When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Episode 15: Ignorance Is Bliss examines the behaviour of the US towards its South Korean ally. Since the American strategy was now to lure North Korea into attacking, we'll see in this episode exactly how determined the Truman administration was to chronically underfund and jeopardise the security of Seoul. Ignoring the protests, concerns and urgency professed even by some of its own State Department staff, the US behaved as though it had no concept of what was happening in South Korea in spring 1950, and that it did not know that the Soviets were now actively supporting the North as it prepared to invade.If the North planned to invade, Washington planned to make South Korea as juicy a target as possible for its neighbours. Only in this way would the conflict necessary for the realisation of NSC68 be achieved. So Syngman Rhee was faced with complaints from Washington that inflation in his country was rife, and that he would have to sort this out before sufficient military aid would be provided. Where Rhee pro