1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:06,420 Mention the Korean War today and most people will look at you with a blank stare. 2 00:00:06,420 --> 00:00:11,720 At the time it was fought, just five years after World War II ended, everyone recognized it 3 00:00:11,730 --> 00:00:18,500 as a world-shaping conflict, a stark confrontation between the forces of democracy and communism. 4 00:00:18,500 --> 00:00:25,200 It began on June 25, 1950 when Soviet-backed communist North Korea crossed the 38th parallel 5 00:00:25,210 --> 00:00:30,980 and invaded its US-backed anti-communist South Korean neighbor. Within weeks the communists 6 00:00:30,980 --> 00:00:35,690 had nearly absorbed the entire country. The United States at first was confused over whether 7 00:00:35,690 --> 00:00:40,300 it should—or even could—respond. America had slashed its military budget after the 8 00:00:40,300 --> 00:00:43,700 end of World War II and was short both men and equipment. 9 00:00:43,700 --> 00:00:48,540 It still had not awakened fully to the expansionist threat of Soviet Russia. 10 00:00:48,540 --> 00:00:53,940 The Soviets—buoyed by their own recent development of an atomic bomb and Mao Zedong’s communist 11 00:00:53,940 --> 00:00:59,719 victory in China—sensed America’s lack of resolve and encouraged the North’s aggression. 12 00:00:59,719 --> 00:01:03,870 Yet within weeks President Harry Truman rushed troops to save the shrinking Allied perimeter 13 00:01:03,870 --> 00:01:09,439 at Pusan on the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. And by late September, 1950, General 14 00:01:09,439 --> 00:01:14,650 Douglas MacArthur had successfully completed the Inchon landings and launched counter-attacks. 15 00:01:14,650 --> 00:01:19,530 He quickly reclaimed the entire south and sent American-led United Nations forces far 16 00:01:19,530 --> 00:01:25,720 into North Korea to reunite the entire peninsula—only to be surprised when hundreds of thousands 17 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:29,600 of Chinese Red Army troops crossed the Yalu River at the Chinese border 18 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,940 and sent the outnumbered Americans reeling back into South Korea. 19 00:01:33,940 --> 00:01:38,920 Thanks to the genius of General Matthew Ridgeway, who arrived to assume supreme command in South 20 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:45,140 Korea in December 1950, over the next 100 days US led UN forces pushed the communists 21 00:01:45,149 --> 00:01:50,409 back across the 38th Parallel. The fighting was fierce. Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, 22 00:01:50,409 --> 00:01:57,120 exchanged hands between communist and US led forces five times before it was finally secured. 23 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:04,600 During the years 1952 and 1953, the war grew static, neither side able to deliver a knockout blow. 24 00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:11,080 Eventually the conflict ended with a tense armistice in July 1953. For over the 25 00:02:11,090 --> 00:02:17,280 next 60 years, a cold war persisted between the Stalinist North and what, by the 1980s, 26 00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:22,040 had evolved into the democratic, economic powerhouse of South Korea. 27 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:28,440 Over 35,000 Americans died in the Korean War. The war marked the first major armed conflict 28 00:02:28,450 --> 00:02:33,030 of the Nuclear Age, and one in which the United States had not clearly defeated the enemy 29 00:02:33,030 --> 00:02:38,620 and thus not dictated terms of surrender. Was fighting the Korean War and restoring 30 00:02:38,620 --> 00:02:44,320 the South—without uniting the entire peninsula—worth the huge cost in blood and treasure? 31 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:48,480 The natural dividend of saving the South was the evolution of today’s democratic and 32 00:02:48,489 --> 00:02:53,709 prosperous South Korea that has given its 50 million citizens undreamed of freedom and 33 00:02:53,709 --> 00:02:58,970 affluence—and has blessed the world with topflight products from the likes of Hyundai, 34 00:02:58,970 --> 00:03:01,470 Kia, LG and Samsung. 35 00:03:01,470 --> 00:03:06,320 South Korea is a model global citizen and a strong ally of the U.S.—and stands in 36 00:03:06,330 --> 00:03:10,450 sharp contrast to the communist regime in the North that has starved and murdered millions 37 00:03:10,450 --> 00:03:16,430 of its own people and caused untold mischief in the world community. Had it not been for 38 00:03:16,430 --> 00:03:21,260 U.S. intervention and support to the South, the current monstrous regime in Pyongyang 39 00:03:21,260 --> 00:03:27,060 would now rule all of Korea, ensuring its nuclear-armed dictatorship even greater power 40 00:03:27,060 --> 00:03:28,620 and resources. 41 00:03:28,620 --> 00:03:33,069 The American effort to save South Korea also sent a message to both communist China and 42 00:03:33,069 --> 00:03:38,040 the Soviet Union that the free world, under U.S. leadership, would no longer tolerate 43 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:43,709 communist military take-overs of free nations. The resulting deterrence policy helped to 44 00:03:43,709 --> 00:03:51,220 keep the communist world from attempting similar surprise attacks on Japan, Taiwan, and Western Europe. 45 00:03:51,220 --> 00:03:57,400 Finally, the Korean War awakened the United States to the dangers of disarmament and isolationism 46 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:03,290 and led to the bipartisan foreign policy of containment of global communism that in 1989 47 00:04:03,290 --> 00:04:08,930 finally led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it victory in the Cold War. 48 00:04:08,930 --> 00:04:12,860 The Korean War was an incomplete American victory in its failure to liberate North Korea 49 00:04:12,860 --> 00:04:18,890 and unite the peninsula, but a victory nonetheless. And not just from a military perspective, 50 00:04:18,890 --> 00:04:24,980 but from a moral one as well. The reason 35,000 Americans died in Korea was to keep at least 51 00:04:24,980 --> 00:04:30,290 half the Korean people free. Korea did not have a single material resource that would 52 00:04:30,290 --> 00:04:32,370 have benefited America. 53 00:04:32,370 --> 00:04:38,540 The Korean War merits more than a blank stare. It deserves to be remembered and studied – with pride. 54 00:04:38,540 --> 00:04:42,540 I’m Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution for Prager University.