Acheson Defense Perimeter Speech Essay

The Acheson Defense Perimeter Speech was one of the most important factor contributing to the Korean War in 1950-1953. However, there are also other important factors such as Kim’s aggressive move to invade the South and US’s policy of containment. In January 1950, the US secretary of state, Dean Acheson, did not include South Korea in his list of countries that the USA would automatically defend against any communist aggression in his Defence Perimeter speech. Truman supported him in believing this mainland Asia was outside the USA’s Pacific defensive perimeter. It had been argued that since Korea was not mentioned as within the defence perimeter, it convinced the communists that the US was not ‘interested’ in defending South Korea. Hence, …show more content…
The withdrawal of the last American forces from Korea, as well as North Korean Kim's conviction that the US would not intervene, convinced the North Koreans to attempt to unify the country by force. The Soviets, led by Stalin, and the Chinese, led by Mao, concurred with both Kim's judgement about the United States and his plans to unify the country by force. In June, he struck, without much hesitation. Without this Defence Perimeter Speech, Stalin would not have approved Kim’s decision to attack South Korea and the conflict might not have escalated into a …show more content…
Historical documents seem to imply that Kim was the driving force behind the North’s decision to invade the South. Though Stalin and Mao were aware of Kim’s plan, they did nothing to discourage him. In fact, Soviet military experts helped draw up the plans and sent advisers as well as equipment to Kim. However, Stalin made it clear that if US got involved, the USSR would not intervene directly to help Kim. China had its own problems with her new communist rule, in addition to Taiwan, thus, Mao made no firm guarantees of military