Despite American success in preventing the conquest of South Korea by communist North Korea, the Korean War of 1950-1953 did not satisfy Americans who expected the kind of total victory they had experienced in WW II. In Korea, the U.S. limited itself to conventional weapons. Even after communist China entered the war, Americans put China off-limits to conventional bombing as well as nuclear bombing. Operating within these limits, the U.S. Air Force helped to repel 2 invasions of South Korea while securing control of the skies so decisively that other U.N. forces could fight without fear of air attack.

The book analyses the strategic rationale of the American security commitment to South Korea in the light of the palpable failure of containment strategy in Indo-China. During the 1970s the dilemma confronting successive American administrations was that, whilst wishing to maintain their old commitment to South Korea, they had no desire to preside over another Vietnam. Military commitment and political support were necessarily disengaged, and the Nixon doctrine served as both the end and the means of containment strategy in Asia. The study identifies the principal conditions that have influenced changing American perspectives on South Korea, and examines some of the general problems of collective security in the region. Unique in the direct engagement of China, the Soviet Union and the United States, the security position of South Korea bears directly upon the achievement of peace and stability throughout East Asia.

Any discussion of the security of Korea has implications for U.S.-Japan relations, but the Carter administration's announcement in 1977 of its intention to withdraw U.S. ground-combat forces from Korea by 1982, which brought to the surface deep-rooted Japanese and American frustrations with one another, made it clear that neither side fully understood the other's view of Korea. This book, a collaborative effort by specialists of diverse expertise and viewpoints, clarifies U.S. and Japanese perceptions of the Korean problem and explores alternative approaches to the maintenance of peace and security on the Korean peninsula. Demonstrating that much of the conventional wisdom about Korean security rests on oversimplifications, exaggerated fears, and mistaken assumptions, the authors assert that the prospects for avoiding conflict grow brighter despite existing pitfalls, and offer recommendations for the U.S. and Japanese governments.

North Korea has traditionally been seen as militarily superior to South Korea in the long feud between the two nations. This brilliantly argued book taps into a great deal of news interest in North Korea at the moment in the wake of recent hostility against Japan. Hamm controversially shows that the received idea of Koreas military strength is partly a myth created by South Korea to justify a huge programme of rearmament.