To Realize Our Decolonization: South Korea’s Deployment of Troops to Vietnam

Abstract

In the 1960s, less than two decades after its liberation, South Korea was still struggling to establish its position in the postwar international order amid waves of decolonization and the Cold War. As a newly independent country, South Korea had one task it considered to be of utmost importance: gaining international recognition by demonstrating its sovereignty to the world. This article focuses on Korea's nation-building process in this context through the dispatch of its troops to Vietnam, a crucial component of completing its decolonization. The subsequent text assesses what factors influenced South Korea's deployment of troops to Vietnam and how this policy gained greater social acquiescence. Koreans perceived the postwar international order as little changed from the previous era of imperialism, when Korea’s sovereignty had been forcefully usurped by Japan. This colonial experience, I contend, conditioned South Korea’s decision to deploy troops to Vietnam; the South Korean government adopted a method familiar to them of showing off its military power to gain international recognition. This logic also explains why domestic actors generally viewed the troop dispatch as legitimate, including intellectuals and opposing politicians who agreed that their country should pursue international recognition using all possible methods, including force.