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Unlock This CourseUntil 1949 the Cold War was mainly about Europe. Then, on 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China after his Communists had beaten the Nationalists in the civil war. The country with the largest population in the world was now Communist, and in February 1950 it signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union. American leaders feared that Communism was on the march across Asia.
Korea was the place where that fear turned into war. Japan had ruled Korea until 1945. When Japan surrendered, Soviet troops occupied the north and American troops the south, with the dividing line at the 38th parallel. By 1948 there were two rival states: a Communist North Korea under Kim Il Sung, and a non-Communist South Korea under Syngman Rhee. Each leader claimed the whole country.
You only need the outline of the fighting:
Korea ended the war still divided, close to where it started. More than two million people had died, many of them civilians, and more than 36,000 of the dead were American soldiers. No peace treaty was ever signed.
Key terms:
The fighting changed very little on the map of Korea. Its real importance lies in what it did to the Cold War.
Containment had been a policy for Europe. Now the USA applied it to Asia as well. Truman sent the US Seventh Fleet to protect Taiwan, where China's defeated Nationalists had fled. In September 1951 the USA signed a peace treaty with Japan and a security treaty that kept American bases there. In September 1954 it set up SEATO, the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation, with seven other countries including Britain and France. American troops stayed in South Korea.
Korea convinced American leaders that Communism would use force. US defence spending rose from about 13 billion dollars in 1950 to about 50 billion dollars in 1953. NATO was turned from a promise on paper into a real fighting force. In December 1950 Eisenhower became its first supreme commander, more US troops were sent to Europe, and Greece and Turkey joined in 1952. The Soviet Union enlarged its own forces in reply.
American and Chinese soldiers had killed each other in Korea. Afterwards the USA refused to recognise Mao's government and kept it out of China's seat at the UN until 1971. Meanwhile China, armed with Soviet weapons, had shown that it was a major power.
The superpowers took opposite sides but avoided fighting each other openly. Stalin sent weapons, and Soviet pilots flew in secret, but he sent no Soviet army. Truman refused to bomb China or to use atomic weapons. Both sides had learned that a direct war was too dangerous.
So the overall effect on superpower relations was greater hostility and mistrust. Each side saw the other as an armed threat, and the rivalry now covered Asia as well as Europe. The USA could claim that containment had worked, because South Korea had been saved. The Communist side could claim that it had fought the world's richest country to a draw.
One result of Korea was a new Western worry: if Communist forces attacked in Europe too, there were not enough soldiers to stop them. The American answer was to rearm West Germany. In May 1955 West Germany joined NATO and was allowed to build an army.
To Soviet leaders this was alarming. Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and now German soldiers would stand alongside American ones in an alliance pointed at the East. Within days the Soviets replied. On 14 May 1955, in the Polish capital, eight countries signed a treaty of 'friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance'. It is known as the Warsaw Pact.
The Warsaw Pact mattered in three ways:
You will see Warsaw Pact forces used against a member state in the lesson The Prague Spring and the Brezhnev Doctrine, 1968.
Don't write that the Soviet army fought in Korea: Stalin supplied weapons and some pilots in secret, but the armies facing the UN were North Korean and Chinese. Don't say the Warsaw Pact was a reply to the creation of NATO in 1949. It came six years later, and the trigger was West Germany joining NATO. And remember that the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Explain two effects of the Korean War (1950-53) on relations between the superpowers. [8 marks]
One effect of the Korean War was that the superpowers' rivalry spread from Europe to Asia. North Korea invaded the South in June 1950 with Stalin's agreement and Soviet weapons, so the USA decided that Communism had to be contained in Asia as well. It sent the Seventh Fleet to protect Taiwan, signed a security treaty with Japan in 1951 and set up SEATO in 1954. As a result the superpowers were now rivals across a second continent, which gave them many more places to clash.
A second effect was a military build-up that deepened the hostility between the two sides. The invasion convinced American leaders that Communist states would use force, so US defence spending rose from about 13 billion dollars in 1950 to about 50 billion dollars in 1953. NATO was given a supreme commander, Eisenhower, in December 1950 and more American troops were sent to Europe. The Soviet Union enlarged its own forces in reply. This meant each superpower saw the other as a growing armed threat, so mistrust between them increased.
What lifts this to the top level: each paragraph names one effect, supports it with precise facts and dates, and then explains how the war led to that effect.
One effect alone cannot score more than half marks, however well you explain it, so always write two separate paragraphs. Here the question asks about relations between the superpowers, so finish each paragraph by saying what changed between the USA and the Soviet Union. Describing the fighting in Korea earns very little.