by Prof. Kathryn Weathersby

As soon as the UN took over the Korea issue in January 1948, the US began to draw up plans for withdrawing its occupation forces from the peninsula. The urgency was driven by the American public’s demand that soldiers be returned home from World War II theaters, as well as by Congress’ unwillingness to continue funding the huge military it had created to fight the war. At the same time, however, World War II left the United States with new responsibilities that it could not easily ignore. Because of these, the subcommittee on the Far East of the State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee reported to SANACC in January 1948 that the US could not withdraw its forces from Korea before elections were held because this would jeopardize law and order and cause the UN to doubt America’s good faith.

In other words, since Washington had insisted that the UN intervene to ensure fair elections in southern Korea, the US had to ensure that the new state created there could protect itself from the Soviet-backed North, which refused to participate in the elections. Therefore, the subcommittee recommended that the US create a strong constabulary army in southern Korea and carry out a plan for developing its economy.

Even though they agreed on the above recommendations, the State Department and the War Department argued heatedly over Korea policy. The Chief for Far Eastern Affairs at State, W. Walton Butterworth, emphasized that the US had a moral commitment to Korea and had to avoid any suggestion that it was trying to “scuttle and run.” The State Department worried about setting a firm date for withdrawal of military forces because it believed the US should remain flexible in order to guarantee South Korean security.

On the other hand, the Undersecretary of the Army, William H. Draper, emphasized that the US could not occupy South Korea forever. In February 1948 the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that the US could not block a Soviet attack on Europe, its first area of responsibility, unless Congress approved another $9 billion. President Truman refused the request on the grounds that the US could not resist Soviet expansion everywhere and still maintain its economic strength. Consequently, because of the limitations on the defense budget, the US would have to withdraw from areas not vital to American national security. Since the Joint Chiefs reported that the troops in Korea were badly needed elsewhere, the president authorized preparations to withdraw them before the end of 1948.

On March 25 President Truman received NSC-8, a policy statement on Korea by the recently created National Security Council. NSC-8 noted that the American zone in Korea was economically weak and threatened by a Soviet-sponsored rival in the North. If the US abandoned South Korea to Communist domination this would intensify the Soviet threat to Japan and China. Therefore, NSC-8 recommended that the US provide $185 million in economic aid to South Korea for fiscal 1949. Also, since the South was clearly threatened by internal subversion but not, the Americans thought, by invasion, the US would create a small constabulary army capable of self-defense “against any but an overt act of aggression by north Korea or other forces.” NSC-8 anticipated that occupation forces would be withdrawn by the end of 1948 and warned that the US should “not become so irrevocably involved in the Korean situation that any action taken by any faction in Korea or by any other power in Korea could be considered a casus belli for the US.”

President Truman approved NSC-8 on April 2, hoping these actions would provide a middle path for carrying out American obligations in Korea. The US would avoid international condemnation by keeping its troops in Korea through the early months of the new government, creating a constabulary army, and supporting the new state economically. At the same time, since it believed the Soviet Union would use infiltration and subversion against South Korea rather than armed invasion, and the US had more pressing commitments elsewhere, Washington would not guarantee Korea’s security against open military aggression.

In the next post, we will examine the implementation of this policy, looking at the economic challenges in the South and the creation of its constabulary army.

[Sources: This post relies on James I. Matray, The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 1941-1950 (University of Hawaii Press, 1985), and Allan R. Millett, The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning (University of Kansas Press, 2005).]

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