Forgotten brigade of the forgotten war: Turkey's participation in the Korean War

Abstract

The Korean War has been called America's forgotten war, a vaguely remembered and unpopular police action that took place between the glorious victories of the Second World War and the ignominious defeat of Viet Nam. But if the Korean War occupies only a small place in the popular memory, the role played by Turkey in the war has been almost entirely forgotten. In the United States, few who did not fight in Korea seem to remember the Turks were there at all. This really becomes apparent if you happen to be up at three in the morning watching M*A *S*H reruns hoping to go to sleep. Turkish soldiers rarely figure in the scripts of M*A *S*H, and when they do, their image is ambiguous. It is not entirely clear whose side they are on. Turkey's involvement in the Korean War is not seen by Turks as being a major event in their recent history. A few blocks from the Ankara train station there is a monument to those who died in the Korean War. The monument is unobtrusive, a fact of life, but not a major feature of the landscape. Yet Turkey's participation in the Korean War was a crucial point in recent Turkish history. Indeed, the decision to participate in the Korean War was an important aspect of a re-evaluation of Turkey's place in international politics and economics that emerged at the end of the Second World War. It came along with reconsideration of the meaning of westernization, democracy, civil-military relations, secularization and the role of Islam in society, the role of the state in the economy and state interference in social and cultural affairs. Participation in the war ended nearly 30 years of a policy of non-involvement in international conflicts, while this period laid the foundation of debates within Turkey, not only on domestic but also on foreign affairs, that continue even in the 1990s. This article concentrates on Turkey's participation in the Korean War in terms of three questions: 1. Why did Turkey participate in the Korean War, especially after