The United States Constitution: the Vietnam and Korean Wars
Under the United States Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, raise and appropriate the necessary funding.
“Article I, Section 8 states that, “The Congress shall have the power…To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; “To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; “To provide and maintain a navy; “To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; “To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions” https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/war-and-constitutional-separation-of-powers
The President’s powers are to serve as Commander in Chief to execute Congress’ decisions.
Article II, Section 2 states that, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”
Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 70 about the importance of an energetic executive when it came to protecting the liberty and safety of the people: “Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws… to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy” (Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 70, 1788).
The Vietnam War
When we were in college, the US chose to intervene in the middle of a civil war in Vietnam. Our leaders lied to the American people that the North Vietnamese had attacked US naval vessels; the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was speedily passed by Congress to authorize US intervention. Congress did not declare war, but it did fund the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution The war did not go well in the US where a massive peace movement opposed the war or for the South Vietnamese government that collapsed and fled when the US withdrew its troops. The killings and destruction throughout Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were enormous; an estimated 1-3 million Vietnamese died. In its aftermath, Vietnam was united under Communist rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War After the war, the US ended military conscription of the nation’s youth, transitioned to a professional army, and extended the right to vote to citizens between the ages of 18-21.
The background to the US involvement in the civil war in Vietnam was the Cold War between the US and Russia in the aftermath of World War ll. Russia invaded and took over Eastern and a good part of Central Europe during and after the war. In China, the Chinese Communists had defeated the Chinese Nationalists (now in Taiwan). Bordering China and Russia, North Korea had attacked and tried to take over South Korea, and the two Koreas, US, the UN, Russia and China fought to a stalemate there for three years. France was beaten and ousted from its colonial empire in Southeast Asia including Vietnam, and the British were evicted from Malaysia. Closer to home, Castro’s Cuban Revolution gave the Soviet Union an ally in the Western Hemisphere not far from the shores of Florida.
The US was gripped by anti-Communist fever which peaked with the delusional conspiracy theories of Senator Joe McCarthy and the red scare hearings of HUAC (the House Unamerican Affairs Committee). The legacy of this particular Red Scare period persists to the present day.
Vietnam, now a unified Communist nation, thrives economically and collaborates with the US as a strong trading partner. The US and Vietnam share common concerns about Chinese military expansionism in the South China Sea.
The Korean War
We often forget about the Korean War, proportionately it was more deadly than either World War ll or Vietnam, and it left both halves of Korea in total ruins. I was in kindergarten and elementary school during that time and have no recollection of the war.
Korea was taken over by Japan in the early 20th Century and was a colony of Japan until after the Second World War. After the war ended, the US and Russia divided the administration of Korea at the 38th parallel, much as Germany had been divided.
The leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, decided to reunite the two halves by invading South Korea. He was given the green light and armed, equipped and advised by Mao in China and Stalin in Russia; they all believed the US would not intervene. North Korea was less populous than the South, but militarily much the stronger state and more industrialized as well. They miscalculated and misjudged the US response, and the US troops arrived under the auspices of the UN. Russia had been boycotting the UN Security Council at the time and thus had no veto.
Initially, the South Korea army was badly beaten by the North and confined to a tiny fraction (10%) of the territory. With the arrival of many more US forces, the combined UN and South Korean forces pushed the North Koreans back and occupied about 90% of Korea. China warned the US and UN that it would intervene if they went past the 38th Parallel. The US under General MacArthur did so and went very close to the Yalu River, the boundary between Korea and China. It overstepped and miscalculated, and China, fearing with reason that MacArthur intended to invade China, entered the war. They drove the Americans and South Koreans back and tried without success and at the loss of many lives from their armed forces to “liberate” the entire Korean peninsula. After three years of war, the entire country was destroyed on both sides, and an armistice was reached. The nation was still divided at the 38th Parallel, and no peace treaty was ever negotiated.
The Korean nation remains divided. South Korea has thrived economically; it has become a highly developed economy, an industrial powerhouse, a strong democracy, and has been a staunch ally of the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea North Korea by contrast has become a massive military power with a weak economy and bouts of starvation of its people. The North Korean armed forces, or the Korean People's Army (KPA), is estimated to comprise 1,280,000 active and 6,300,000 reserve and paramilitary troops, making it one of the largest military institutions in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea#Military Until the mid 70’s North Korea’s economy thrived and living conditions improved dramatically. Since then, its economy has stagnated and declined. “In 2012, (North Korea’s Gross national income per capita was $1,523, compared to $28,430 in South Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea North Korea has been strongly allied with China and Russia from 1948 to the present, but pursues its own independent nuclear arms capability. It has adhered closely to Stalinism, national self-sufficiency, and central economic planning, putting it at odds with the economic market reforms and participation in global that lifted up the Chinese economy so dramatically.