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Introduction
The Cold War was based on the premise that direct armed conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States would lead to a global nuclear war and, consequently, the end of civilization. Conflict between the two powers, therefore, was conducted by proxy: the United States would aid the Afghanis fighting the Soviets, but would not intervene directly; the Soviet Union would aid the North Vietnamese fighting the Americans, but would stay on the sidelines. Actual conflict between the two nations was infrequent, limited, and immediately controlled. But beginning in 1989, both governments admitted that they had actually fought against one another in the early years of the Cold War: the new Russian government made public the fact that the Soviet Air Force had flown combat missions against the United States Air Force during the Korean War, and the United States government admitted it was aware of the identity of its enemy at the time.
Soviet involvement in the Korean War had an important impact on the conduct of the air war and the relations between the two countries during the subsequent forty years. The fact of this involvement was deliberately kept secret by both governments for almost four decades-at first to prevent the war from escalating into a larger conflict; later simply because it was easier not to raise the issue. This paper will explore the nature of Soviet air operations in Korea by examining the decision to intervene, the conduct of the Soviet air operations, and the extent of the U.S. response.
The Soviet Decision to Intervene in the Korean War
From the end of World War II until the beginning of the Korean War, the Soviet armed forces had been intimately involved in the military and civil affairs of North Korea. The Soviet Union provided significant amounts of equipment and supplies-including a limited number of combat aircraft-to the North Korean military forces, and maintained a large cadre of advisers in country until 1948, with a smaller number remaining after that. Yet there is still much controversy about the extent of Soviet involvement in the decisions leading to the North Korean attack on South Korea on June 25, 1950. Some historians have concluded that Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader, personally ordered the...