History 342

Devine

Korean War Study Questions

Zubok and Pleshakov, “Korea: Stalin’s Catastrophe”

1. Why, by 1950, had Stalin decided that all of Korea (and not just the North) had to be in Communist hands?

2. Why did Stalin come to believe (wrongly, as it turned out) that the Americans would not come to the defense of the South Koreans if the North Koreans were to invade the South?

3. Why did Stalin feel obligated to support Kim Il Sung’s request for “permission” to invade the South? How did China factor into Stalin’s considerations?

4. How did Stalin “pass the buck” to Mao Zedong once the North Korean army collapsed? How did Mao try to maneuver out of the bad position in which he found himself?

5. Zubok and Pleshakov suggest that Stalin cynically “played” Mao during the Korean War. Why do they believe this?

6. What unintended consequences did the Korean War produce for Stalin? Why did his strategy end up producing the very results he had most hoped to avoid?

7. Why did Stalin prefer that the Korean War become a protracted war of attrition in which both his North Korean and Chinese allies suffered significant casualties? What purpose did this serve for him?

Byrnes, “The Korean War and the Militarization of the Cold War”

1. The Korean War convinced President Truman to strengthen the anti-Soviet NATO alliance in Europe and to hike substantially the US defense budget. Given what Stalin thought would be the American reaction to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, why is this American response ironic?

2. How did the Korean War change the American approach to the Cold War?

3. Why was the situation in Korea after World War II “inherently unstable”? Why was neither superpower’s “puppet” leader – Kim the pro-Soviet North; Rhee in the pro-US South – particularly reliable?

4. Why does the author believe the Truman administration was wrong to consider North Korea’s invasion of South Korea part of a global master plan of aggression on the part of the USSR?

5. Why did Truman believe he could not allow the North Korean invasion to go unanswered?

6. How did MacArthur’s Inchon invasion change the course of the Korean War?

7. How did MacArthur’s and Truman’s preferred strategies for continuing the Korean War differ once China was involved in the conflict? Why did it matter that they disagreed?

8. Why did the repatriation of prisoners of war stall the peace negotiations intended to end the Korean war?

9. What were some of the major lessons the Americans took away from the Korean War? How did the US experience in Korea shape American cold war foreign policy thereafter? How did the war affect domestic politics?