The korean war on asian history and World History and on the come contemporary positions of the mainact ors. How did you decide to write other book on the korean war . Guest well in 2007 i was asked whether i might consider writing a project on the war, and at the time i was working on policy issues at the u. S. Army world college, and i thought that it was a worthy project because i interested in contemporary korean issues issue thought a book about of course, the problems with north korea, i thought about the problem if the the two koreas and the division in 1945, and to serve as a way in which we can understand contemporary events. So thats the basic reason. Then as i started to get into the research for the book, or tried to frame what the book i wanted to write a book that was sort of about was political and military history and also wanted to include cultural and social history and include all the participants in the war, china, United States, the two koreas and the soviet union, and it became very apparent to me i had to take the world beyond then 1953 period because, of course, the war didnt end in a peace treaty. It ended in an armistice. So that sort of why i decided to do really cover the contemporary issues. In this book, the fighting phase of the korean war after 1953 really takes only half of the book. Tell me about how you structured your approach . Because really it extended up to the today. Guest well, the book is divided into four parts. The first is the war part. And then the second cold war, then the local war and the post cold war, and the war phase of the book, i actually sort of made into two phases. I could have talk about the civil war phase and then the International War phase but i decided to just easier to put is in one phase, the fighting faces of fighting phase of the war, so 1948, 1949, there was a it was suppressed by the newly established rok government, and decided at that point that toppling the regime was not going to work, and then the war turned into an International War. That sort of section. The cold war phase is really the smallest part of the book but it looks at the impact of the korean war on the cold war. So, the impact of the korean war, not only on u. S. Policy but also on china and of course the two koreas. And then the so that takes us from 1953 until late 1960s. And then the late 1960s is what i call the local war phase and thats an interesting period because at the end of the 1960s there was tremendous political changes taking place in asia. Of course, the war in vietnam. There was 1972, the withdrawal of american troops from vietnam in 1973, and final soviet split, the china and soviet union were actually butting heads. There was a conflagration in 1969. So because of the geopolitical changes in the sense the cold war in asia was coming to an end, but the fight between north and south korea was actually heating up. At this point, at the beginning of south koreas rise as an economic power, and south korea was kicking off at this point, and by contrast, north korea, period when its economy was starting to slow down, and so the saga, the window of opportunity to unify with the south quickly poisoned. And decided at that point to do a series of very provocative actions to take down the regime beginning with the blue house raid in an attempt to assassinate the president , which failed. So local war phase between 1968 and early 1990s. The current extremely angry, wants to retaliate. The americans have come to restrain him and then kim sung, and 83, the attempted assassination, and a series of events and terrorist the flight 858, for example, into the 80s, so that period is the struggles between north and south core korea and trying to restrain them from starting another war. The end of the cold war, end of the soviet union in 1991, and north koreas economy going into a terrible slump, terrible famine, and so now the conflict it between north korea and the world. And Nuclear Issues becomes the issue, sort of the legacy of the korean war. So in a sense theyre all distinct periods, all linked because theyre part of the korean war. But theyre distinct. So the the second themees there was an ongoing conflict between south and north korea. And and that conflict between the south and the north continues, and the war changed and evolved. Host really, the war, Unfinished Business between north and south korea, but in the context of these incredible changes in the International Context. And so it really is very relevant to contemporary policy as well. Now, one thing i find interesting is that theres just a huge literature on the korean war you had to try to cover, and a lot of secondary sources that contained primary elements, and one thing i think is very interesting about the book is that you really have done a good job of capturing human elements and human voices at the same time that youre trying to tell this story of international religiouses and geopolitics. How did you focus in and find those particular primary voices as you did your research . Guest well, in terms of the sources i used well, ill lay out the sources i use and the primary news sources. The cold war i couldnt have written the book without that. A treasure trove, and theres a lot of personal dealings in personalities coming out in a lot of those telegrams, too. So that was really important. Host a project at the Woodrow Wilson center going on for 15 years. Guest right. The material they publish probably could fill many, many books, but that is really the foundation. But in terms of the other sources i used, of course the military History Institute was a very important source for me, really for the first part, because the largest collection of oral histories of the korean war so underring the Operational History as well as the military history, as well as the voices of the korean soldiers who fought in the war. But the new materials came from the Reconciliation Commission. Host south korean the Reconciliation Commission start in 2005. And their goal was to look at contentious issues in south koreas history and bring them to the for and one of the issues it is was the in the 40 and 49 period. So i established contact with one of the lead researchers and she gave me a lot of published materials, a lot of oral histories, and memories about what had happened. Alongside with they actually did archaeological excavation, into people talking about particular places and there were actual photographs of what had happened. And actually two of those photographs are in the book. And so those sort of three main archives that provided in a sense an overarching way to for the events, gave me this personal touch because they were human beings telling me about the war, right . Host right. Sounds like crowd also have some new sources in here that really havent been incorporated in other narratives. Guest right. Host and the evolving historiography of the korean war that hat developed. I wonder if you can give us a sense how the debate over how to look at the korean war has changed over time and also what you think is unique or distinctive about the opportunity you have to really write bat the korean war from a 21st century perspective. Guest well, briefly, in 1950s and 1960s the traditional view and the way in which people view the korean war, it was a product of the cold war and it was stalin who was behind it, it was stalin who told kim ilsung to invade the south, and that kim ilsung was a puppet of stalin and the korean war was a manifestation of this larger cold war struggle. In and in the 1970s and 1980s, a revisionist approach occurred and the harbingers of that approach was bruce culpings or ins of the korean war and he looked at the korean war as a civil war, that it was not a product of the cold war per se but that the real reason for the war was civil origins, and that kim ilsung himself decided to invade the south on his own accord, to achieve unification. And then, of course, later, at the end of the cold war, we had all this new documentation, documents from the former soviet archives as well as from china, and it became very clear that kim ilsung was in fact behind the korean war, but it was a little bit more complicated because although its true that stalin gave the green light to kim ilsung, it was kim ilsungs idea. It was the the origin was civil. He really wanted to unify the south and that is why he asked stalin for support and that was and so its both international and civil in that sense. Theres no its not a clearcut host really kind of weaves the guest what my book does, which is different than the literature on the korean war, most of the literaturure war deals with ore gips, why did the war happen, who caused it, et cetera. And my interest in the book was to understand effects of the war. I did that as background but im interested in what did the korean war do to create this to create the cold war, how does it affect american society, how does it affect south korea. So the emphasis is very different. From origins to effect. Host and very clear in the sense that you have a half a book that really is focused on all of those effects. Guest right. Host we should get into that but before we do, i thought one of the things that was really striking also about the book was just to remind us that the korean war and the cold war really came right on the heels of the end of world war ii and raised in my mind the question of whether this was a product of failures on the part of those who were trying to finish world war ii, or whether there might have been any way to stop this particular insipient conflict from developing, either at the civil level or with the framework of the International Emerging confrontation. Guest what youre asking is what could there have been a particular event right after world war ii that could have perhaps prevented the korean war . Host yes. Guest that is an interesting question, and i think theres maybe perhaps two events but i dont think actually could have the events themselves could not have been prevented. The first would probably be the fact that stalin was able to enter the war before japan collapsed or before it surrendered. Had japan surrendered before the soviet union had been able to declare war on japan, you would have never had the 38th 38th parallel because it wouldnt have gone south and then the americans would not have had to ask him to stop at the 38th parallel. And then the second, perhaps, preventible occurrence could have been that stalin decided not to stop at the 38th 38th parallel. He did, the americans asked him if he would and he did, but he had perfect opportunity to take the Korean Peninsula on his own. He wouldnt get there we wouldnt get there until Early September and he was there in august. The fact that the 38th 38th parallel itself became a reality right after the Second World War in a sense made subsequent events and the subsequent separation of between the north and the south almost inevitable. Host very unplanned drawing of a line guest hap hazzard in the middle of the light. Host at the close of world war ii, and i wonder if you could say a little more about the details of what was going on. Guest the general who later became un commander in south korea, and dean russ dean rusk, who became secretary of state under kennedy and johnson, they were asked, where he thinks we can draw a line where the soviets might stop, and they took a National Geographic map and they chose the 38th 38th parallel because it was just a little above seoul. And to everyones surprise he decide. He decided, i will do so. So it was just sort of haphazard event to draw that line. Host almost feels like that just sets the wheels rolling toward another confrontation. Guest a lot of other event that led to the korean war. You, point to achesons speech when he said that taiwan and south korea are not part of our defense perimeter. At it really complicated but a lot of events that might have prevented it, but i think the line itself set the course for a south korea or south yeah, south korea and north korea. I dont think at the end of the Second World War and with the emerging cold war in europe, the soviets and the americans could have come together and created a unified korea at that point. Host you really set the stage for competing occupation. And so the fluidity of that period is interesting and actually you talked a little bit about the challenges of the respective occupations and efforts to work with local leaders. I wonder if you could Say Something comparing the occupation of soviet occupation and the u. S. Occupation on the peninsula. Guest well, the soviet union actually had a lot easier time occupying the northern half because they had a reservoir of koreans who could speak im sorry of soviets who could speak korean. The soviet koreans, thats long and fascinating history in itself but a lot of at the end of the 19th century, when korea became colonized by japan, a lot of koreans fled the colony and established themselves in the soviet far east and thennin 1937 stalin deported them to prisons in central asia in kazakhstan, where they set up communes there, and thennen in 1945, stalin then took a lot members of the community and brought them back to north korea, and it was really the soviet koreans that helped to establish this north korean regime, and so you have this reservoir of soviets loyal soviet citizens who can speak korean and also infiltrating into the indigenous communities that began to spring up. The americans on the other hand didnt have koreans who could speak english. So the problem for them was how do you govern a place without any people who you can communicate with . And so the only people that were able to fulfill that role were very elite, welleducated people, and many of them had collaborated with the japanese during the regime. The americanes also, when they came into the south, their main mission was not nationbuilding. They were thinking about demobilizing the japanese army. And so when general hodge came, he used many of the japanese officials, already in the south, because it was he was facilitating, demobilizing to get the japanese troops out, and from the korean perspective,ed looked very odd. Here theyre supposed to be liberated by the americans but the americans were colluding in a sense with the japanese. So from the very beginning there was suspicion, and continue to use the japanese officials, they used basically korean officials who had served under the japanese colonial regime. So the situation in the south, because of the residual colonial effect, made the situation very volatile, and much more violent, whereas in the north, very quickly able to sort of get their house in order, and i think this is to sort of answer the question, what the resid aisle effects of the occupation was that north korea became much more organized, disciplined, structured, and the south became highly volatile, and violent, and then, of course in 1948 and 1949, there was a leftist insurgency in the south, and it was successfully repressed with the help of the americans by june 1950. But i think it was still a pretty volatile situation when there were pockets left and that made hmm nervous when the americans left inform 1949. Its interesting that the korean war in a sense helped the South Koreans unify themselves in a way that was not before. When the communists came down, they were brutal, and a lot of the South Koreans turned against the communists from the north and that solidified their sense of National Cohesion and identity, but i think kim ilsung calculated this because had he waited, its very possible that the south probably would have its possible it would have disintegrated on its own and it was the decision to militarily invade in a conventional sense. That was misinterpret by the americans as soviet inspired invasion that got the americans involved. But had kim ilsung waited it out, its very possible he could have inspired another sort of revolution in the south and he could have taken over by those means. I dont think the americans would have responded if it had been a korean really a korean inspired revolution. Host so thats really interesting because clearly the decision to start the war by kim ilsung on the one hand, a strategic surprise, but turn out to be, you just suggested, a huge miscalculation. Guest that could have happened but youre right. Host certainly a miscalculation in the sense that his efforts ended up failing, and he extended himself too far. Guest right. Host and i just found it interesting in going back and looking at the military aspects of the war, that we saw these series of three measures, strategic surprises, that also had imbedded in them aspects of miscalculation. Kim ilsungs decision to invade, and then of course the landing with macmacarthur, and maos decision to send volunteers into the war. Won kerr if you could Say Something about how the individual perceptions of these leaders who were making the decisions shaped the way they approached those particular decision. Guest so, you want me to describe what the miscalculations were and then host yeah. I mean, i just find it interesting that in each case we had this dramatic turns that were based on actions that seemed guest maybe i should sort of go over what those miscalculations were. Kim ilsung first. I think kim ilsungs miscalculation mainly was that he believed that once he invaded he would be welcomed by 200,000 leftist supporters that would embrace him. Right . And that didnt happen. And i think once he got to seoul, he thought the war is probably over and everything is hunkydory and his miscalculation was, miscalculating how the South Koreans would react, and the North Koreans were very ruthless. They didnt win very many friends with that sort of invasion, and i think with macarthur, the strategic miscalculation was of course, he goes up to the river and miscalculates the chinese response, and his miscalculation was that he believed that the chinese hadnt entered the war on the winning side, that is when the North Koreans were winning. Weep why would they enter the war on the winning side. And the losing side. And it was a National Security threat against china. So that was his big miscalculation, the chinese reacting to