America’s Involvement in the Korean War

America has a long background throughout history of imperialism and interfering in conflicts across the globe; from the Spanish American War in the Philippines to the Vietnam War, America constantly finds itself in conflict. The US finds itself in conflict for many different reasons, those reasons include encouraging the spread of democracy and other American ideals and to stop the spread of communism, which the US saw as a threat. The US's effort in the war was somewhat of a success yet had many failures. On one hand, the US stopped the spread of communism but on the other hand, the US didn't completely remove communism from Korea. Those are some of the reasons for US intervention in foreign conflicts and how it was a success and failure in the Korean War.

From its conception, the US has wanted to impose its philosophies on anyone who doesn't agree with it, it is no different in the case of Korea. Initially, South Korea was under the control of communist Japan. America at this point has had a bad past with communism and believed that Korea would be better with a democratic government. So, in 1945 America deployed a group of Marines and captured South Korea in order to institute their Democratic style. Under a Democratic government, South Korea flourished and was more prosperous. This was great for the US because it showed the superiority of Democracy to communism to the world. That is how the US's desire to spread Democracy influenced American intervention in Korea.

During the '40s and '50s, the US had an event known as the Red Scare take place. It was caused by escalating tensions due to the spread of communism worldwide and in the US and was named accordingly. This fear of the spread of communism is one of the most influencing reasons for the US's involvement in the Korean War. The US recognized the importance of stopping communists from invading South Korea and knew what it would signify if it was taken over. Because of that, the US began to intervene and support South Korea by sending troops and supplies. That is how the fear of the spread of communism affected US involvement in the Korean War.

Whether or not the US involvement in the Korean War was a success depends on the interpreted goal of the intervention. The US mainly wanted to stop the spread of communism into South Korea and the peninsula which it did accomplish, although the US did not completely eliminate communism from Asia, Russia, and Korea. This could be seen as a failure as communism could still spread in places other than Korea and even into America. This failure to completely destroy communism led to the Red Scare which makes the involvement in the Korean War seem like even more of a failure. That is how American involvement was seen as both a success and a failure.

The US has many different reasons to be involved in foreign conflicts, those reasons include encouraging the spread of democracy and to stop the spread of communism. The US's effort in the Korean War was somewhat of a success yet had many failures. On one hand, the US stopped the spread of communism but on the other hand, the US didn't completely remove communism from Korea. That is some of the reasons for US involvement and how America's involvement was a success and failure at the same time.

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