Abstract

Analogical Thinking in the US Response to the Outbreak of the Korean War, June 1950

Highlights

  • In most of the academic literature since the introduction of the security dilemma by John Herz in 1950-51, the concept has been dominated by neorealist scholars such as Robert Jervis, Ken Waltz, Charles Glaser and John Mearsheimer

  • This paper seeks to build on the critical constructivist approach to analysing the security dilemma, and argues that the language of policymakers is crucial in giving meaning to interaction between states

  • Despite casting the US involvement in the Korean War as a ‘law-and-order’ action to defend South Korea’s ‘freedom’, Truman did not acknowledge the Syngman Rhee Administration’s execution and torture of political prisoners even before the North invaded in June 1950, or the presence of large numbers of wartime Japanese collaborators in Rhee’s government.[63]

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Summary

Introduction

In most of the academic literature since the introduction of the security dilemma by John Herz in 1950-51, the concept has been dominated by neorealist scholars such as Robert Jervis, Ken Waltz, Charles Glaser and John Mearsheimer. Alexander Wendt underlined how the notion of paradoxical security competition between defensively-minded states is itself a sociallyconstructed antagonistic relationship. Critical constructivists, led by Karin Fierke, have underlined the role of language in giving meaning to such antagonistic relationships in international politics. This paper seeks to build on the critical constructivist approach to analysing the security dilemma, and argues that the language of policymakers is crucial in giving meaning to interaction between states. Seen in this light, the author contends that discourse analysis of statements by the Truman Administration is instructive in delineating the processes when Washington responded to the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. Numerous statements by Truman and his advisors, in invoking the legacy of 1930s appeasement of Nazi Germany, suggest that Washington LGHQWLÀHG1RUWK.RUHDDVSDUWRIDPRQROLWKLFFRPPXQLVWEORFWKDWKDGWREHGHWHUUHG lest the events of the 1930s be replayed within the context of the Cold War

The Security Dilemma
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