Our Foreign Policy Divide Began with the Korean War

More than 75 years after the Korean War, its lessons endure—and divisions over isolationism and American power continue to shape the discourse around modern global conflicts. Dane J. Cash, historian and author of The Forgotten Debate: The Korean War and the Roots of America's Ideological Divisions, joins School of War to explain how the left’s hawk-dove divide during the Korean War foreshadowed the neoconservative break from the liberal consensus during the 1970s and why the political battles of the early Cold War continue to splinter America today.

2:10 America Before the Korean War

3:08 The Debate Over Containment

4:15 Multilateralism vs. Unilateralism

5:29 Did Acheson Invite the War?

8:23 Why North Korea Attacked

8:55 Conservative Criticism of Truman

11:10 Liberal Divisions Over Korea

13:30 The Roots of Neoconservatism

17:14 Truman’s Lonely Middle Ground

19:51 The Right’s Foreign Policy Split

22:05 Taft, Eisenhower, and the GOP

22:58 MacArthur’s Moment

25:31 China Enters the War

30:37 Herbert Hoover’s Foreign Policy Revolt

33:51 Stalemate, POWs, and Ukraine Parallels

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