The Korean War
The Forgotten War
The Korean War actually resulted from the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This offensive by the United States Army became the start of the arms race with Russia that we now refer to as the Cold War. On June 25, 1950, North Korea startled the United Nations by launching a surprise attack on its neighbor South Korea. North Korea was a Communist nation that was outraged when the South Korean government thought that they had the right to have their leaders have power in the communist nation. North Korea was allied with fellow Communist countries China and the U.S.S.R. As assumed, both countries came to the aid of the much smaller Korean nation and began o threaten the South. At this point the United Nations had to react or another country would fall under the control of Communism. The U.N. Decided to go to the aid of the severely outnumbered South Korean Soldiers and the Korean War had begun. After over three years of brutal fighting the war ends in a stalemate on July 27, 1953. At its end, the total loss of life in the war approached three million of which around fifty thousand were American soldiers. To this day the Koreas are still hostile towards each other. They are separated by the most heavily guarded border in the world. There seems to be no end in sight now that the North Koreans have developed Nuclear weapons. These nations will be enemies for a long time to come.