A 1950-53 peninsula war, still without a peace treaty, that fixed two Korean states and a US-ROK alliance.
Educational history. Casualty figures are documented ranges. This is not operational advice, a ranking of nations, or a how-to for weapons or coups.
The Korean War began before dawn on 25 June 1950 when the Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel, the 1945 US-Soviet occupation line that had already produced two states in 1948: the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee and the Democratic People's Republic under Kim Il-sung. The UN Security Council, with the Soviet seat empty, created a US-led United Nations Command.
The front raced the length of the peninsula: the Pusan Perimeter, the 15 September 1950 Inchon landing, the UN drive to the Yalu, and Chinese People's Volunteer intervention from October 1950. Seoul changed hands four times. An armistice signed at Panmunjom on 27 July 1953 created the DMZ near the 38th parallel -- and no peace treaty has followed.
Scholarly estimates put Korean civilian deaths in a band of about 2-3 million, with ROK military deaths around 137,000 and US military deaths about 36,000; Chinese military deaths are often given in a wide 180,000-400,000 range. For Koreans it is 6-25, not a "forgotten war." For US, British, Australian, Canadian and other UN veterans it became the war between 1945 and Vietnam -- under-taught, heavily memorialised only later.
Deep introduction
Korea in 1950-53 was at once a Korean civil war, a UN police action, and the first hot war of the Cold War, fought to a draw that still defines the peninsula.
Japanese colonial rule ended in August 1945. US troops occupied south of the 38th parallel, Soviet troops the north. Separate elections and the 1948 founding of the ROK and DPRK made partition political, not only military.
Border raids and the 1948-49 guerrilla war on Jeju and in the southern mountains were already killing Koreans before the conventional invasion of June 1950. Kim Il-sung obtained Stalin's and Mao's assent after months of lobbying.
ROK and the first US task forces were driven into a corner at Pusan by August. MacArthur's Inchon landing (Operation Chromite, 15 September) cut the KPA's supply and enabled the recapture of Seoul on 28 September.
UN forces then crossed the 38th parallel and drove toward the Yalu. Chinese intervention from mid-October, formalised as the People's Volunteer Army under Peng Dehuai, reversed the war again in the winter of 1950-51.
Ridgway restabilised the Eighth Army in early 1951. After Seoul's last recapture, the front settled near the parallel. Talks that began at Kaesong in July 1951 moved to Panmunjom and dragged for two years, hung up on POWs and the line of demarcation.
US air power destroyed northern cities and infrastructure; MiG Alley saw the first large jet-versus-jet war. Neither bombing nor ground offensives (Heartbreak Ridge, Pork Chop Hill) broke the political deadlock.
The 27 July 1953 agreement created the Military Demarcation Line, the DMZ, and the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. Syngman Rhee opposed the armistice; the ROK did not sign it, though it pledged cooperation.
A political conference at Geneva in 1954 failed to unify Korea. The US-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty (1953) and a continuous UN Command legal shell remain. Families divided by the front are a living archive.
25 June 1950 to the 27 July 1953 armistice: invasion, Inchon, Chinese entry, Panmunjom -- no peace treaty.
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02ROK, KPA, UN Command and Chinese People's Volunteers -- historical coalitions, not a live ORBAT.
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03Pusan, Inchon, the Yalu, and the ridge war of 1951-53 as historical sequence.
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04About 2-3 million Korean civilian deaths, scholarly range, and a destroyed peninsula.
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05Kim, Rhee, MacArthur, Ridgway, Peng, Paik and the Truman-MacArthur crisis.
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06DMZ, US-ROK alliance, divided families, and an unfinished legal war.
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076-25 in Korea, "forgotten war" in English, Busan UN cemetery and Seoul's War Memorial.
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