The Korean War was another conflict which was part of the Cold War, and which – although very different in nature from the Berlin Blockade – was still ‘war without war’. In the Korean War, Russia and America fought through other people – ‘at arms length’ – and thus avoided direct armed conflict.
Communism was growing in the far east, as well as in Europe, and after the Second World War both Korea and Vietnam were divided between Communists and non-Communists. The peacemakers solved both problems by simply drawing a line across both countries, giving the northern area to the Communists, and the southern part to the non-Communists. Korean was thus split at the 38th parallel.
In 1949, Kim Il Sung – the leader of north Korea, approached Stalin and Mao Zedong (the leader of China, which had turned Communist in 1949), and persuaded them to allow him to attack South Korea. When Syngman Rhee (the leader of South Korea) boasted that he would attack North Korea, the North Koreans attacked (25 June 1950). They easily defeated the South Korean army and by September 1950 had conquered all South Korea apart from a small area around Pusan in the south.