Origins Of The North Korean Garrison State

This book investigates the origins of the North Korean garrison state by examining the development of the Korean People’s Army and the legacies of the Korean War. Despite its significance, there are very few books on the Korean People’s Army with North Korean primary sources being difficult to access. This book, however, draws on North Korean documents and North Korean veterans’ testimonies, and demonstrates how the Korean People’s Army and the Korean War shaped North Korea into a closed, militarized and xenophobic garrison state and made North Korea seek Juche (Self Reliance) ideology and weapons of mass destruction. This book maintains that the youth and lower classes in North Korea considered the Korean People’s Army as a positive opportunity for upward social mobility. As a result, the North Korean regime secured its legitimacy by establishing a new class of social elites wherein they offered career advancements for persons who had little standing and few opportunities under the preceding Japanese dominated regime. These new elites from poor working and peasant families became the core supporters of the North Korean regime today. In addition, this book argues that, in the aftermath of the Korean War, a culture of victimization was established among North Koreans which allowed Kim Il Sung to use this culture of fear to build and maintain the garrison state. Thus, this work illustrates how the North Korean regime has garnered popular support for the continuation of a militarized state, despite the great hardships the people are suffering. This book will be of much interest to students of North Korea, the Korean War, Asian politics, Cold War Studies, military and strategic studies, and international history.

In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive

Korea was the first hot war of the Cold War. It was also Canada’s most significant military engagement of the twentieth century following the two world wars. Canada and the Korean War gathers leading scholars to explore the key themes and battles of a seminal yet understudied conflict. Canada had little stake and less interest in Korea before 1950, but the risk the conflict posed to the fragile postwar order was deemed too great for the country to stand on the sidelines. Alongside their allies, more than 30,000 Canadian service personnel fought a determined and skilled enemy. The armistice that ended the war left Korea devastated and divided, and it remains a dangerous hotspot today. This timely collection synthesizes Canadian and international perspectives on a conflict that shaped not only the Canadian armed forces but also the evolving Canada-Korea relationship. In the process, Canada and the Korean War sheds light on how the war has been framed and reframed in public memory.

This sweeping reference work covers every aspect of the Cold War, from its ignition in the ashes of World War II, through the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multivolume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material.

This book considers both Koreas - North Korea and South Korea - to examine possible pathways for the years leading up to 2032 and beyond, thus offering a composite picture of Korea and its strategic relevance in Asia and the world at large. Through a combined South-North Olympic team and an effort of jointly hosting the Games, Republic of Korea president Moon Jae-in has marked the year 2032 as special in the future of the Korean Peninsula. Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has expressed scepticism about a combined hosting of the Games, the expectation in Korea is that this event will underline the shared destiny of the people inhabiting the peninsula and realign two states still caught in an ideologically fraught civil conflict that is one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. Chapters begin with a brief historical review and analysis of the present, before moving to consider how these will shape the next decade, drawing comparative and complementary analyses. No matter how contrasting the contemporary trajectories of both North and South Korea might appear, ‘Korea’ as a singular entity is an old concept still containing great possibilities. As the ongoing inter-Korean reconciliation process underscores, the futures of North and South Korea can be found in a complementary singular Korea, which would again represent an important political, strategic, cultural, and social space in Asia. An evaluation of the future trajectory, social awareness and perception of the Koreas, this book offers a valuable contribution to the study of North and South Korea and Asian Politics.

Now in its third edition, The American Culture of War presents a sweeping critical examination of every major American war since 1941: World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the First and Second Persian Gulf Wars, U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the war against ISIS. As he carefully considers the cultural forces that surrounded each military engagement, Adrian Lewis offers an original and provocative look at the motives, people and governments used to wage war, the discord among military personnel, the flawed political policies that guided military strategy, and the civilian perceptions that characterized each conflict. This third edition features: A new structure focused more exclusively on the character and conduct of the wars themselves Updates to account for the latest, evolving scholarship on these conflicts An updated account of American military involvement in the Middle East, including the abrupt rise of ISIS The new edition of The American Culture of War remains a comprehensive and essential resource for any student of American wartime conduct.

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2022 "Marvelous.…Spector’s gripping book.…[helps] us to understand why the legacy of these conflicts is still with us today." —Sheila Miyoshi Jager, New York Times Book Review The end of World War II led to the United States’ emergence as a global superpower. For war-ravaged Western Europe it marked the beginning of decades of unprecedented cooperation and prosperity that one historian has labeled “the long peace.” Yet half a world away, in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, and Malaya—the fighting never really stopped, as these regions sought to completely sever the yoke of imperialism and colonialism with all-too-violent consequences. East and Southeast Asia quickly became the most turbulent regions of the globe. Within weeks of the famous surrender ceremony aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, civil war, communal clashes, and insurgency engulfed the continent, from Southeast Asia to the Soviet border. By early 1947, full-scale wars were raging in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, with growing guerrilla conflicts in Korea and Malaya. Within a decade after the Japanese surrender, almost all of the countries of South, East, and Southeast Asia that had formerly been conquests of the Japanese or colonies of the European powers experienced wars and upheavals that resulted in the deaths of at least 2.5 million combatants and millions of civilians. With A Continent Erupts, acclaimed military historian Ronald H. Spector draws on letters, diaries, and international archives to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive military history and analysis of these little-known but decisive events. Far from being simply offshoots of the Cold War, as they have often been portrayed, these shockingly violent conflicts forever changed the shape of Asia, and the world as we know it today.