Why America Forgets—and China Remembers—the Korean War

Excerpt

Seventy years ago this week, the armistice that froze the Korean War was signed. During a year of savage battlefield maneuvering and two more of bitter stalemate, nearly 40,000 American troops gave their lives. Several thousand more allied troops also died, as did millions of Koreans, many of them heroically in combat against communist aggression, and even more as its civilian victims. The southern half of the Korean peninsula, now a thriving democracy, took decades to recover. The northern half never has, remaining impoverished, oppressed, and a source of instability.

The median age of surviving U.S. Korean War veterans is around 90. Recognition of their service has been unforgivably muted despite their valor in some of the most grueling combat American troops have ever faced. But the more general U.S. lack of interest in the war’s strategic lessons is also remarkable—and dangerous.

Representative Mike Gallagher is a Republican United States Representative from Wisconsin and Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former foreign-policy adviser and legislative director for Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.). FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.