Why Was The Korean War Justified

Controversy surrounds whether the intervention of the U.S. in the Korean War was justified or not. One side believes that Truman was inconsistent with American strategic policy which is based on a statement made by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Korea was excluded in U.S. defense perimeter of strategic containment policy. Although it is arguable that the intervention was unnecessary and unjustified, the war played an important role in modern history. The Korean War was a crucial event during the Cold War that protected the capitalist values, prevented the spread of communism and proved that the Truman administration was anti-communist. The history of northeast Asia was determined by who controlled the Korean peninsula. Because Japan wanted …show more content…
policy towards Korea. Truman withdrew U.S. forces from South Korea in 1949 and when Rhee asked for help to reunite the Korean Peninsula under his will, Truman refused. It could be argued that the lack of foresight made the War inevitable. The Truman administration could not agree to defend Korea before the war, so the U.S. had to fight a war to defend the democratic Korea. But according to Park, the position and the strategic value of the Korean Peninsula changed during the war through changes in the world situation as well as in the East Asian system. The U.S. policy makers tried to change their policies toward South Korea to reflect this new world …show more content…
Truman called for a global crusade against communism. George Kennan, the head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, came up with the idea of containment; the containment doctrine, with its ambiguities and imprecision, was a major strategy and the guiding conception in American foreign policy to contain communism from spreading globally. In its most general form, the containment denotes the general effort by means of military, politics, and economy, to resist communist expansion throughout the world (Bernstein). Its plan was to trap the Soviets in their own territory and prevent further growth. Kennan believed that this would cause a breakup of the Soviet system. Containment promised the liberation of Eastern European countries and an American victory. Although originally, Korea was not included in the containment policy, the Truman administration dramatically applied the doctrine of containment to Asia in 1950. In late June 1950, President Truman quickly expanded the American commitment and sent ground forces to assist the embattled South Koreans. The strategic position of the peninsula was of vital importance to U.S. security policy from any rational perspective. With a communist victory in China in 1949, China had become a friend of America from a foe during the Second World War, and Japan’s safety from communism would be in jeopardy if it faced a