OMNI's War and Warming Anthologies: War Watch Wednesdays #10

WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS

KOREAN WAR

Cumings, Bruce. The Korean War: A History. Random House, 2010. This is the author’s one-volume condensation of his 2-vol. history, The Origins of the Korean War. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/35571/the-korean-war-by-bruce-cumings/ Cumings is chair of the history department at the U. of Chicago.

Publisher’s description

A BRACING ACCOUNT OF A WAR THAT IS EITHER MISUNDERSTOOD, FORGOTTEN, OR WILLFULLY IGNORED
For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953. But for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long struggle that still haunts contemporary events. With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Bruce Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its origin as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America’s post–World War II occupation of Korea, reveals untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, exposing as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides.
Elegantly written and blisteringly honest, The Korean War is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential.

ABOUT THE KOREAN WAR

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ABOUT THE KOREAN WAR

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Rev. Z Magazine (Sept. 2010): “the Korean War was among the most misguided, unjust, and murderous wars fought by the United States in its history, displaying many of the features of the Vietnam War that aroused mass public protest.” “the war began not in 1950, but during the period of U.S. military occupation of the South from 1945-1948, which was a product of America’s imperial ambitions in the Asia-Pacific.”

Tim Beal. “The Continuing Korean War in the Murderous History of Bombing.” mronline.org (January 5, 2021).

Publisher’s selection

The Korean War, which broke out on June 25, 1950, can be considered the epicenter of bombing as an instrument of war. For one, it was the first—and, so far, the last—time since 1945 that the United States seriously considered using atomic weapons during the course of an imperial war. It was the first war that the United States did not win. It ended in a stalemate—an armistice—that continues until today. Kinetic fighting was suspended, but the war continues (though only by one side) by what is conveniently but simplistically called sanctions. | more…

The article covers wide-ranging topics; for example, comparing the bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki with the bombing of Dresden. But its importance is its emphasis upon the unique US cruelty of the Korean War, which he describes as genocidal, “in terms of percentage of the population, the deadliest in history.” Beal cites Governing from the Skies: A Global History of Aerial Bombing by Thomas Hippler , History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist, I.F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War. Scholarship on the subject is extensive. See my Air War and N. Korea newsletters. –Dick

A.B. Abrams’ Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power (Clarity Press, 2020), shows that the common perceptions in the U.S. of North Korea are mostly wrong.

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A. B. Abrams. Immovable Object: North Korea's 70 Years At War with American Power. 1,099 pages

Publisher’s Description

North Korea and the United States have been officially at war for over 70 years, one of the longest lasting and most unbalanced conflicts in world history, in which a small East Asian state has held its own against a Western superpower for over three generations. With the Western world increasingly pivoting its attention towards Northeast Asia, and the region likely to play a more central role in the global economy, North Korea’s importance as a strategically located country, potential economic powerhouse and major opponent of Western regional hegemony will only grow over the coming decades. This work is the first fully comprehensive study of the ongoing war between the two parties, and covers the history of the conflict from the first American clashes with Korea’s nationalist movement in 1945 and imposition of its military rule over southern Korea to North Korea’s nuclear deterrence program and ongoing tensions with the U.S. today. The nature of the antagonism between the two states, one profoundly influenced by both decolonisation and wartime memory, and the other uncompromising in its attempts to globally impose its leadership and ideology, is covered in detail.

Northern Korea is one of very few inhabited parts of the world never to have been placed under Western rule, and its fiercely nationalist identity as a deeply Confucian civilization state has made it considerably more difficult to tackle than almost any other American adversary. This work elucidates the conflicting ideologies and the discordant designs for the Korean nation which have fueled the war, and explores emerging fields of conflict which have become increasingly central in recent years such as economic and information warfare. Prevailing trends in the conflict and its global implications, including the multiple wars that have been waged by proxy, are also examined in detail. An in-depth assessment of the past provides context key to understanding the future trajectories this relationship could take, and how a continuing shift in global order away from Western unipolarity is likely to influence its future.

"To understand where the Korean Peninsula might go in the rest of the 21st century, Abrams’ telling of the story of how the two countries got to where they are today is essential.” – ANKIT PANDA, senior editor, The Diplomat

"...even those who find his conclusions unpalatable will be forced to weigh them carefully.”– JOHN EVERARD, former British Ambassador to North Korea

MONTHLY DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The OMNI Center’s monthly protest to Stop the University of Arkansas Nuclear Weapons Program was yesterday, February 23rd, at 12:30 P.M. at the entrance to the U of A, at the intersection of M.L.K. Blvd & Razorback Rd (1417 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Fayetteville). Watch for next month’s. Contact Abel to enlarge the demonstration: signs, publicity, LTE, venues.

Once again, we are receiving great media coverage of our budding campaign from KNWA News, UATV, KPSQ radio (link unavailable), in-depth coverage in Covert Magazine, and now the in-depth interview on KUAF (NPR affiliate) radio is available. Also, my personal Letter to the Editor was published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Please write a letter too; the guidelines and submission form is here.