INDOPACOM Battle Knowledge Centers

Common and destructive, limited wars are significant international events that pose a number of challenges to the states involved beyond simple victory or defeat. Chief among these challenges is the risk of escalation--be it in the scale, scope, cost, or duration of the conflict. In this book, Spencer D. Bakich investigates a crucial and heretofore ignored factor in determining the nature and direction of limited war: information institutions.

This encyclopedia covers all aspects of the conflict in Korea, principally 1945 to the late-1990s. A substantial number of the entries deal with the war itself, but full attention is also paid to developments since the ceasefire of July 1953. Subjects include the Korean Airlines bombing of 1987 when a South Korean airliner was destroyed over the sea near Burma, allegedly by a bomb planted by North Korean agents, and the incidents in September 1996 and June 1998 when a North Korean submarine was detected off the South Korean coast. Other entries include abductions, assassinations, the 'axe murders' of 1976, border incidents along the 38th parallel, defections, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), espionage, family reunions, food shortages, and the treatment of the conflict in literature and film.

Inch'on was probably the most significant campaign in the Korean theater, as well as being the last major amphibious assault of division-size conducted in the history of warfare. The odds were stacked against the US troops, with virtually no time for training and many of the divisions unprepared for the conflict. The success of the Inch'on campaign is a testament to the sheer initiative of the officers and NCOs conducted it. This book details the strategy and tactics that led to the operation's success, as well as narrating the experience of the battle in fascinating detail.

Drawing on archival and other primary sources in Russia, China, the United States, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, the author moves beyond national histories to provide the first comprehensive understanding of the Korean War as an international conflict from the perspective of all of the major actors.

Many combat veterans refuse to discuss their experiences on the line. With the passage of time and the unreliability of memory, it becomes difficult to understand the true nature of war. In "The Line: Combat in Korea, January--February 1951," retired Army colonel William T. Bowers uses firsthand, eyewitness accounts of the Korean War to offer readers an intimate look at the heroism and horror of the battlefront.

"The Secrets of Inchon" is a story of heroism and courage, only now come to light after fifty years: the true account of Navy Commander (then Lieutenant) Eugene Franklin Clark - a man, according to his colleagues, with "the nerves of a burglar and the flair of a Barbary Coast pirate" - and the daring covert mission that helped change the course of the Korean War.