The Korean War: A History (Modern Library Chronicles)

In the summer of 2000,a soldier by the name of Art Hunter awakened in the middle of the night with cold sweats,imagining the faces of two old people,a man and a woman,hovering above his bed. These two faces kept haunting him,made his life hell,and he would go on his porch to relax and smoke a cigarette,trying to forget his nightmare. Art was one of the many American soldiers who took part in massacring of old men,women and small children in one of the South Korean villages.This and many other gruesome stories appear in Bruce Cuming's book about what he calls "the unknown war". The facts of this war are known and need not another summary of events. Still,the first chapter gives the reader a very quick,precise and concise chronological survey of the war.The core of this compelling,short volume is about amnesia. In other words: how and why the story of the Korean War,which was responsible for the opening of the Cold War and caused the USA to become the policeman of the world,was -and is still-suppressed by many elements of the American society. The main culprit is Joe McCarthy who made the Americans think in black and white. There were the good guys,meaning the Americans and the West,and there were the bad guys,the Communists.However,the racist slur of the American soldiers"developed first in the Philippines,then traveled to the Pacific War,Korea, and Vietnam".(p.80)In one example which shows to what extent the truth about the war was falsified, Professor Cumings tells us about David Halberstam's book on the Korean war,"The Coldest Winter",in which there is absolutely nothing on the atrocious massacres of this war,or the incendiary bombing campaigns.(p.71) As Cumings adds,"We carpet-bombed the North for three years with next to no concern for civilian casualties"(p.149) Oceans of napalm were dropped on Korea silently or without notice in America,courtesy of the Dow Chemical Company. When asked,American officials wrote that they(The Koreans)are savages,"so this gives us the right to shower napalm on innocents",contravening the Geneva convention in this respect.Cumings calls upon the ones responsible to seriously start investigating the war,paying reparations to those entitled to have them and apologize,thus,expunging the ghosts of this unknown, forgotten war.This is a brilliant volume and its message is very simple:do not fight memory or the truth, because the truth will always come back and hit you hard, no matter what you do.

This book contains revisionist history. It focuses less on the mechanics and manoeuvres of the immediate conflict (1950 - 1953), as it portrays the broader context (the Japanese occupation of Korea, the US occupation after WWII) and the antecedents of the conflict (rebellions in the South of the country). It focuses more on the suffering of the civilian population (terror in the South, bombing in the North) than on losses by the respective armies. And it shows the long story of deceitful forgetting that has allowed the official story line to go unchallenged for so long.Under Dr. Cumings' well-honed pen history of the Korean War comes alive in a fully new light. One feels the exhilaration of leaving a dense forest for open fields. The story is well told, and the atrocities that emerge from the darkness of suppressed memory are appalling. A job well done.The responsibility of American civilian decision makers - to get the US into Korea in 1945, and to move beyond the 38th parallel in "roll-back of Communism" mode in the second half of 1950, are well discussed. The global implications for American "containment" policy are very well fleshed out in the last two chapters. These chapters warrant repeated reading for the light they shed on American policy ever since.Revisionism brings forth new facts, as well as new interpretations. Its sets itself the task to provide "the whole truth, nothing but the truth". This task is daunting. Dr. Cumings approach, however, is rather impressionistic - more like car lights sweeping the night than a thorough painstaking step by step dissection. It focuses on disjoined events, never illuminating the full story; or it sweeps away "old truths" with but a sentence or two, leaving one harking for substantiation and authentication - or at least better notes buttressing the claims. It is not so much one's lack of trust in Dr. Cumings. I was quoting him to a diplomat with North-Korea "expertise" on Kim's origins. I was confronted with the old canard that Kim had been an impostor. I did not find on pg. 46 what I needed to refute the "doubting Thomas".The Korean War was fought under UN flag. The UN abetted and covered up the crimes that took place under its stewardship, or did not ask too many questions. Over the ensuing decades other such instances followed, and one would like, at one point or another, the historians of the Organisation to take stock of the human rights record of well-intentioned interventions. Too much collateral damage has been perpetrated in its name. Today, multilateral armed "peace-making" too often is the "default starting position", whenever a conflict arises. The rules of engagement better be spelled out in clear and general terms beforehand, lest we be forced to "repent at leisure" later.

I assumed the book would give an account of actual combat fighting instead, it recounts a bit of it's Japanese colonial history and basically more of the political rhetoric both before and after the conflict. However, in that respect, it's a good read, just not what I was expecting. If I was looking for this historical account, I would give this a 5 star rating.

Un recuento de lo que paso en la "Guerra olvidada" enque los buenos no eran tan buenos y los malos no eran tan malos, libro fuera de censura sobre lo ocurrido a ambos lados del paralelo 38.

朝鮮戦争について書かれた書物の多くは、北側の38度線突破と電撃攻撃、陥落寸前の釜山橋頭堡の攻防、仁川上陸作戦、鴨緑江に迫る米軍、中国の参戦、38度線での膠着状態、休戦と言う戦争自体の経緯を主としたものか、金日成、スターリン、毛沢東、マッカーサー、トルーマンなど各国指導者の関係や判断に重きをおいたものが多かったと思う。本書は、以上のような書物と異なり、戦争前の韓国社会から始める。日本の植民地支配下で、韓国の指導的地位にあった階層の多くは日本への協力者であり、その結果、日本の降服後に立ち上がって人民委員会を作ったのは左翼になってしまったこと。そこへ到着した米軍は生粋の軍人ばかりで、日本占領に当たった部隊のように民政の専門家を含んでいなかったこと。左翼の影響力を排除しようとして米軍が支援した反共民族主義者の李承晩の強圧的手法に、反発が広がり、武装反乱や山岳ゲリラの蜂起など起こったことなどが述べられている。この事が、朝鮮戦争下での住民虐殺事件の伏線になるのだ。朝鮮戦争は、軍隊同士の戦闘以外に、住民虐殺による死者が多いと言う。戦線の移動に伴い、敗走する側は撤退前に政治犯やその同調者と見られる人々を処刑し、追う側は占領後にその逆の処刑を行うことが繰り返される。膨大な犠牲者が出たのだが、北側の手による犠牲者は全体の１/６で、南側の手による犠牲者の方が多かったようだ。更に、戦線膠着後は、米軍が北への爆撃を繰り返し多くの民間人を巻き込むことになる。朝鮮戦争全体の死者は300万人（少なくともその半分は民間人）で、日本の太平洋戦争での死者230万人を上回ると言う。朝鮮戦争は、その後の米国社会にも大きな影響を与えることになったと著者は言う。その第一は平時における大きな常備軍を維持し、海外に半ば恒久的な基地を展開するようになったこと。その結果として恒常的に多額の軍事予算が組まれ、アイゼンハワー大統領が退任演説で警鐘を鳴らすような産軍複合体が生まれてしまったと言う。著者は、その後の韓国社会についても述べる。長く続いた軍事独裁政権の後、民主化運動が実る。その中で、朝鮮戦争下での住民虐殺など負の歴史についても検証が行われるようになる。自らの過去について目を閉ざすことなく向き合う東アジア唯一の国として韓国を高く評価している。本文243ページの短い本だが、内容が多岐にわたり非常に読み応えがあった。邦訳もあるようだが、3,990円もする。英語が苦手でない方は原書がお得だ。キンドル版はわずか1,000円だ。

Bruce Cumings‘ book „The Korean War: a history“ may be seen as a concise introduction to a complex problem. To the common reader not overly familiar with the intricacies of this conflict, it can serve as a thorough and precise, yet very readable overview of important aspects of this quintessential conflict of the Cold War era. It distinguishes itself from a host of narrowly focused books typically highlighting the US intervention of 1950 – 1953 and its military aspects, often presented in a one-sided fashion.To readers with a deeper knowledge of the conflict that originated well before 1950 and the political environment in which the escalation of 1950 took place, this book is more of a summary of Cumings’ major work published three decades before and a brief reference to more current studies and projects like the Cold War International History Project which brings to attention recently unearthed documentary material.As such it is not a study but more of a textbook. Its strength lies in the author’s capacity to put this “forgotten war” into context. While a growing number of reports and personal accounts of the Korean War describe the military development, typically from a US-only perspective, Cumings reflects on the victims of the war, decision-makers on all sides, internal conditions in the North and the South, the tumultuous and explosive conditions in US-occupied South Korea preceding the start of all-out war in June 1950, the international arena, post-war developments, and the meaning of the war to Koreans of today. It is by no means easy reading as the author demolishes the myth of a valiant fight of the forces of freedom against the forces of tyranny. The Founding Fathers of modern America, according to Cumings, would hardly have recognized the national security state established by Harry Truman and Dean Echeson. Their single-handed decision to intervene in the Korean conflict – first by allying themselves with Syngman Rhee’s despotic regime, then by sending ground troops – marks the beginning of a series of interventions in foreign countries in the name of national security solely based on the idea of a monolithic world-embracing communist movement.What remains particularly disturbing is the fact that the very definition, or logic, of national security has rarely been questioned, its arcane nature instead taken as a given without further questioning, as if most if not all of government’s business was naturally meant to be beyond public scrutiny for the sake of democracy. In many cases – from East Asia to Latin America and the Middle East – it is difficult to see how any form of security for the US was ever achieved by US intervention, whereas it is not difficult to assess a significant degree of insecurity in many countries affected by politics emanating from Washington, Iraq and Afghanistan being no precedents.Cumings has occasionally been labeled a revisionist by some other academics and the usual would-be experts whose loyalty is more to ideology than to academic scrutiny, particularly in the U.S. This phenomenon may be more symptomatic of a certain political culture (of the U.S.) than indicative of any non-academic desires of the author, like promoting the image of the North Korean government (past or present) or communism as such. Similar phenomena can be identified in the debate of the Vietnam War. In that case, however, the very large number of authors makes it more difficult for any single author to become the object of ideological tirades. Authors like Frances Fitzgerald, David Halberstam and Daniel Ellsberg - who at the time of the war and shortly thereafter might have been branded revisionist – have since been joined by dozens of similarly critical authors. In the case of the Korean War, there seems to be shortage of critical voices. Revisionism, in this sense, might rather be seen as a positive quality to be distinguished from conformist and loyalist and uncritical writing.Perhaps the major if not only point of interest in such debates – which tend to focus on authors, not their work – is the fact that even after more than two decades after the collapse of the USSR, the debate continues to be marked by partisanship, polarization, anti-scientism, and ideological brain-wash. The notion of scientific work and dialogue as a value in its own right is commonly missed. This is not a positive development. At a time when newspaper publishers all over Europe and North America shout out loud for freedom of expression (and, in particular, the press) in the light of the Islam debate and its violent repercussions, the value of balanced reporting and critical research seems to have become a victim of populism.This small paperback is as thought provoking as a book on the Cold War (and Korea) should be. What makes it recommendable to readers of all levels of knowledge is its close attention to the essence and cost of war: the utter devastation of human life, the transformation of citizens into military assets detached from the consequences of their actions, and the ruthlessness of political decision-makers concerned more about their own professional status and future than about the drastic consequences of their verdict for millions of people.This may sound as a simple, even naïve assessment. But the continued readiness of common people as well as notorious “experts” to approve aggressive politics and schemes that lead to war is an unmistakable reminder that this simple truth deserves to be retold over and over again – particularly to Americans who, as Cumings notes, have not experienced war on their own soil for 150 years but brought war to countless other countries since the start of the Cold War.

While reading through the reviews of Bruce Cummings "The Korean War" I noticed more than one reviewer complain that Cummings book isn't a history of the war. Up to a point they are right, it is not a conventional history of that war beyond the first thirty-seven pages of two hundred and forty-three that narrate the actions of leaders and armies from beginning to end of the "war". But it only takes a moment of reflection to realise that the remainder of the book is as valid a part of the history of that war.Cummings places the war of 1950-53 firmly in its historical context, making it clear that there had in essence been conflict going back decades in Korea, exacerbated by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and between those who collaborated with the Japanese and those who didn't. To an extent this division was also class based. He also disabuses the reader of any notion that South Korea was a land of peace and tranquillity prior to the war, insurrections were endemic and the South Korean regimes response were extremely brutal. The background detail on the two regimes that formed when the U.S. artificially split Korea in 1945 is useful in so far as it diminishes assumptions based on the current state of North & South Korea.Other issues dealt with include a fresh look at how the war started, the role of foreign powers (of whom the U.S. followed by the Chinese were the most important), the question of U.S.'s possible use of nuclear weapons, the role the war played in the origin of the Military-Industrial complex, attrocities (Cummings claims the U.S. & South Korean forces were responsible for roughly six times more attrocities than the Chinese & North Korean forces), how both sides viewed one another, and how memories of the war have effected all sides (not least the North where the War and their previous experience with Japanese Imperialism provide historical justification for the regime).This is a fascinating book, and in my opinion gains more than it loses for not being a chronological account of the movements of armies and the decisions of generals and political leaders. Instead its thoughtful analysis, and multifaceted approach serve to give the reader a richer view of a war that in the West has largely been eclipsed by the Second World War that preceded it and the War in Vietnam which was the next Asian country to feel the effects of U.S. military intervention. "The Korean War" is a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.