Korea Research Paper

People have been living on the Korean peninsula since prehistoric times, slowly developing their own distinct culture and civilization. The Korean people were first united by the Silla Dynasty in 668 A.D and since then, Korea has had to contend with the expansionist ambitions of its neighbors. After World War II, Japan had lost control of Korea to its Allied Forces, causing Korea to be divided at the 38th parallel, which is the border between North and South Korea prior to the Korean War. “The foreign administration of North and South Korea was intended to be temporary, and plans had been laid for free elections in the two districts, but in 1948, Kim Il-sung, communist-aligned leader of the Korean People’s Army, convinced Soviet leaders not
Korea remained under Japanese control until 1945, until the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, ending their part in World War II and all of their imperial powers. This would cause the governing of Korea to be left to the Allied powers, the United States and Russia who had completely different thoughts and ideologies about how Korea should be run. In the eyes of the United States, they wanted to run Korea as a capitalist democracy, while the Soviet Union wanted to run it as a communist state. In order to simplify things, leaders from both Russia and the United States met to settle their feud. The two countries drew a line down the middle of the country, which is known as the 38th parallel, dividing it into two and agreeing that Russia would govern the North, and the United States would govern the South. Their inability to agree on one way to govern the country led to Korea being divided down the middle; the north becoming communist and the south becoming capitalist. At that exact moment, North Korea became a communist country, but it was not actually a communist country until the failed United Nations’ elections that a war was declared between North Korea and South Korea. The war between North and South Korea ended in 1953 and since then, North Korea has been left to govern according to its own
The Communist north took this as an offense, and decided that as retaliation they would invade South Korea and try to reunify the country as a single communist state. At this time, the Soviet Union and China were hand-in-hand in a lot of ways, so North Korea went into the war with the support the Soviet Union and China behind him, which made them feel protected under any circumstances. During their pursuit in the Korean War, the main goals of North Korea were to reunify the country under the Communist ideology and force the withdrawal of United States troops from the South. The people of North Korea wanted to spread the Soviet Union’s influence to as many people as possible, so that they were able to build an even bigger hierarchy from the ground up. Although, it seems as if it has been faded into history, the Korean War has never actually officially ended, but simply a ceasefire was agreed between the two nations in 1953 that would cause the disagreement to almost be put on hold for the time