The Korean conflict is an ongoing conflict based on the division of Korea between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and South Korea (Republic of Korea). During the Cold War, North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies, while South Korea was backed by the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western allies.
The division of Korea by the United States and the Soviet Union occurred in 1945 after the defeat of Japan ended Japanese rule of Korea, and both superpowers created separate governments in 1948. Tensions erupted into the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953. When the war ended, both countries were devastated, but the division remained. North and South Korea continued a military standoff, with periodic clashes. The conflict survived the end of the Cold War and is still ongoing. It is now considered one of the 10 frozen conflicts of the world and is considered one of the oldest, alongside the cross-strait conflict.
The U.S. maintains a military presence in the South to assist South Korea in accordance with the ROK–U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. In 1997, U.S. president Bill Clinton described the division of Korea as the "Cold War's last divide". In 2002, U.S. president George W. Bush described North Korea as a member of an "axis of evil". Facing increasing isolation, North Korea developed missile and nuclear capabilities.
A period of heightened tension began in 2017, but the following year North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. held a series of summits, which promised peace and nuclear disarmament. This led to the Panmunjom Declaration on 27 April 2018, when the North and the South agreed to work together to denuclearize the peninsula, improve inter-Korean relations, end the conflict officially, and move towards the peaceful reunification. In subsequent years, diplomatic efforts faltered and military confrontation returned to the fore.
The Korean border remains the most militarized private area in the world with the presence of the Korean People's Army in north; the Forces of the Republic of Korea and the United States Forces Korea (highlighted notably through the Combined Forces) in south and the presence of the forces of United Nations in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (JSA and Camp Bonifas).
Background
Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan on 22 August 1910, and ruled by it until 2 September 1945. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, nationalist and radical groups emerged, mostly in exile, to struggle for independence. Divergent in their outlooks and approaches, these groups failed to unite into a single national movement. Based in China, the Korean Provisional Government failed to obtain widespread recognition. The many leaders advocating for Korean independence included the conservative and U.S.-educated Syngman Rhee, who lobbied the U.S. government, and the Communist Kim Il Sung, who fought a guerrilla war against the Japanese from neighboring Manchuria.
Following the end of the occupation, many high-ranking Koreans were accused of collaborating with Japanese imperialism. An intense and bloody struggle between various figures and political groups aspiring to lead Korea ensued.
Division of Korea (1945–1949)
On 9 August 1945, as agreed by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and advanced into Korea. The U.S. government requested that the Soviet advance stop at the 38th parallel. The U.S. forces were to occupy the area south of the 38th parallel, including the capital, Seoul. This division of Korea into two zones of occupation was incorporated into General Order No. 1, which was given to Japanese forces after the surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945. On 24 August 1945, the Red Army entered Pyongyang and established a military government over Korea north of the parallel. American forces landed in the south on 8 September 1945, and established the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea.
The Allies had originally envisaged a joint trusteeship which would steer Korea towards independence, but most Korean nationalists wanted independence immediately. Meanwhile, the wartime co-operation between the Soviet Union and the U.S. deteriorated as the Cold War took hold. Both occupying powers began promoting into positions of authority Koreans aligned with their side of politics and marginalizing their opponents. Many of these emerging political leaders were returning exiles with little popular support. In North Korea, the Soviet Union supported Korean communists. Kim Il Sung, who from 1941 had served in the Soviet Army, became the major political figure. Society was centralized and collectivized, following the Soviet model. Politics in the South were more tumultuous, but the strongly anti-communist Syngman Rhee, who had been educated in the U.S., was positioned as the most prominent politician.
In South Korea, a general election was held on 10 May 1948. The Republic of Korea (or ROK) was established with Syngman Rhee as president, and formally replaced the U.S. military occupation on 15 August. In North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (or DPRK) was declared on 8 September, with Kim Il Sung, as prime minister. Soviet occupation forces left the DPRK on 10 December 1948. U.S. forces left the ROK the following year, though the U.S. Korean Military Advisory Group remained to train the Republic of Korea Army. The new regimes even adopted different names for Korea: the North choosing Choson, and the South Hanguk.
Both opposing governments considered themselves to be the government of the whole of Korean Peninsula (as they do to this day), and both saw the division as temporary. Kim Il Sung lobbied Stalin and Mao for support in a war of reunification, while Syngman Rhee repeatedly expressed his desire to conquer the North. In 1948, North Korea, which had almost all the generators, turned off the electricity supply to the South. In the lead-up to the outbreak of civil war, there were frequent clashes along the 38th parallel, especially at Kaesong and Ongjin, initiated by both sides.
Throughout this period there were uprisings in the South, such as the Jeju uprising and the Yeosu–Suncheon rebellion, that were brutally suppressed. In all, over one hundred thousand people died in fighting across Korea before the Korean War began.
Korean War (1950–1953)
By 1950, North Korea had clear military superiority over the South. The Soviet occupiers had armed it with surplus weaponry and provided training. Many troops returning to North Korea were battle-hardened from their participation in the Chinese Civil War, which had just ended.
North Korea invaded the South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country. Kim Il Sung expected a quick victory, predicting that there would be pro-communist uprisings in the South and that the U.S. would not intervene.
Rather than perceiving the conflict as a civil war, however, the West saw it in Cold War terms as communist aggression, related to recent events in China and Eastern Europe. In September 1950 United Nations Command, led by the U.S., intervened to defend the South, and following the Incheon Landing and breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, rapidly advanced into North Korea. As the UN force neared the border with China, Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war again. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953, with an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea.
Korea was devastated. Around three million civilians and soldiers had been killed. Seoul was in ruins, having changed hands four times. Several million North Korean refugees fled to the South. Almost every substantial building in North Korea had been destroyed. As a result, North Koreans developed a deep-seated antagonism towards the U.S.
Armistice (27 July 1953)
Negotiations for an armistice began on 10 July 1951, as the war continued. The main issues were the establishment of a new demarcation line and the exchange of prisoners. After Stalin died, the Soviet Union brokered concessions which led to an agreement on 27 July 1953.
President Syngman Rhee opposed the armistice because it left Korea divided. As negotiations drew to a close, he attempted to sabotage the arrangements for the release of prisoners, and led mass rallies against the armistice. He refused to sign the agreement but reluctantly agreed to abide by it.
The armistice inaugurated an official ceasefire but did not lead to a peace treaty for two Koreas. It established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a buffer zone between the two sides, that intersected the 38th parallel but did not follow it. Despite its name, the border was, and continues to be, one of the most militarized in the world.
North Korea announced that it would no longer abide by the armistice at least six times, in the years 1994, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2013.
Cold War period (1953–1991) After the war, the Chinese forces left, but U.S. forces remained in the South. Sporadic conflict continued. The North's occupation of the South left behind a guerrilla movement that persisted in the Cholla provinces. On 1 October 1953, the United States and South Korea signed a defense treaty. In 1958, the United States stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea. In 1961, North Korea signed mutual defense treaties with the USSR and China. In the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, China pledged to render immediate military and other assistance by all means to North Korea against any outside attack. During this period, North Korea was described by former CIA director Robert Gates to be the "toughest intelligence target in the world". Alongside the military confrontation, there was a propaganda war, including balloon propaganda campaigns.
The opposing regimes aligned themselves with opposing sides in the Cold War. Both sides received recognition as the legitimate government of Korea from the opposing blocs. South Korea became a strongly anti-Communist military dictatorship. North Korea presented itself as a champion of orthodox Communism, distinct from the Soviet Union and China. The regime developed the doctrine of Juche or self-reliance, which included extreme military mobilization. In response to the threat of nuclear war, it constructed extensive facilities underground and in the mountains. The Pyongyang Metro opened in the 1970s, with the capacity to double as bomb shelter. Until the early 1970s, North Korea was an economic equal of the South.
South Korea was heavily involved in the Vietnam War. Hundreds of North Korean fighter pilots went to Vietnam, shooting down 26 U.S. aircraft. Teams of North Korean psychological warfare specialists targeted South Korean troops, and Vietnamese guerrillas were trained in the North.
Tensions between North and South escalated in the late 1960s with a series of low-level armed clashes known as the Korean DMZ Conflict. In 1966, Kim declared "liberation of the south" to be a "national duty". In 1968, North Korean commandos launched the Blue House raid, an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the South Korean President Park Chung Hee. Shortly after, the American spy ship USS Pueblo was captured by the North Korean navy. The Americans saw the crisis in terms of the global confrontation with Communism, but, rather than orchestrating the incident, the Soviet government was concerned by it. The crisis was initiated by Kim, inspired by Communist successes in the Vietnam War.
In 1967, Korean-born composer Isang Yun was kidnapped in West Germany by South Korean agents and imprisoned in South Korea on the charge of spying for the North. He was released after an international outcry.