ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the Cold War to see how a local dispute in the Korean peninsula became a conflict involving major powers. The Cold War was a period of intense rivalry stopping short of all-out war. Korea had been a virtual protectorate of Japan ever since the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Lacking substantial weapons, the South Koreans were unable to resist the North Korean army and fell back to the south, almost more quickly than United States troops could arrive. Despite the intense rivalry between the United States and the USSR in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, the struggle never did turn into all-out war between them. Along with the Russians came members of the Korean Communist Party who had spent the war years in exile in Russia. Further actions taken by the United States at this time show the importance attributed to the interpretation that the war was part of an overall communist strategy.
