What is the difference between warfare and police action

The Korean War was difficult to fight and unpopular domestically. In late , the two sides bogged down on the 38th parallel, and the conflict seemed reminiscent of trench warfare in World War I. The American public tired of a war without victory, especially when negotiation stalled as well. Eisenhower, as the next President. Properly understood and situated in the context of subsequent Executive Branch legal positions, the Korean police action is a limited precedent, possibly neither as dangerous nor useful, as some may believe.

The author was an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State at the time of publication. Program at the International Crisis Group.

Department of State. Signups for A. In the activity Containment in Korea: Entering the Korean War , students analyze President Truman's press release of June 27, , announcing that he was committing American forces to a combined United Nations military effort in Korea at the beginning of the Korean War.

Students reflect on the language used in Truman's statement to the American people, compare it with Soviet views of events in Korea, and identify how Truman's words reflect the US policy of containment during the Cold War. Find other teaching activities related to the Cold War on DocsTeach. While the end of World War II brought peace and prosperity to most Americans, it also created a heightened state of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Fearing that the Soviet Union intended to "export" communism to other nations, America centered its foreign policy on the "containment" of communism, both at home and abroad. Although formulation of the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and the Berlin Airlift suggested that the United States had a particular concern with the spread of communism in Europe, America's policy of containment extended to Asia as well.

Indeed, Asia proved to be the site of the first major battle waged in the name of containment: the Korean War.

The United States quickly moved its own troops into southern Korea. Japanese troops surrendered to the Russians in the north and to the Americans in the south. The U. This line became more rigid after , however, when Kim Il Sung organized a communist government in the north —the Democratic People's Republic. Each government hoped to reunify the country under its own rule. On June 25, , North Korean troops coordinated an attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel and headed south toward Seoul.

The United Nations Security Council voted to adopt a resolution condemning the invasion as a "breach of the peace. President Harry S. Truman quickly committed American forces to a combined United Nations military effort and named Gen.

Douglas MacArthur Commander of the U. Fifteen other nations also sent troops under the U. Truman did not seek a formal declaration of war from Congress; officially, America's presence in Korea amounted to no more than a "police action. However, the entry of the United States into the conflict signaled a reversal of policy toward Korea. Although it backed the government of Syngman Rhee, the United States had begun withdrawing its troops from South Korea in