Roughstuff's Korean War Archive
book reviews and summaries, comments, analysis
A Revolutionary War
Korea and the Transformation of the Postwar World By Wlliam J. Williams
Thios captivating assortment of essays is a credit to its Title. Korea is THE war which defined conflicts and superpower relations in the post WWII era. What role did any other war play?
- Vietnam? Our national embarassment? Washington's weeping wall of guilt and frustration. A fur ball in the crack of the ass of presidential hopefuls (Quayle, Gore version 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, Dubya, Clinton) too small to handle the most powerful office in history and its greatest responsibility: to make and wage war.
- Desert Storm? Our video game war, with designer weapons make left turns down Baghdad streets and foul mouthed Generals talking sweetly to enthralled citizens convinced that only weapons, not people, are destroyed in war. This national myth will collapse, faster, further and harder than NASDAQ, against the chemical and biological onslaughts to come.
- The Cuban Missile Crisis? Grenada? The Contras? Please folks. Korea offered lessons. If only we would learn them.
This book is helpful, informative, and the various essays delight the reader with their different styles and time frames covered. A brief comment on each essay. -
John Wilz tells a remarkable story of Korea. A hermit kingdom it long was: keeping stray sailors captive in Seoul; burning warships and their crews; stubbornly resistant to opeing up commercial relations even after Perry's successful trip to Japan! If your knowledge of Korea extends back only as far as Syngman Rhee's youth (the end of the 19th century), you'll love this essay. Wilz's occasional use of self-posed questions is helpful also, even if the answers are somewhat predictable from earlier text. Wilz feels, for example, that a contingent of troops in the Uijonbu corridor as a tripwire could have 'headed off a horrendous tragedy.' Perhaps...amny analysts suggest a few anti-tank mines could have down the same thing.
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Alan Gropman talks about the War and racial integration in the armed forces. Footnote #1 says it all: by and large integration occurred because it was the militarily correct move to make. (Should there have been any other reason?)
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Lewis Sorley talks about the role of the Reserve Forces, especially their role in linking their involvement with support amongst the American public. We should go further: the US should integrate physical fitness programs and military reserve participation, much as the Swiss do.
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Two writers, Hallion and Halliday, discuss the crucial role of air power in Korea. Glasnost allowed the frivolous claims that 'Russian fighters shot down more than 1200 UN planes" to enter popular literature. What a great step forward for military journalism. Both Russia and the USA had a 'vested interest' in covering up the extent of Soviet involvment. "This joint coverup," snifs Halliday, "was for once in a good cause." Heaven forbid that we warmongering Amerikans should know who the real enemy is. This 'vested interest' gave Russia carte blanche to wage proxy wars against the USA until Reagn turned the tables in Afghanistan. The whole Soviet military Puff-daddy collapsed shortly after.
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William Stuck discusses how Korea prompted the US and NATO to strengthen their forces. Less is said about selfish motives among NATO members that American interests and money might be diverted to a different theatre.
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Rosemary Foot talks about pax Americana and its impact on the third world. Broadest in its scope, her essay is the most speculative.
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The next two essays deserve multiple reading. Roger Dingman argues it was the destruction wrought by WWII, not the 'marshall-plan like' reconstruction during the Korean War era, that was Japan's 20th century transforming event. This is hard to accept. The Korean War hastened Japan into the 20th century American economic/military orbit. Outside of this, Japan would havce remained an Asian backwater, destroyed economically and culturally. Still, the title of the essay, "Dagger and the Gift," make it clear American involvment was a double edged sword....
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and, Phillip Wests' biblical metaphor of China's "David" vs. the American "Goliath" is on even weaker ground. The central assumption is that Chinese troops defeated vastly superior American forces in December and January of 1950-51, which is just not correct. It was a bugout, a retreat from a foolish overextension of US forces, especially in the Chosin reservoir area. Within months, once General Ridgeway make it clear that dead Chinese, not dead real estate, was his Objective in Korea, US forces held their own or even made headway against Chinese armies. To call the US retreat from Chosin a Chinese 'victory' is an insult to the millions of barefooted, unarmed, poorly clothed and fed Chinese partisans who died largely from exposure and starvation. Mao's idea that a peasant army would be enough to defeat the west died an early death; those who criticized him for initally thinking so, died shortly after.
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BC Kohs essay is a sombre denouement to this text, laying out the social and policial upheavals Koreans have endured since the Armistice fifty years ago. The North Koreans, oblivious to the starving masses in their midst, stroke UN and NGO aphids worldwide for all the dollars can get: which is quite a bit lately. The authoritarian South Koreans, in traffic jams under the glitter and bright lights of Seoul, struggle to contain free market capitalism under an umbrella of US forces.
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