Unbecoming American: War diary- Korea again

Another war diary entry

The Korean War: A History, reviewed again and again

Critical cultural historical perspective is not easy to obtain. Yet its importance as an orientation is immeasurable. One episode in the past American century of war is still virtually unknown and/ or misrepresented, the longest single armed conflict in the history of the North American republic—its campaign against Korea. In terms of active hostilities conducted by military formations, the United States dba the United Nations fought between 1951 and 1953, when a ceasefire and armistice was agreed between the United Nations and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. In practice war by other means has continued with scarcely an abatement to this day.

This persistence of this condition is well understood in Korea, China and Japan, even if the public statements diverge among the governments of these three. In the United States one can say that the vast majority of the population has little or no idea about the campaign beyond the few lines in school history books, occasional sentimental films and the ignorant as well as outright dishonest statements by the US government. Since Barack Obama announced the regime’s “pivot to Asia”, formulated in Foreign Policy under the by-line of Hillary Clinton in 2010, there have been occasional eruptions of sensitivity to events and developments on the Korean peninsula. These remain largely incoherent. As I have argued elsewhere this incoherence and general ignorance can be explained by the fact that although every US school pupil has heard the term “manifest destiny” very few have ever understood it. In contrast, one can hear almost anyone preach with authoritative tones about the Monroe Doctrine as if this were an institution of international law and not an arrogant gesture, mainly addressed to the British Empire in the 19th century (when it was barely capable of defending its own merchantmen).

Without a clear understanding of manifest destiny: the US absorption of the Philippines and denial of its hard fought independence after Spain had ceded it in the Treaty of Paris (1898), the promotion of Japanese expansion into the Asian mainland including colonization, the transfer of Germany’s China assets to Japan after the Great War, and the covert operations against Japan (managed in part by a senior State Department official named Acheson) that led to the provoked (and staged) Pearl Harbor “surprise”, as well as the “loss of China” in 1949, it is impossible to explain the comprehensiveness of US imperial engagement in Asia and the importance of Korea in this constellation (or Vietnam for that matter). The “pivot” announced under Barack Obama was not a new policy. It was a relabelling of an ambition that emerged from manifest destiny long before the US was capable of projecting the naval, military and economic power to actively pursue it.

At the end of the campaign against Japan in 1945, the immediate consequence of Japan’s defeat at the hands of the Soviet Union was surrender and withdrawal from its Korean colony. Prosaically the almost hereditary military governor of the Philippines, Douglas MacArthur (father had been military governor while son had commanded the Philippine armed forces until the Japanese invasion), played a significant role in executing in Korea the same manoeuver perpetrated by Admiral George Dewey in Manila Bay. The Spanish had been forced to cede the Philippines to the US. Subsequently the US Army waged a major counter-insurgency to defeat the independence movement and establish a de jure protectorate that continues de facto to this day. (It is also worth noting that the US vassal in Manila for much of its “independence” was Ferdinand Marcos. Deposed like a few stalwart dictator-consuls throughout the Empire in 1986, his son Bongbong returned to the role performed by his father in 2022. So far Bongbong’s spouse, Liza, is not known for the same shoe collection as her mother-in-law.) After waging four years of bloody war ostensibly for democracy, the high representatives of the Allies had declared in Cairo that Korean independence was to be restored. Thus the US designs had to be cloaked in other garb. The USMIGK was there to make Korea safe for American style “democracy” under Syngman Rhee. In 1945, the Japanese surrendered, including “their” Korea to the United States. While Japanese troops were evacuating the peninsula, the Korean popular government (people’s committees) that had already taken over administration from the Japanese was dissolved and replaced by the US Military Government in Korea (USMGIK). The Republic of Korea (South) was established and has remained a US protectorate ever since.  

This is the most reasonable perspective from which to see the beginnings of the war in Korea as far as the United States is concerned. It is the simplest and most consistent explanation not only for Dean Acheson’s action in 1951 but also for the policies pursued today by the permanent state that directs the foreign policy a reigning POTUS is permitted to pronounce.

Of course there are many complexities involving conflicts among the interested parties which make it impossible to reduce all the events and phenomena of the war to just one cause or effect. Several political conflicts arose among the US Establishment because of the Korean campaign. The impact on occupied Germany and relations with the temporary “ally” and permanent enemy, the Soviet Union, as well as those with emerging independent states like India, was substantial. Therefore to argue for a controlling cultural historical perspective is not to claim a linear or analogue explanation for everything that happened between 1951 and 1953.

This is the fundamental strength of the numerous books Bruce Cumings has written about the Korean War, including his participation in a highly controversial Thames TV documentary (1988) called Korea: The Unknown War. The importance of the latter lies in its unparalleled compilation of eyewitness interviews and archival film material about a war that predated “TV war fetishism”. The interpretative work was so controversial in the production that Professor Cumings later wrote a critical analysis and partially distanced himself from the end product. Nonetheless as “diluted” as some evidence and critique in the film was, two versions had to be distributed. US television broadcasters found the original British documentary to negative for American audiences.

In 2010, The Korean War: A History was published in the Random House Modern Library, an established series characterized by titles that are widely recognized as “classics”. Perhaps that is why David Martin https://www.unz.com/article/the-korean-war-a-history/ assumed for the purpose of his review that Bruce Cumings account and interpretations of this period in US and Korean (as well as Chinese) history are now Establishment or mainstream. He supports this assumption by reminding the reader of Professor Cumings pedigree, a distinguished professor emeritus from a top-tier American university and former chair of that institution’s history department. Dr Martin then concludes that The Korean War, as narrated by Professor Cumings, is best assigned to that bin of radical Leftist revisionism he imagines—like many conservatives—dominates the apex of US power. Alas Dr Martin is gravely mistaken. Ever since Bruce Cumings published his Origins of the Korean War, the Establishment has done its best to ignore, if not discredit, the conclusions he drew—as they were unable to refute the copious historical record with which the book is supported. If appearances in the think tank/ talk show circuit are any measure of ideological acceptance, Bruce Cumings is probably one of the rarest figures to be found in public debate about Korea or US Asia policy. His standing in the academy entitles him to more respect among colleagues but that hardly constitutes political influence in high places. As far as I know it has not earned him a place in that cesspool of the Anglo-American Establishment, the Council on Foreign Relations—usually the first sign of elevation to the rank of official sage.

Dr Martin opens his salvo against The Korean War by reporting that he was in Korea as an ROTC lieutenant at about the same time that Bruce Cumings was in Korea serving in the Peace Corps. The invidious distinction he makes between these two assignments is almost amusingly nostalgic, reminiscent of the sneers of newly-minted, patriotic, “butter bars” leaving for Saigon amidst protesting college students. Accusing Professor Cumings of a lack of martial spirit and patriotism may reflect the naive feelings of a fresh junior officer fifty years ago, it is certainly not a serious way to approach the published research of a senior scholar, regardless of political coloration. Dr Martin also introduces his anecdotal evidence, observations made during his tour in Korea and his further academic study. Yet he only refers to English-language publications. Either he has no knowledge of the Korean language or he supposes his readers only have access to English-medium sources. Bruce Cumings’ work is subject to no such limitations. However, the publication of this digest of Professor Cumings decades-long research in the Modern Library does at least suggest that the content has been prepared for a mass market, lay audience. In that sense The Korean War, while by no means Establishment orthodoxy, has crept a few rungs to be admitted to educated debate beyond the university. That is something Dr Martin should greet. Since before one can adequately argue with an analysis or judgement it is necessary to understand it. That is certainly the aim of the publishers—not to approve the views but to render them susceptible to broader understanding and thus foster intelligent debate about a continuing conflict in US foreign policy.

Yet, David Martin, a retired economist, employed mainly in government service, reviews Bruce Cumings’ book as if it were the established, standard history of the war. Of course it never was and still isn’t. Dr Martin also disparages I F Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War, one of the few contemporary critical analyses of the Korean campaign, based entirely on public sources available at the time. All this is based on the conviction that these are Left-wing views of the matter and therefore inherently incorrect.

The review does not confine itself to ad hominem. Dr Martin asserts that aside from an anti-American bias, Professor Cumings makes statements that also lead to substantive questions that he does not answer. To the extent this is accurate, it is beside the point. The Korean War makes no claims to comprehensiveness. On the contrary it is a compact digest. Professor Cumings explains in the introduction that every effort was made to keep the evidentiary apparatus to a minimum in the interest of broader readership. In the two-volume Origins of the Korean War lie the answers to numerous questions Dr Martin sees as unresolved. On the narrative as a whole Professor Cumings is more than candid:

“I wish I could write with the serene confidence that other historians do in similarly short books, offering their settled interpretations unencumbered by footnotes and sources. So many things about this war are still so controversial, however, vehemently debated and hotly affirmed or denied (or simply unknown)…”

Having read both volumes of the Origins, his other books on the subject, viewed Korea: The Unknown War, several times as well as corresponding directly with him, I can only attest to the caution with which Professor Cumings drew any conclusions from his research. Rather than trying to prove who may have started the armed hostilities that became a major military conflict for three years, his work has focussed on the context in which this war began, the various aims, interests and objectives pursued by those persons involved and those of the institutions through which they acted. The limitations on historical documentation are never overlooked. Interpretation is always an act in the present. However it always is an interpretation of what we call the past. Hence new documents may lead to reassessment of previously known documents. The Korean War is “a history”—not “the history” as would be implied by a genuinely Establishment narrative.

At one point Dr Martin writes:

“To be sure there would have been social unrest such as occurred on Jeju Island and in South Jeolla Province, but it’s hard to see how it could have developed into an all-out war. Backing someone like Kim Ku, who seems to have had wider public support, instead of Syngman Rhee might have been a wiser course for the United States.”

Dr Martin is primarily concerned with the US interest in Korea—“a wiser course for the United States” (or for that matter all of Asia-Pacific) and not with what Koreans wanted or may still want.

In fact the massacre on Jeju island was not “social unrest.” It was the first in the extermination campaigns of the communists (or those opponents the US and Rhee regime declared to be communists) in all of Korea. These actions began with the overt and covert support of the USMGIK which gladly deployed Japanese and Korean collaborators peninsula-wide. Backing Kim Ku might have led to a peaceful Korea but that is not what the US wanted at all. US policy in Korea was also dictated by the decision to capture Japanese industry and the labour force to supply the forward base for domination of Asia and prepare the first phase of offshore deindustrialization pursued subsequently using Korea and China. Not only was stealing Korea’s large tungsten reserves desirable, Korean (and Vietnamese) rice was to form the cheap food supply for Japan’s workforce. The US needed a dictatorship. Christian mission had a role to play too. Fostering anti-communism was the complement to neutralizing the popular movement in the North that had performed a major role together with Chinese and Soviet forces in defeating Japan. The “peace” to which Dr Martin refers is that fabled “peace through superior firepower” that has characterized US pacification throughout the world.

Unfortunately even attempts to popularize Professor Cumings Korea research have largely failed, if measured by the impact on US Korea policy. The ignorance of the US population about Korea (and Asia as a whole) has scarcely changed since Theodore Roosevelt got his Nobel peace prize (1906) for helping Japan colonize it. The power of the “American Dream” has been to seduce millions around the world into accepting the US version of world history. There are Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese—all from or descended from these countries the US has invaded—whose attitudes have been coloured by their vision of America.

David Martin’s review is also an example of the importance of the overall perspective. The perspective with which one examines the facts is a crucial distinction. Since Martin reads Korean history only as relevant for US history. He cannot entertain the idea that Koreans did not want their country divided and occupied. Unlike Germany, Korea was not a party to the war. It was a conquered colony of Japan. Dean Rusk, who claimed to have chosen the 38th parallel as the dividing line, long before he became a cabinet secretary, explained how arbitrary the choice was. In other words division of the peninsula was decided based on factors that had little or nothing to do with the interests or needs of Koreans, a people with a settled nationality in the peninsula spanning more than a millennium. That such a decision could be taken by people from a country with barely 150 years of history is insulting on its face. It would have been decent if Martin could have overcome his anti-communism sufficiently to examine the copious evidence Cumings produced to show what the real US role in Korea was and how it has done everything possible to maintain the ROK as a launch pad against China, as it remains today.

In an environment of such enhanced belligerence, guided by military doctrines of perpetual war, an organizer of Veterans for Peace (as stated in Dr Martin’s biography) might contribute by dispelling some of the illusions that still nurture manifest destiny in the hearts and minds of those who rule the US.

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