Korea And Memories Of A Forgotten War

Almost fading in our memories, a disastrous war that began in Korea on June 25, 1950, led to more than one million military deaths and an estimated two to three million civilian casualties. Alleged war crimes include the mass killing of suspected communists by Seoul and the torture and starvation of prisoners of war by Pyongyang.

North Korea became one of the most heavily bombed countries in history, and virtually all of Korea’s major cities were destroyed. Destruction on such a scale has a lasting imprint on the collective remembrance of Korean society. Though combat ended with the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, no peace treaty has been signed between the warring states, making the war a frozen conflict, which often erupts with brute force.

This story was published as part of Outlook Magazine's 'War And Peace' issue, dated January 11, 2025. To read more stories from the Issue, click here.

Amid simmering tensions and reckless antagonism, North and South escalated with a series of low-level armed clashes, known as the Korean DMZ Conflict, in the late 1960s. Adding fuel to the fire, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung declared “liberation of the south” to be a “national duty” in 1966. Inspired by the call of national duty, North Korean commandos launched the Blue House raid in 1968 to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee. Though the attempt was not successful, it communicated the intent.

In 1969, North Korea shot down a US EC-121 spy plane over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew on board. This incident constituted the single largest loss of US aircrew during the Cold War. In 1983, North Korea carried out the Rangoon bombing, a failed assassination attempt against South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan while he was visiting Burma. These and other numerous incidents prolonged the war and its untold trauma. The Berlin Wall fell, and German unification became a reality, but Cold War mentalities got frozen in the Korean peninsula. The Korean song “Arirang” beautifully reflects the nation’s suffering that goes beyond words.

This war was not the making of local conditions, but the foreign powers involved in the bitter ideological confrontation dragged the Korean peninsula into it. The mistake that Korea committed was that it had a vibrant left-leaning social mobilisation aimed at ending centuries-old socioeconomic polarisation and establishing a new egalitarian socioeconomic order. Emerging from the centuries-long “Tributary Status” under the so-called “Chinese World Order”, Korea was reeling under an agrarian aristocracy, known as the Yangban class, which cornered most tangible and intangible resources. Comprising less than three per cent of the total Korean population, the Yangban class had a lion’s share in the nation’s resource endowment. The Yangban population was like a parasite but lived a life of leisure and pleasure.

Barring a few privileged groups, the rest of Korea was hopelessly poor, with the majority population without any land entitlements. At this point of time, the situation in Korea was ripe for the communist ideology to penetrate among the Korean masses. In a country where landless people were in the majority, there was not much to lose, except their worries and fears. For the common Korean people, communism was considered a means to get hold of a small piece of land that they never had.

An unparalleled grassroots churning against socioeconomic injustices produced a well-organised movement spearheaded by highly organised “Peoples Committees”. These committees elected highly committed leaders who became active in establishing a peninsula-wide government in the name of the “Korean People’s Republic” (KPR).

The KPR was a duly elected government by all the people of the Korean peninsula. Besides a few Yangban landlords, the peninsula has no ideological division as everybody understood the value of equity and justice. No problem for the Korean people was a big problem for the US. A formidable capitalist bloc under the leadership of the United States became nervous about the real prospects of Korea beginning its journey as a communist country. Given the communist revolution in China in 1949, the Korean peninsula was understandably the next in line.

Alarmed by the left-leaning grassroots mobilisation, the US administration concluded that if nothing is done, the Korean peninsula would begin its post-independent journey with communism. A communist Korea was a nightmare scenario for the US and its worldwide interests. More than Korea, the US was worried about Japan. Nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki shook the public perception in Japan. For the first time, Japanese society showed an inclination towards communism. In no ambiguous terms, the US administration acted to stop the spread of communist ideology in Japan. For this specific purpose, the US government negotiated a grand bargain with Japan. In return for safeguarding the status and wealth of the wartime Japanese industrial elite, Japan was ready to shake hands with the country that had just dropped two nuclear bombs on its soil. For the US, defending Japan meant protecting the US credibility and its vital national interests. Imagine how a communist Japan along with communist China and the Soviet Union would have threatened the great power status of the US.

Considering the seriousness of the situation, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s speech on January 12, 1950, before the National Press Club articulated the importance of guaranteeing Japanese security. The Secretary proclaimed an all-important “defence perimeter”, known as the Acheson Line, which excluded Korea from the line stretching from the Aleutian Islands to the Philippines in the Pacific. Japan and Okinawa were included in the US defence line aimed at deterring Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong’s communisation of East Asia. Many experts believe that Acheson’s announcement of the line offered a precious opportunity for North Korean leader Kim Il Sung to attack the South. It was not for nothing that upon hearing Acheson’s speech, South Korean President Syngman Rhee was outraged.

Sensing the ambivalent US attitude towards South Korea security, North Korea, armed and advised by the Soviet Union, launched a full-scale war on June 25, 1950. The United Nations, with the US as the principal participant, joined the war on the side of the South Koreans, and the People’s Republic of China came to North Korea’s aid.

In the predawn hours of June 25, the North Koreans struck across the “38th Parallel” behind a thunderous artillery barrage. The principal offensive, conducted by the North Korea’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) I Corps (53,000 men), drove across the Imjin River toward Seoul.

Seoul was captured on June 28, and by early August, the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) and its allies were nearly defeated, holding onto only the Pusan Perimeter in the peninsula’s southeast.

The delay by the US in decisively acting against North Korean invasion hints at the fact that the “Acheson Line” was real. Soon, the US administration realised that if Korea fell to communism, it would pose a serious threat to Japan. This prompted the US to fight for Korea by all means.

On September 15, UN forces, led by American military command, landed at Inchon near Seoul, cutting off the KPA troops and supply lines. The UN forces broke out from the perimeter on September 18, re-captured Seoul, and invaded North Korea in October, capturing Pyongyang and advancing towards the Yalu River—the border with China.

On October 19, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) crossed the Yalu and entered the war on the side of the north. UN forces retreated from North Korea in December, following the PVA’s first and second offensives. The communist forces captured Seoul again in January 1951 before losing it to a UN counter-offensive two months later. After an abortive Chinese spring offensive, the UN forces retook territory roughly up to the 38th Parallel. Armistice negotiations began in July 1951, but dragged on as the fighting became a war of attrition and the North suffered heavy damage from US bombing.

The Armistice Agreement allowed the exchange of prisoners and created a 4 km wide Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) along the frontline, with a Joint Security Area at Panmunjom. Today, a dividing line between North and South, the 38th Parallel reminds us about one of the deadliest conflicts after WWII. Though ideological confrontation—a major cause of war—has disappeared with the end of the Cold War, newer complexities have compounded the tensions. Therefore, amid perpetual war, the spectre of a Second Korean War always looms on the horizon.

This war not only destroyed physical infrastructure but also caused major damage to the mental peace of generations of Koreans. It was so painful for the Korean people to see brothers killing brothers. Many scholars believe that neo-colonialism, which brought division and war, was much harsher than colonialism which intended to encroach on Korean identity. The division of Korea was not only the fragmentation of a nation but the destruction of the long-cherished unit of their identity—the family. In Korean social life, family plays a key role. One can understand the importance of family in Korea by seeing the preservation of the family tree, which records family lineage over centuries.

For instance, when former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong- pil visited Ayodhya in India to inaugurate a memorial to their royal ancestor Queen Hwang Huh on the west bank of the River Sarayu, he said: “I am the 72nd generation descendant of the King Kim Suro of the Garak Kingdom”. To many Indians, it was astonishing that the Prime Minister of Korea located a queen of Indian origin who married his family 72 generations before. This was possible due to preservation of all branches of his family tree.

Not only maintaining a “family tree” but worshiping ancestors together with other family members is an essential feature of Korean life. All Koreans need to buy a small piece of land up in the mountains to bury their parents. Each year, all family members visit and worship the burial place. The national division meant the destruction of millions of family connections.

Even today, many Korean families go to the 38th Parallel to fulfil a moral obligation to their parents left behind in North Korea. Their cries, tears and trauma symbolise the perpetual pain and suffering that the innocent people of Korea are still going through. Even today, when relations between North and South Korea improve, in the first place both agree to family reunions. These reunions are the sad commentaries on the Korean sufferings and traumas that the world has mostly forgotten. Death and destruction in Korea are felt at the individual, family, and national levels but at the international level, it has become only a statistical addition to the list of millions dying each year.

Living in the constant fear of war, the Korean people have not only endured enormous trauma and untold tragedy but also learned how to channelise their grief into positive energy. Learning lessons from the persistent weakness that sucked foreign countries into the Korean “Power Vacuum”, the common people showed unparalleled determination towards economic development. From a “war-torn country”, Korea became a “miracle economy”. A poor paddy-growing agrarian economy was transformed into a prosperous industrial economy within a generation.

To end the agony of the war in 21st century, in Korea or elsewhere, there is a need to fight the human behaviour that drives individuals to control others. The international system is a mere expansion of this uncontrolled human desire to exercise control over others.

Denied essential humanism, the discipline of politics and international relations gives priority to “state”, “power”, “hegemony” and “war”. International politics cherishes “Pax Britannica”, “Dutch mastery over Europe”, “Pax Americana”, and now the talk about the “Asian Century”—all these are forms of hegemony with embedded structures of control and command. It also promotes “national interest” as a sacrosanct idea and provides it with democratic and moral legitimacy. Weapon lobbies openly push the idea of national interest to sell more weapons, which in turn requires more wars. This is a trap of brutality, but IR discusses its producers, promoters and managers at the high-level academic conferences and summit meetings.

To reduce the suffering caused by prolonged wars, there is a need to redefine the discipline of IR by incorporating elements from the humanities. It is high time that IR should have a human face, not always talking about “hegemony”, “balance of power” or “power transition”. Korea is not only the victim of the neo-colonial agenda to establish hegemonies, it is also a target of its own people who desire to control or assimilate the other half of the Korean peninsula. To realise glorified slogans such as “National Reunification”, Korean people justify the use of all means, including war, and so does the IR.

The time has come for us to unite and fight the very idea of violence as a legitimate instrument to enhance one’s control or protect so-called national interests. Human progress must adhere to humanism, which should be embedded in all other knowledge fields, including IR. Violence as a legitimate means to promote one’s interests must be denounced at all levels, be it individual, national, or international. The suffering of all people on planet Earth can be reduced only when we all contain our desire to control others. In the ever-globalised world, the structures of global governance must evolve by adhering to basic human values. It is to be understood that human beings are human beings first; they are Korean, Indian, or Syrian afterwards. Their suffering is our suffering, which must stop.

(Views expressed are personal)

(This appeared in the print as 'Human Acts')