An End to Indifference

The long tradition of American indifference to Korea was destroyed by World War II. Until then, American disinterest was completely justified. The United States possessed no vital security interests in that peninsula and had no reason to have a policy regarding that nation. Korean affairs were the exclusive concern of closer and more powerful neighbors—China, Russia, and Japan. Korea was, in fact, the strategic focal point of northeast Asia and, as a result, the Korean people were the long-suffering victims of great power rivalry throughout most of their history.1 In the aftermath of World War II, Korean affairs again centered around the struggle for influence among external powers. The only difference was that in 1945 the United States emerged as a principal contestant in the competition to determine Korea's destiny. Pearl Harbor forced the United States to alter its Asian policy and formulate a course of action that would promote peace and security in the Pacific after the defeat of Japan. The success of America's postwar policy in Asia would require, in part, the emergence of a stable government in Korea capable of self-defense and worthy of international diplomatic support. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers clearly recognized that, in the absence of positive action to achieve such a result, renewed competition for influence and control in Korea would take place. Quite obviously, Korea's future depended upon the ability of the Allies to cooperate in the negotiation of an agreement that would protect the interests of all nations directly involved in the peninsula. As a result, the Roosevelt administration came to advocate an international trusteeship for Korea in an effort to eliminate this strategic area as a potential source of tension and conflict in the postwar world

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