For its part the South did not have its confidence in the American commitment tested until the changes wrought by the Sino – American rapprochement and its own economic revival.
That left both North and South to focus on domestic reconstruction amid the costs of sustaining a high degree of military preparedness.
Although both were dictatorships, the communist North was tighter and more pervasive in its control of society and the economy as its leader, Kim ll-Sung, consolidated its grip.
The South Korea dictator, Syngman Rhee, by contrast, had to allow for parliamentary politics.
His attempts to subvert them eventually brought him down after student disturbances in 1960.
A brief period of rule by a democratically elected government that was badly divided and ineffective was ended by a military coup a year later that brought Park Chung Hee to power for another eighteen years.