Making Cold War soldiers: The Americanization of the South Korean Army, 1945--1955

During the first decade of the Cold War, a wide range of militaries in Asia and elsewhere in the third world experienced some sort of Americanization. They learned from and adapted to the U.S. military's training, equipment, and even culture. Training and arming some 120 local militaries, the U.S. government invested lots of money and personnel in hopes of developing effective anti-Communist military allies. As a case study of the U.S. foreign military policy in the early days of the Cold War, this dissertation focuses on the Americanization of the South Korean Army, which has become known as the most successful example of such an undertaking.;The Americanization of the South Korean Army was a dramatic process. When some sixteen American lieutenants organized a new army in South Korea in early 1946, they worked with only 5,000 soldiers, mostly equipped with old rifles and mortars. These American military advisors tried to make the new army into what they imagined would be "a small American Army," highly professionalized and well trained. Despite their painstaking efforts, the South Korean Army remained for several years just "another Japanese Army": the troops wore Japanese military uniforms; officers carried sabers; the army preferred street parades over field training; it used Japanese military manuals; and it even emphasized banzai attacks. However, by the end of the Korean War in 1953, South Korea had a 700,000-man army that was well-trained and effectively equipped with American-supported weapons. The old Japanese-style force had been transformed into a new "Americanized" military in its training, organization, and weaponry. The process of Americanization which transformed the South Korean Army in the early Cold War period is the main story of this dissertation. By placing their experiences within the framework of current scholarship on Americanization in the twentieth century, it suggests a new interpretative framework for examining the Cold War years in East Asia.