's also a lot of mistrust, the relationship between mao zedong and kim il sung. the war was also perfect. there were lot of disagreements between them. who should control the combined chinese forces on the korean peninsula? right. kim il sung thought should be him. mao zedong thought, well, you know, we're sending a vast number of volunteers here and we just rescued your country from oblivion. so we think it should be us.

they stalin eventually settled it and and said, you know zedong in the ccp is going to be in charge so we just add a little bit more on that from the americans perspective if they want to go to war in korea to basically contain the soviet, but they don't want to escalate into a bigger war with the soviet union. they're trying to avoid world war three. so there's always that limit there. i think stalin also, he's prepared. give north korea the go ahead, but he doesn't want that war, an escalating into war between the united states and the soviet union. that's where i think mao comes in and plays a role. so if the war goes badly for north korea, it's going to be china, not the soviet union is directly in the firing line, which course is what happens in october-november. so china in that sense or deserves that function, helps to keep the war limited. we don't end up with a soviet us world war three, 1950 or 51. let's our panelists.