ABSTRACT
The United States’ policies toward the divided Korean nation’s two rival states-the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—and the evolution of their efforts to reconstruct an undivided Korean nation were initially shaped by the early history of the two Korean states regionally within East Asia and upon the Korean peninsula. This chapter begins with a concise historical summary of Korea’s geopolitical division into two rival states, what occurred regionally to cause their creation, how a divided Korea was intensified, and what occurred in the region to influence the future of Korean reconciliation and reunification.
