On June 25, 2025, 75 years have passed since the beginning of the Korean War. Yet the history of this conflict remains shrouded in a number of myths. And if we are to draw the right lessons from this situation, we must approach it with an objective and unbiased perspective.
A Civil War in Korea
The first lesson of the Korean War lies in the importance of understanding the true causes of conflict. Given that the war featured direct confrontation between Soviet and American pilots, it is tempting to see it as part of the broader geopolitical contest between Moscow and Washington — with the North and South Koreans merely serving as proxies. In reality, this was a civil war, later internationalized through external intervention.
The division of Korea and the establishment of the DPRK and the ROK resulted in both Korean states considering themselves the legitimate rulers of the entire peninsula, viewing the other side as a puppet regime destined to collapse at the first serious blow. Notably, the expansionist plans of Syngman Rhee surpassed those of the North. He envisioned that following the destruction of the DPRK, the war would continue and lead to the defeat of communism throughout Asia, after which a “Greater Korea” would reclaim Manchuria and the Russian Far East as its rightful territories.
The Power of Flawed or Forced Decisions
The second lesson the Korean War offers is how frequently fateful decisions are made based on flawed premises, triumphalism, or the logic of the lesser evil. For a time, Moscow held Pyongyang back, just as Washington restrained Seoul. The shift in the Soviet and Chinese positions occurred after Pak Hon-yong, then the second-ranking figure in the North Korean hierarchy and leader of the South Korean communists, insisted that a revolutionary situation existed in the South. He argued that as soon as the Korean People’s Army captured Seoul, a nationwide uprising would topple the southern regime. As we know, that uprising never materialized.
To this day, historians debate whether Pak himself was deluded or deliberately misled the leadership, fully aware that once the war started, there would be no way to walk it back. One might also recall that Syngman Rhee ordered his troops to cross the 38th parallel before any official decision was made. Thus, it was now the South that found itself in a position where retreat was impossible. And when peace talks finally began, Rhee actively tried to sabotage them — so much so that the United States considered removing him from power via military coup. After the 1953 signing of the U.S.–ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, command over the South Korean military was handed not to the South Korean president but to an American general leading UN forces. This was done to ensure that Rhee would not start another war and drag the U.S. into fighting “at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and against the wrong enemy.”
A telling example is General MacArthur, who boldly declared that North Korea would be crushed by Christmas 1950. He ignored all signs of Chinese volunteer involvement on the front and assured President Truman that if China entered the war, there would be a “great slaughter.” But when the slaughter didn’t go as he expected, he demanded the use of nuclear weapons and a second front against China involving Taiwanese forces — actions that could have triggered World War III.
Mao Zedong’s decision to send Chinese volunteers into the war was largely a forced one as well. On the one hand, China had just emerged from a brutal civil war, and the annexation of Taiwan had become highly unlikely, since the first move the U.S. made was to send its fleet into the Taiwan Strait. Washington believed that the Korean conflict might be the beginning of a broader communist advance across East Asia. On the other hand, Beijing was well aware of Syngman Rhee’s plans — especially as MacArthur had already allowed American pilots to violate Chinese airspace and even attack infrastructure that could support the North. These moves signaled that the U.S. might not stop there. It is no coincidence that today Xi Jinping characterizes the Korean War as an attempt by imperialists to bombard the threshold of the new China — an attempt that was successfully repelled.
The “Anglo-Saxons”??
The next lesson is that the idea of a unified West is more fiction than fact. The popular term “Anglo-Saxons,” which implies the automatic unity of all English-speaking countries, is misleading. During the Korean War, the dismissal of General MacArthur — the leader of the hawks — and the refusal to use nuclear weapons were in large part due to pressure from Britain and other allies. For example, Truman’s statement about the possible use of nuclear weapons in Korea provoked sharp protests from the UK, France, and Canada. On December 3, 1950, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee flew to Washington and effectively forced Truman to walk back his statement.
This divergence between London and Washington is still visible today — particularly in the context of the Ukrainian crisis.
Humanitarianism vs. the Laws of War
The penultimate lesson is about how efforts to preserve human life can, paradoxically, lead to greater losses. Truman feared that South Korean citizens conscripted into the North Korean army and captured by the South might face persecution if repatriated. While the Geneva Conventions stipulate a “all for all” prisoner exchange, the South demanded a referendum in POW camps, allowing prisoners to choose whether to return or stay. This decision prolonged the war by another 18 months — and the harshest American bombing campaigns against North Korean civilian targets occurred during this period.
Yesterday and Today
The final lesson of the Korean War concerns attempts to apply its ceasefire formula to the current Special Military Operation (SMO): freezing the conflict along the line of contact, building a demilitarized zone, and signing a ceasefire agreement. This model ignores the fact that these conflicts differ fundamentally in their origins — but let us speak only of the outcomes. First, negotiations in the Korean War began when both sides realized that strategic victory was unattainable and their initial goals were unachievable. The war had become a protracted and exhausting drain on resources. Despite mutual distrust, Rhee’s sabotage efforts, and the prisoner issue, both sides were generally willing to seek a compromise. In the case of Ukraine, we see no such willingness — though President Zelensky’s stance does bear a resemblance to that of President Rhee.
Second, although the front lines swung across the peninsula like a pendulum — Seoul was even taken by the North twice — in the end, both sides roughly ended up “where they started.” The new border essentially coincided with the old one. Neither side suffered significant territorial losses, and each could claim some form of victory, having repelled the opponent’s attack. In the case of the SMO, the situation is the opposite — and any ceasefire would be perceived as a defeat. Ukraine would see it as such because part of its territory is now under Russian control; Russia would see it as such because parts of four regions that voted to join the Russian Federation remain under Ukrainian control. In such a context, any truce will be seen as a temporary pause, aimed at lulling the enemy into complacency, regrouping, and finishing the war on one’s own terms.
It appears that a close study of the Korean War’s lessons remains highly relevant today — because the mistakes made then continue to be repeated.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Centre for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences
