Impact of the Korean War on the United States

The Impact of Korean War on the United States
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The Impact of Korean War on the United States
The Korean War was caused by the attack of South Korea by North Korean troops. As a result, there was high tension between United States and Russia, which made these two super powers take opposing sides because the United States was a capitalist while Russia was a communist state. The United States joined the war to promote its capitalist ideas in Asian countries with communist ideologies. The USA wanted to protect some territories that could act as a basis of communist spread (Ohanian, 2001). The other reason of supporting South Korea, the U. S was fighting communism by attacking USSR indirectly. In its move, the United States and other UN countries passed a Security Council resolution to have a military intervention in the Korean War. USSR boycotted this meeting, which gave the way for America to make the vital decision. America provided over 80 percent of the international soldiers that fought alongside South Korea forces.
The war had a great impact on the economy of United States; it changed the way the American economy was growing due to the financing of the war. Although it boosted the GDP growth through government spending, the number of investments and consumption rates declined. In order to finance the war, taxes were raised followed by an anti-inflationary policy (Ohanian, 2001). The House of Representatives raised personal income taxes, corporate income taxes and exercise taxes (Ohanian, 2001). The capital taxation also rose to an extreme level ever recorded in history of United States. The KoreanWar expenditure reached 67 billion dollars, which was American cost.
The War consisted of United Nations troops and the Southern Korean soldiers against North Korean troops. According to statistics, the United States provided 88 percent of the troops under the United Nations cover (Ohanian, 2001). This meant that they were the most affected in terms of casualties. It had provided over 5 million service men in the battle. Over 33000 were recorded to have died in battlefield, over two thousand deaths in theatre and over 17000 died in the course of service. Others suffered terrible wounds in the battlefield and later lost their lives or became permanently disabled. This led to great suffering on the members of the families whose relatives suffered in the battlefield.
The war also had an impact on American politics. The United States held an election in 1952 and the War was the subject of most campaign promises. Presidential candidate Eisenhower promised Americans that he would end the war, which had become unpopular among most Americans. Former President Truman had failed and his political popularity sank down during this period. This was attributed to the failure to end the war (Ohanian, 2001). His political influence sunk even deeper when he fired General Douglas MacArthur who was the commander in the war after he declined to agree to attack China.
Another effect of the war was on the military power of United S...