Have you ever wondered why there's North Korea and South Korea? Ever wondered what happened
to, you know... Korea? Like most geo-political changes in the world,
the division of Korea was the result of war. The Korean War took place from 1950 to 1953.
But it wasn't really the Korean War that split the country. The Korean War just made the
split more permanent, but it was already split. We need to look not only at the Korean War,
but look at the bigger picture. The split had more to do with the Cold War. The Cold
War was interesting in that it wasn't so much a war in the traditional sense. The Cold War
was effectively a "war of wars". The Cold War was primarily between the United States
and the Soviet Union. But in a more broad sense it was effectively an ideological war
between capitalism and communism. The US and the USSR never actually fought
each other directly in battle, but instead fought indirectly through proxy wars.
One example would be the Vietnam War, the United States (who were helping South Vietnam)
were at war with communist North Vietnam, while the Soviets provided them with tanks,
aircrafts, and weapons, as well as billions of dollars in funding.
Another example would be the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The Soviets fought with the communist
Afghan government, while the United States gave 3 billions dollars in funding to the
mujahideen to fight the civil war. However, this turned out to be a horrible
decision for the US, as one of the leaders of the mujahideen turned out to be one Osama
Bin Laden, who went on to found al-Qaeda, who then went on to declare war on the United
States. So in a roundabout way, the US effectively funding terrorism against themselves...
But back to Korea... The Korean War was effectively another proxy war as part of the Cold War.
But the split of Korea happened even before the Cold War. The country was actually split
at the end of the World War Two. If you've seen my first video, I talked about
how Japan surrendered in World War Two and had to give up land they had acquired via
force when they signed the Potsdam Declaration, which included Taiwan. As well as Taiwan though,
Japan also had control of the entire Korean Peninsula, which the Japanese Empire had annexed
in 1910 from the Korean Empire. The Japanese ruled Korea for 35 years before their surrender.
But this is different from the situation with Taiwan. Taiwan's an island which made up a
tiny amount of the Republic of China's land, so it was simply a case of handing sovereignty
over to China. But with Korea... Japan took ALL of their land. So the Korean Empire had
effectively been wiped off the map. Therefore, by order of the United Nations,
Korea was to be temporarily split at the 38th parallel. The Soviet Union were to control
the north, while the United States controlled the south, with the plan to unite the country
in time. It's important to note that at this point
the US and USSR were allies at this time, although they didn't exactly trust each other.
The United Nations scheduled elections in both parts of the Korea, they were to be fair
and democratic. In the South, Syngman Rhee was elected and the Republic of Korea was
established, taking control over from the US military.
However, in the north, the Soviet Union refused to hold free elections a communist state was
established with Kim Il-sung as the leader of the country, grandfather of the current
North Korean leader - Kim Jon-un. By 1949, all US and Soviet forces had withdrawn
from Korea. The Soviet's and Communist China had significantly
armed the North Koreans with weapons and funding, but the US weren't actually as generous with
the South Koreans, and refused to even give them any tanks, leaving them seriously ill-equipped
for a war. And war is exactly what happened. In 1950,
under the direction of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, North Korea crossed the 38th parallel
and invaded South Korea. Stalin didn't expect the US to get involved
since they had already withdrawn all their troops and they didn't intervene with the
victory of Communist China in the Chinese Civil War in the previous year.
However, the UN Security Council unanimously voted to intervene in Korea.
Ironically though, the Soviet Union was part of the UN Security Council's Big Five and
had veto power. Unfortunately for them, they weren't there
to veto the resolution. See, even though Communist China had effectively
won the civil war and had total control of the mainland, the Republic of China, who only
had control over Taiwan, still held the seat of China at the UN.
In protest of this, the Soviet Union boycotted all UN meetings.
So the UN intervened to protect South Korea, although it was mostly US forces.
The troops were lead by the United States under the command of General MachArthur.
Stalin promised to help North Korea as much as possible. However, he insisted Soviet forces
would not engage in combat with US forces. But why is this... you might wonder.
I mean, why engage in all these proxy wars and indirect fighting, why don't the United
States and the Soviet Union just fight each other directly?
Well, the answer to that can be summed up in just three words:
Mutually. Assured. Destruction. See, at the time, the US and USSR were considered
the two superpowers of the world. And the consequences of both superpowers at all-out
war with each other would have catastrophic repercussions.
As well as being superpowers, they were also both nuclear weapon states. See, in the early
40's, the US (with the help of the UK and Canada) worked on the Manhattan Project, which
is basically codename for "developing an atomic bomb". It's a slightly more conspicuous name...
In 1945 the US showed the sheer destructive power of these weapons when they dropped atomic
bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After seeing this, the Soviet
Union significantly increased their own research into nuclear weapons, and, in 1949 they successfully
tested their own atomic bomb. So war between the United States and Soviet
Union would have inevitably ended up in World War Three and for the first time - nuclear
war. This wouldn't just have been bad for the US
and Russia, but absolutely, literally, everyone! And could have could have quite easily lead
to the end of human civilization... But thankfully that didn't happen. Joseph
Stalin was fully aware of the potential consequences of engaging in combat with US forces.
Say what you want about Joseph Stalin, but at least he was smart enough not to be to
war with the US. Credit where credit's due, that's all I'm saying.
By September 1950, North Korea had South Korea cornered in the Pusan Perimeter and a communist
victory looked imminent. The North Koreans has to send supplies to
their soldiers on the frontline, which General MacArthur thought he could exploit.
Instead of trying to break through with ground forces, the US used their navy to flank the
North Koreans. They took back control of Seoul and managed to disrupt the North Korean supply
line. Within just a few months things had completely
changed and it looked like South Korea were on the verge of victory.
However, at this point, China, who had thus far not been involved, marched their troops
across the border and pushed the UN forces back to behind the 38th parallel.
Control of the peninsula fluctuated for a while around the 38th parallel, ironically,
control ended very similar to what had been to begin with.
In 1953, North and South Korea signed an armistice agreement creating a de facto international
border. It's worth noting that an armistice agreement is NOT a peace treaty, so technically
speak, they're actually still at war. After the agreement, both sides built barriers
to stop each other crossing the border. And there's now a 4km wide Demilitarized Zone.
Which is a somewhat ironic name given that it's the single most militarized border in
the entire world. Speaking of ironic names, North Korea's official
name is: the Democratic People Republic of Korea. Which is ironic since several organisations
have ranked North Korea as the single LEAST democratic country in the world.
And the good thing about talking about North Korea is, no-one's going to be offended, I
can safely say that no-one from North Korea is ever going to see this video.
In 1991, both North and South Korea became members of the United Nations. Although neither
country recognises the other and both consider themselves the legitimate government of all
of Korea. The only place where the North and South Korean
leader meet is inside the DMZ in a place called the Joint Security Area. The JSA, including
the room they meet in, lie directly on the border, which isn't actually a border but
a MDL or an armistice line. In fact, the line even passes through the
very conference table they sit at. So the two leaders basically talk to each
other from different countries and don't cross the line. There's a door at each side of the
room which leads back to their own country. Today, North Korea and South Korea are pretty
much as different as two countries can be. They both speak Korean and have the word 'Korea'
in their name but that's pretty much where the similarities end.
South Korea has a free market capitalism economy, while North Korea is officially describes
itself is a "socialist republic"... but a more accurate description might be... a totalitarian
dictatorship. So if you're planning on going on holiday
to Korea... you're probably better off going to South Korea!