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Institution Building The Military 3 Before 1945 few Koreans would have predicted that the political leaders who proved most successful at guiding South Korea’s emergence as a modern, industrialized nation would come from the the military. The prestige of the military had declined throughout the nineteenth century, and no national armed forces had existed on the peninsula during the three and a half decades of Japanese colonialism. So how did South Korean military elites acquire the power, competence, and will to steer the country through a brutally swift process of industrialization? America’s need for a powerful indigenous army to serve as a partner during the Korean War and as an ally once the war ended played the most important role in enabling them to do so. Between 1946 and 1960 the United States transformed the military of the Republic of Korea (rok) from a small, disorganized constabulary into the most dominant institution in South Korean society. Americans planned for this force to defend, not govern, the country, but the vast resources they invested in building it and training its officers made military rule a distinct possibility. The South Korean army became a political force not only because it possessed a near-monopoly over the means of coercion, but also because U.S. training programs imbued its elite officers with outlooks and levels of expertise that set them apart from the rest of society. The task of creating an efficient fighting force for the Cold War era meant instructing officers in how to carry out complex technical and logistical operations, skills that South Korea sorely lacked during these years. Moreover, U.S. training programs rigorously indoctrinated military officers with a sense of duty and patriotism. American training programs helped forge elite officers with a strong sense of public responsibility and ardent faith in their ability to lead. At the same time, these officers were far less enthusiastic in their embrace of American ideals than their counterparts in civilian society. They tended to admire the U.S. military for its efficiency and power but did not necessarily profess a similar admiration for the United States and its political institutions . Many of the new South Korean officers had served in the Japanese army during World War II, and that experience continued to color their outlook. The practices and culture of the rok military often nourished very [72] The Military undemocratic ways of thinking. Ultimately, South Korean officers came to share Americans’ commitment to building their nation’s strength and prosperity . But many wanted to attain these objectives in a way that would maximize the autonomy of both the military and the country and minimize U.S. influence. The Origins of the rok Army and Its First Officers Although Korea had amassed a long and venerable military tradition over the course of the prior two millennia, the status of the army as an institution had declined dramatically by the late nineteenth century. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Korean army had ruled over the entire peninsula before being overthrown by invading Mongols. But the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910) was heavily influenced by the teachings of the Ch’engChu school of Confucianism, which held the military in disdain and called for rule by scholar elites. For much of the Chosŏn period, the military declined in size and strength and was subjected to reorganizations that weakened its institutional cohesion. Efforts to modernize and rebuild the army during the nineteenth century failed to protect Korea’s sovereignty against the predatory interests of foreign powers.∞ Although there were no national armed forces in the Japanese colonial period, many Koreans first experienced service in a modern military during these years either by enlisting or being conscripted into Japan’s imperial army. As Japan’s need for troops surged during World War II, the empire forced thousands of Koreans into service. By 1945 approximately fifty thousand Koreans had served in the Japanese military and several hundred had become officers. A handful of Koreans who were able to attend the Japanese Military Academy or other elite officer training schools would eventually play a vital role in the formation and development of the rok army. Americans wanted to build an indigenous military organization from the time they first occupied southern Korea. General John Reed Hodge, the commander of U.S. occupation forces, explained that he was ‘‘very interested in establishing a Korean...

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