Content area
Full Text
Rethinking the Korean War. By William Stueck. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. 285 pages. $22.95. Reviewed by Colonel Donald W. Boose, Jr., USA Ret., who served with the Military Armistice Commission in Korea; as Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and Policy, US Forces, Japan; and as the US Army War College Director of Asian Studies. He currently teaches in the USAWC Department of Distance Education. William Stueck, a highly respected diplomatic historian, previously published two important books on the Korean War. The Road to Confrontation (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1981) provided a thorough description and analysis of US policy toward China and Korea in the years leading up to the Korean War. The Korean War: An International History (Princeton Univ. Press, 1995) focused on the role of the major powers outside of Korea concerning the origins, conduct, and termination of the war. Both books are essential reading for anyone trying to understand the strategic and political aspects of the war. In Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History, Stueck addresses some of those aspects, taking into consideration evidence that has come to light since his last book.
In the first section of the book, Stueck examines the post-World War II division of Korea and the policies of the United States and the Soviet Union that, in conjunction with the internal social, political, and economic dynamics of...