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"Lost in the Cold War: The Story of Jack Downey, America's Longest-Held POW" is a memoir written by John T. Downey, Thomas J. Christensen, and Jack Lee Downey. The book tells the incredible story of John T. Downey's captivity as the longest-serving U.S. prisoner of war and his colleague Richard Fecteau. It explores their unique experience and the interest it sparked in the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, in 1998. The memoirs provide a testimony of Downey's terrible experience and offer insights into the historical and political origins of Sino-U.S. relations. The book is a blend of personal memoir, history, diplomacy, intelligence, and psychology, making it a valuable resource for those interested in intelligence and history. [Extracted from the article]

The story of Lieutenant Leon Gilbert—a Black United States Army officer court-martialed during the Korean War—challenged the United States' self-declared postwar mission to free oppressed peoples across the world, while continuing to subjugate African Americans at home. Although many critics judged Gilbert's refusal to return to battle as an act of cowardice, others viewed him as a victim, and even a hero. The Gilbert case revealed that although African Americans were ostensibly making progress in the newly desegregated United States military, the fight for racial justice continued to be impeded by white Americans' perceptions of Black inadequacy. Amidst a war purportedly being fought for principles of democracy and freedom, Gilbert's court martial highlighted the connection between American racism and United States foreign policy, as Black military personnel became scapegoats for their nation's military failures. The prosecution and persecution of Gilbert thus exposed the tension between American rhetoric and American racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the operation of the Myeongjin School, it not only employed many leading Buddhist progressives, but graduated key Buddhist reformers. Overcoming conservative opposition within the Korean Buddhist community, during its brief operation the Myeongjin School would open dozens of branches at temples throughout Korea, prompting a proliferating modern education throughout its Buddhist community. Over the century, the institute founded as the Myeongjin School suffered repeated closures during Korea's Japanese Annexation only to emerge from the Korean War as Dongguk University Seoul. As Korea's oldest and largest Buddhist university, Dongguk has produced over 350,000 graduates and, despite transitioning to a more secular approach to education, it remains a leading center for monastic education, Buddhist studies, and intellectual culture. This article examines, in detail, the origins, founding, and operation of the Myeongjin School within the dynamic political and religious context of Korea's early modern period, in addition to the school's impact, subsequent history, and legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a historical perspective, presidents have frequently directed the use of military force without explicit permission from Congress. Yet, presidents still court legislative approval on select occasions. Why do presidents sometimes seek congressional authorization and other times do not? I explain authorization‐seeking behavior according to variations in presidential bargaining strength. I argue that both weak and strong presidents prefer authorization‐seeking; by obtaining congressional backing, weak presidents conceal a lack of national resolve from international audiences, while strong ones use approval to enhance their coercive authority. Presidents with mid‐level bargaining strength, however, prefer unilateral action; on the one hand, unilateral action may demonstrate resolve in the face of potential legislative resistance, while on the other, it avoids contentious debate that risks "muddying" the diplomatic waters. I illustrate these arguments by revisiting four prominent historical cases: the Korean War, the Gulf of Tonkin crisis, the invasion of Cambodia, and the Persian Gulf War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The horrific human experimentation Ishii Shirō and his colleagues conducted at Unit 731 is a dark chapter in China's War of Resistance against Japan. Less well known, however, is the U.S. role in covering up this atrocity with a postwar decision to grant immunity to the perpetrators in exchange for the research data they possessed. Moreover, there exist strong allegations to this day in China that the United States subsequently conducted bacteriological warfare against Chinese and North Korean civilians in the Korean War. This article examines how memories of this "victor's justice" remain a strong component of Chinese patriotic education today. It argues that China's "century of humiliation," which focuses on Chinese victimization at the hands of foreign imperialists, did not end in 1949 with the formation of the People's Republic of China, but rather the Chinese Communist Party employs it today to portray Chinese victimization at the hands of U.S. imperialism through at least the end of the Korean War in July 1953. Furthermore, this article suggests that understanding Chinese public memory of Unit 731 is extremely relevant to understanding contemporary Sino-American relations because these memories help shape public perception of the United States for ordinary Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1944 the State Department attempted to improve its communications security by creating a Division of Cryptography and mechanising the encryption process. This article assesses the effectiveness of these reforms and shows that State's new cipher equipment had cryptographic vulnerabilities. Moreover, the department was unable to maintain physical security at the Moscow embassy and through espionage and technical surveillance the KGB broke the ciphers and read American communications. The paper concludes by analysing the impact of this security failure, including the claim that intercepted messages influenced Stalin's decision to approve the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representing neither the glory of World War II, nor the anguish of the Vietnam War, the Korean War continues to occupy an obscure place in American history and culture. Similarly, those who fought in this conflict – including African Americans – have been overshadowed by the combatants who served before and after. Yet the Korean War was enormously significant, not least because it was the first conflict fought by a racially integrated American fighting force. For the first time, black and white soldiers ate, slept, and fought side by side. Films about the Korean War made during the 1950s explored this new racial dynamic. Focusing on the representation of African Americans in The Steel Helmet (1951) and Pork Chop Hill (1959), this article examines the ways in which screen representations both reflected and challenged popular attitudes regarding African American military service during the Korean War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951–1954" by David S. Painter and Gregory Brew provides a comprehensive account of the Anglo-Iranian oil crisis of the early 1950s. The book explores the complex interplay between the oil crisis, the Cold War, and evolving U.S. policy towards the Global South. It highlights the economic and geostrategic implications of nationalization movements in Iran and the U.S.'s preference for authoritarian governments. The authors draw on recently available primary and secondary sources to shed light on the U.S.'s interference in Iran's internal affairs, ultimately leading to the coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq. The book emphasizes the long-term consequences of U.S. intervention, which entrenched authoritarian rule and shaped Iran's attitudes towards the West. Overall, "The Struggle for Iran" offers a valuable historical account that contributes to the existing literature on the topic. [Extracted from the article]

During the Korean War, major powers such as the United States, Soviet Union, and China were solely driven by their own security interests. Consequently, their policies towards the crisis prioritized their own security and power maximization, leading to their alignment with one side and intensifying the conflict. While the United States sided with the South, China and the Soviet Union sided with the North. In contrast, India took a unique approach during the Korean War. India, which was heavily involved in the crisis as a proactive peacemaker, adopted a stance based on morality, neutrality, and favorability towards the Korean people. This approach was very different from the major powers who were focused on their security and power interests. The question that arises is: why did India take a different stance than other major powers? What explains India’s role as a peacemaker that focused on morality and neutrality in the Korean War when other major powers were focused on power and security maximization? To answer these questions, I draw on the existing literature that suggests the ideas generated domestically can profoundly impact foreign policy. Based on this, I argue that India’s active role in seeking peace during the Korean War and its unique approach to resolving the Korean crisis was largely influenced by principled ideas such as non-interference, neutrality, rejection of power politics, and Asian unity rooted in its historical experience during the independence movement. To evaluate my argument, I employ four case studies related to India’s involvement in the Korean War and demonstrate how the principled ideas discussed above influenced India’s active but neutral and unbiased peacemaking role in resolving the Korean question at a time when major powers’ security maximization actions were intensifying the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article has two objectives. The first one is to advance the existing studies on civil wars by developing a comparative approach. It explores similarities and differences between the Finnish and Korean experiences. The broader objective of the article is to initiate a project to explore potential connections between the Nordic region and the Korean peninsula. There are various direct and indirect linkages between the Nordic countries and Korea. Finland had long been part of Sweden and then part of Russia. Finland achieved independence, but it was immediately overshadowed by the war. Korea had long been influenced heavily by China and then colonised by Japan. Independence brought sunshine on the peninsula, but it soon disappeared with the Korean War. Against this backdrop, the article investigates the civil wars in Finland and Korea. In order to go beyond the existing research, the article pays attention to popular culture (film) depicting the two wars. The article also sheds light on how Finland and Korea have tried to pave the way to reconciliation. If the war still divides Finland even after 100 years, the reconciliation process in Korea would be much more complex and difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 10,000 South Korean nurses were sent to West Germany in the 11-year period between 1965 and 1976. It is known that they were dispatched because of South Korea's need for capital and expertise after the Korean War (1950–1953). To assist in this endeavor, West Germany helped South Korea through development support (educational aid). However, Korean nurses were not simply trainees since they had received a proper education and qualifications. Thus, this "educational aid" could critically be termed little more than "labor trade" because the highly educated nurses were forced to take work with lower wages than their background warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the impact of Chinese military strategy during the Korean War and its interplay with US intelligence at the time. It posits that intelligence analysts must grasp Chinese military strategy as a cornerstone of their training to enhance their effectiveness in estimative, current, and warning intelligence for operational gains. Drawing from an array of authoritative primary and secondary sources, it seeks to illuminate instructive insights through a juxtaposition of Chinese strategic maneuvers and US intelligence efficacy. By joining select multiservice and multiagency experiences, this article propels the performance of the US intelligence community today, offering a yardstick to gauge contemporary advancements. Intelligence analysts and operational planning teams markedly enhance their achievements by drawing from historical precedents to decipher Chinese intentions and capabilities. Embracing this paradigm equips military operations to adeptly tackle the realistic tactical, operational, and strategic challenges confronting US forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baek Seok, who returned to his hometown Jeongju via Manchuria after 1940, is a poet who experienced liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule (1945) and the Korean War (1950) in North Korea. During this period, he worked on translation rather than creating poetry. For this reason, researchers who attempt to examine Baek's activities during his time in North Korea have focused on discovering and studying his translation works. As this article will elaborate, during the mid-twentieth century after his return home, Baek Seok also published a large number of translated poems in Joseon-Soviet Culture (Jo Sso Munhwa), the journal of the Joseon-Soviet Culture Association. Joseon-Soviet Culture, which was published from 1946 to 1963, is a major channel for investigating how North Korea's so-called "official" literature was established through the influence of the Soviet Union. Baek Seok's translation works have been largely understood as "indirect writing" during the period when creation was directly and indirectly banned. It is expected that, by reviewing various translations by Baek in Joseon-Soviet Culture, Baek's literary activities in North Korea before writing freely was banned, can be confirmed more empirically. In this article, I will show how Baek Seok's literary longing during this period can be traced through the analysis of his translated poem I want to say to you "You are my wife!" ... by Konstantin Simonov. I argue that this poem shares an atmosphere similar to Baek's existing creative poetry and translation practices are linked to reading practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the categories of practices and social frameworks of memory, this article analyses the testimonies of ex-combatants and descendants of the Batallón Colombia, a contingent of the Colombian Army that participated in the Korean War (1950-1954). It reconstructs the contexts in which these narratives of the past were produced, the public they addressed and their transformations over time. The analysis covers the period between 1958, when the first veterans' association was founded, and the collection of testimonies in 2021 and 2022. Methodology: To account for the above, we used qualitative techniques, such as memory workshops and interviews with ex-combatants and relatives identified through the associations of veterans and family members or descendants. Originality: The research is based on aspects that are not usually contemplated by historiography, such as testimonial analysis, which shows how ex-combatants and descendants describe their participation in the Korean War, the enunciation places of their stories, the changing historical contexts in which they move and the uses of these ways of naming the past. Conclusions:The analysis allows us to account for the historicity and transformation of how direct and indirect witnesses of this war--whose memories do not play an important role in the public debate--narrate the past and show the role of identity and social demand played by the testimonies in forming social organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This s tudy explores traumatic effects and healing in Toni Morrison's Home based on Cathy Caruth's theory of trauma. By analyzing the novel's portrayal of trauma, it inves tigates the manifes tations of trauma, the mechanisms of healing, and the interconnectedness between literary representations and academic trauma theory. The s tudy enhances the unders tanding of the memories of war and s truggles with feelings of guilt and shame. Reviewing exis ting literature, it identifies gaps in the application of Caruth's concepts in analyzing the novel, emphasizing the need for a more in-depth exploration. The methodology involves applying Caruth's theories to Morrison's narrative s trategies, examining fragmentation, belatedness, and repetition related to characters' traumatic memories and healing. The research ques tions address how Morrison depicts the healing process, the narrative techniques employed to convey trauma effects, and the contribution of literary devices like flashbacks to trauma representation. By bridging trauma theory with literary analysis, the s tudy concluded Morrison's novel Home indicates the traumatic experiences of Frank Money's Korean War and racial violence, which not only trigger personal traumas but also reflect his torical traumas affecting African American experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to explore the significance of the objectives by focusing on activity theory, as well as the legal and institutional establishment of the Ministry of National Defense (MND) Agency for KIA Recovery & Identification (MAKRI), the subject of the Korean War remains excavation project, and the implications of expanding the excavation of remains in the DMZ and the repatriation of the remains of US and UN soldiers on the 70th anniversary of the Armistice Agreement. The excavation project, which began in 2000, aimed to build public trust by realizing the noble will of national unlimited responsibility that "the state is responsible for those sacrificed for the country forever." Thus, it has allowed social integration beyond ideological and generational conflicts. It expanded the issue of excavating remains from South Korea to Arrowhead Hill and White Horse Hill in the DMZ area under the September 19 Inter‐Korean Military Agreement in 2018. Also, the ROK–US MOU was signed in 2000 in terms of international cooperation in the excavation of remains and carries out joint identification and repatriation of remains. The repatriation of the remains of Chinese troops and the remains of UN combatant countries has important implications for strengthening military diplomacy in legal and humanitarian aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically examines reports of North Korean involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war, focusing on the presence of soldiers, workers, and munitions in the Donbas region. The author argues that while the dispatch of North Korean soldiers is unlikely, the presence of workers and munitions is more plausible. The article discusses the challenges faced by Russia in its war effort and the potential for alliances with North Korea. It also highlights the lack of a treaty between Russia and North Korea for the dispatch of soldiers. The article provides a nuanced analysis of the reports and their feasibility. Additionally, it discusses the potential involvement of North Korea in the reconstruction of the Donbas region, including the deployment of construction workers and the sale of munitions to Russia. The article mentions the risks and potential consequences of these actions, including international backlash and tensions with China. It also briefly mentions South Korea's involvement in arming Poland, which indirectly affects the supply of weapons to Ukraine. [Extracted from the article]

In the early 1950s, the Bilderberg Group became one of the first high-level informal transatlantic elite networks of the cold war. This article examines how the discussions at the Bilderberg Meetings were affected by the emotional nature of anti-communism on both sides of the Atlantic. On the one hand, 'negative' emotions resulting from the fear of communist infiltration and aggression could lead to the strengthening of transatlantic bonds. On the other hand, differences in political responses to communism could also lead to emotionally charged disagreements, as the first Bilderberg Conference in 1954 showed. As a result, the transatlantic discourse about anti-communism shifted towards the search for a strategy of positive anti-communism. The most important expression of this shift was the project of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impact of the Korean War on Yale University, highlighting the university's shift in priorities and attitudes during this period. Topics include Yale's historical indifference toward Korea; the university President Alfred A. Griswold's challenges and approach to leading the university during wartime; and the university's struggle to maintain its academic identity while facing financial and operational pressures.

This essay employs the "Korean War minor" as a methodological lens to demonstrate the need for more Asian Americanist critique at the intersection of American childhood studies and empire studies. While scholars have shown how children and children's culture were central to advancing US Cold War policy at home and abroad, this body of research largely neglects to interrogate the centrality of whiteness to dominant constructions of children/childhood. Attending to childhood as a technology of racist, patriarchal, imperial power, I elucidate how the biopolitics of the Korean War produce juvenile Asian-raced and gendered bodies at the precarious boundaries of childhood, as not quite children but, rather, childlike. I grapple, in particular, with how to reclaim the "girl" from US military archives, as the rubric of the "boy-mascot" and "camptown woman" overdetermine and constrain how the girl is allowed to come into view. I develop and enact this decolonial practice of reclaiming the Korean War minor through an analysis of Nora Okja Keller's Fox Girl , a novel that is particularly invested in narrating the camptown girl into being. Fox Girl directs attention to the limits of a politics of childhood innocence and prompts a generative reconceptualization of childhood in relation to justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Turks were portrayed as descendants of Asiatic or Mongolian heritage in American mainstream media during the Cold War era. It begins by discussing the broader Western view of Turks as historically Asiatic and nomadic people, then delves into how American print publications, including news outlets and magazines, contributed to this perception. Generally, in the West, Turks were often imagined as Asiatic nomads, a characterization that was also linked to notions of barbarism and violence. In the U.S., there was a tendency to depict Turks as fierce and combative, aligning with the broader trend of portraying them as violent. However, there were instances where Turks were praised, particularly in contexts such as their significant contributions during the Korean War as part of the Southern effort which saw Turkish and Western interests align. Through analysis, this study concludes that Turks in American media were often depicted as Asiatic or Mongolian along four main themes: as formidable warriors, racially Asiatic, geographically Asiatic, and as part of Eastern/Asiatic civilization (by contrasting them with Western civilization). The article concludes that the U.S. largely followed the European trend of viewing Turks as part of Asiatic civilization and descent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay traces the transnational literary flow and popular imaginations of modernity in colonial Korea (1910-45), the effect of the Korean War and the Cold War, and diverse responses to global neoliberalism in contemporary Korea. It highlights representative themes in each period and notable writers in modern crime fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memorial museums serve as a record of the past and provide evidence of the past; moreover, they are a place for remembering the past and healing the present. In particular, their architectural language, such as movement through space, is actively involved in fostering public memory that implies a shared understanding of the past. However, it is hardly explained how public memory is configured in memorial museums, and how it is experienced by the act of moving around within the places. This study, hence, aims to investigate the configurational relationship between public memory and movement through space throughout an in-depth case study using visibility graph analysis as one of space syntax techniques, and movement tracking analysis. By examining the War Memorial of Korea, which is dedicated to commemorate sacrifices during the Korean War in memorial halls and chronologically describes wars in the Korean Peninsula, it was found out that a memorial museum works in a bifurcated way. Its spatial layout leads to a locally focused experience along a strongly structured commemorative sequence. On the contrary, it allows globally dispersed spatial experiences to take place along the integration core, suggesting both specific and wide-ranging themes and contents throughout their various exhibitions. Therefore, the locally focused paths elicit a commemorative experience by adding depth, whereas the globally dispersed paths bring about informal itineraries that start from their integration cores. It concludes that spatial configurations, as a non-verbal language, plays a role in transmitting the public memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural dynamics of the Korean conflict has evolved not only with the inter-Korean rivalry, but also the geopolitics of great power rivalries. The conflict structure was reinforced going through the Korean War and the Cold War. There have been several South Korean initiatives to build peace with North Korea in the post-Cold War era, however the peace process fluctuated due to the escalation of the US-North Korean conflict over the nuclear and missile development of North Korea, and the dispute over North Korea policy in the South Korean society. Building on the sociological understanding of 'duality of structure' and the biological insight of 'niche construction', this article demonstrates the South Korean potential, as a democratic state, to construct a niche space for its citizens' peacebuilding with North Korea under the ongoing Korean conflict structure, as well as its limitations in protecting the space before scaling out the disruption of the conflict structure, when governments do not have a clear sense of agency about their policy due to the lack of consensus among its citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the Second World War the Soviet Union had been an isolated pariah state, but by the end of the war it had emerged as one of the world's two superpowers. Yet, the founding of the United Nations (UN) in October 1945 brought a new round of international isolation for the USSR, as a Western majority dominated the UN General Assembly during the first ten years of the organization's existence. This article focuses on the Soviet Union's attempt to overcome the Western-led majority during the Korean War, when the Soviet-backed World Peace Council became embroiled in an orchestrated propaganda campaign spreading false allegations that the United States had used biological weapons in Korea. Soviet officials used this campaign to try to discredit both the United States and Not until after the death of Joseph Stalin did Soviet policymakers curtail their support for the baseless allegations, though in public they refrained from acknowledging the falsity of the earlier claims. --> [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Researchers are increasingly interested in better methods for assessing the pace of aging in older adults, including vocal analysis. The present study sought to determine whether paralinguistic vocal attributes improve estimates of the age and risk of mortality in older adults. Methods To measure vocal age, we curated interviews provided by male U.S. World War II Veterans in the Library of Congress collection. We used diarization to identify speakers and measure vocal features and matched recording data to mortality information. Veterans (N = 2 447) were randomly split into testing (n = 1 467) and validation (n = 980) subsets to generate estimations of vocal age and years of life remaining. Results were replicated to examine out-of-sample utility using Korean War Veterans (N = 352). Results World War II Veterans' average age was 86.08 at the time of recording and 91.28 at the time of death. Overall, 7.4% were prisoners of war, 43.3% were Army Veterans, and 29.3% were drafted. Vocal age estimates (mean absolute error = 3.255) were within 5 years of chronological age, 78.5% of the time. With chronological age held constant, older vocal age estimation was correlated with shorter life expectancy (aHR = 1.10; 95% confidence interval: 1.06–1.15; p <.001), even when adjusting for age at vocal assessment. Conclusions Computational analyses reduced estimation error by 71.94% (approximately 8 years) and produced vocal age estimates that were correlated with both age and predicted time until death when age was held constant. Paralinguistic analyses augment other assessments for individuals when oral patient histories are recorded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since establishing diplomatic relations in October 1949, North Korea and China have forged a complex alliance characterized by both firm solidarity and mutual distrust. This paper analyzes the ups and downs of their alliance relationship by examining the "Northeast Rear Doctrine" (NRD) suggested by Mao Zedong in the early 1960s, which proposed that North Korea could utilize China's Northeast region as its rear base in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula. Mao's proposal represents the apex of the Sino-North Korean alliance, implying China's temporary concession of its sovereignty over the northeastern territory to North Korea. However, when China and South Korea established diplomatic relations in 1992, the NRD policy was virtually abolished, thereby significantly affecting Sino-North Korean relations. First, it exacerbated security threats to North Korea's regime as Northeast China, which once served as Pyongyang's rear base, was transformed into Seoul's outpost for infiltration into North Korea. Second, it deepened North Korea's distrust of China and served as a catalyst for transforming Sino-North Korean relations into normal state-to-state dynamics, rather than the traditional party-to-party relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextualising the 20th-century copies of Koguryŏ-era paintings at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Art in Budapest, one can see that the purpose of making the copies was not only to display and preserve cultural heritage, but also to show that the newly established North Korean state saw in these paintings a renewal of its own national art. The increased attention to ancient wall paintings began with the colonial Japanese, who applied their newly learned scientific methods to archaeological research, uncovering hidden treasures in their colonised territories and expanding their knowledge of their newly acquired territories by making copies of the murals. After the liberation from Japanese rule, North Koreans used the new discoveries to forge a new national identity and a connection to their past, not only focusing on history but also developing new artistic methods (e.g., the large-scale revival of traditional ink painting, communal artworks) while studying and copying them. When copying the paintings, not only the consciously created forms were depicted, but also the damage, so comparing copies made by several artists in different periods over several decades is an important way of tracing the changes in the condition of the paintings. The mass production of reproductions of paintings (often for international use) for exhibitions in Central and Eastern Europe underlines the propagandistic purpose of these paintings and their intention to express the national identity of the time. The visibility of Korean culture in Hungary, represented through North Korean art, has been supported by a strong and conscious cultural policy, especially after the Korean War, when North Korea used its cultural products to promote and publicise Korean art in Central and Eastern Europe, and engaged in fundraising activities to rebuild the country, which had emerged from the ruins of the Korean War in the 1950s. Following conflicts between China and the Soviet Union, diplomatic relations and cultural exchanges between North Korea and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe became increasingly active between 1956 and the 1960s. Artists from North Korea became inspired by 19th century folk and historical art from Central and Eastern European art museums, and instead of the political propaganda images of the early 1950s, they began to produce artworks depicting national, ethnic and local elements. Thus, in the mid-1950s, there was a shift from politically charged propagandistic, anti-imperialist objects (such as political posters) to objects illustrating national art, presenting copies of artworks considered representative of North Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the little-known story of John T. Downey, a CIA operative who was captured and imprisoned by Chinese authorities in 1952 during the Korean War. The article explores the broader history of the CIA's covert campaigns in China and their negative impact on Sino-U.S. relations. It highlights the consequences of the United States' hubris, paranoia, and ignorance in conducting covert operations, and emphasizes that Downey was not the only victim of the secret war in China. The article provides new perspectives on this history and serves as a reminder of the unintended consequences and limitations of U.S. influence abroad. [Extracted from the article]

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This essay examines Black political activism during the Korean War in publications that defined their present moment as slavery's future and characterized slavery and antiblack racism as part of an ongoing war against Black people, connected to US empire's wars abroad. In particular, it reads Lloyd Brown's novel Iron City (1951), about four Black men incarcerated on trumped-up charges, alongside Paul Robeson's Freedom newspaper (1950–55) and William Patterson's We Charge Genocide (1951). Centering on four Black men serving time , the novel demonstrates that one tactic in the war against Black freedom is through the control of time and shows a connection between incarceration and slavery by revealing the disciplinary mechanism of time in service of US empire. Rather than acquiesce to the omnipotence of empire's time and endless wars, however, Iron City , exemplifying the Black radical thought of the 1950s, imagines a different future, which I term fugitive othertime. Building on Saidiya Hartman's theorization of a "fugitive elsewhere ," "an imagined place [that] might afford you a vision of freedom," I argue for reading Iron City for its dream of a fugitive othertime, as an imagined temporality in which that elsewhere might exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American racial politics during the long Korean War formed what this essay terms Afro-Asian antagonism, a racial hate between African Americans and Asians (and Asian Americans). When the Truman administration issued Executive Order 9981 and proclaimed its commitment to military racial integration in 1948, two years before the outbreak of the Korean War, it seemed to signal a significant step of racial progress. Black servicemen who enlisted in the "liberalized" military, however, were strategically deployed to represent American national violence, especially to the eyes of Asians who were internalizing antiblack racism imported from the United States through the military apparatus. In the face of decolonization and an upsurge in civil rights movements, this article argues, the executive order molded Black Korean War veterans into an instrument to abort Afro-Asian connections while promoting racial liberalism to a global audience. The Korean War inaugurated the American Cold War racial formation that endures into the twenty-first century. Contrasting two Korean War novels written by Asian American and African American authors—Nora Okja Keller's Fox Girl (2002) and Toni Morrison's Home (2012)—this article traces how Afro-Asian orphans and a Black veteran internalize and challenge the Afro-Asian antagonisms of the long Korean War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Paris Agreement, the European Union (EU) and South Korea became active in their pursuits of low-carbon energy solutions marked by substantial renewable energy growth and reforms in the mobility, power, and industrial sectors. Policy initiatives, such as the European Green Deal (2019) and Korean Green New Deal (2020), demonstrated their ambitious decarbonization commitments. However, their sustainable energy transitions have encountered two major challenges. First, the energy crisis due to the Russo-Ukrainian war accounts for the reduced supplies of Russian oil and gas, global price spikes, and a renewed focus on energy security; second, the US-China strategic competition exposed the over-reliance on China for the production of rare-earth materials that are essential for renewable energy technologies. The intersection of energy security and transition has emerged as a pivotal concern for both parties. In response, the EU introduced the "REPowerEU" plan to accelerate energy transition, whereas South Korea strategically expanded its nuclear power usage and recalibrated its energy mix. Both the EU and South Korea have augmented their investments in renewable energies while ensuring stable supplies of rare-earth materials and navigating new regulatory pressures from the USA. This study first represents a comparative survey of the energy-transition initiatives of both parties, including a comprehensive assessment of the European and Korean Green Deals and their measures for energy security. Further, the potential EU–Korea cooperation toward overcoming the energy crises, recognizing their shared values and opportunities to synergize bilateral- and multilateral-level energy transition, was explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akrap, Gordan (co-author) Information Supremacy, Strategic Intelligence, and Russian Aggression against Ukraine in 2022, No. 4, pp. 1254-1277 Bachmann, Sascha-Dominik (co-author) Scoping the Future Counterintelligence Focus, No. 2, pp. 358-385 Bailey, Roderick The Trials of Ormond Uren: A Study in Security and Spy Mania, No. 1, pp. 109-140 Barnea, Avner Israeli Intelligence, the Second Intifada, and Strategic Surprise: A Case of "Intelligence to Please"? , No. 2, pp. 492-515 Rietjens, Sebastiaan (co-author) The Social Ties that Bind: Unraveling the Role of Trust in International Intelligence Cooperation, No. 2, pp. 386-422 Intelligence and the Military: Introduction, No. 4, pp. 1041-1047. , No. 3, pp. 968-979 Tromblay, Darren E. Taking the Fight Abroad: The FBI's Legal Attachés and Chinese Intelligence, No. 1, pp. 260-270 Vaage, Brigt Harr (co-author) How Good Is Norwegian Intelligence?. [Extracted from the article]

Background: The division of the Korean peninsula involved many neighbouring countries in the Korean War. The relations with those countries have since been reorganised due to active exchange. This study examined how the quantity and quality of contact with traditional alliance (US and Japan) and strategic partner (China and Russia) countries affected their national images. Methods: To this end, this study analyzed the relation with the national image by measuring the quantity and quality of contact of an individual with each country. The quantity of contact included an evaluation of the individual's subjective amount of contact, contact path, and contact status, and the quality of contact was measured as an evaluation for the pleasure, competitiveness, intimacy, spontaneity, and necessity when contacting each country's culture. A total of 387 participants were divided into two groups based on the presence of direct contact and the quantity and quality of their contact and national images were examined. The participants were followed by a completion of the self-questionnaires including the Culture Experience Questionnaire, National Image Questionnaire, and demographic information questionnaire. Results: The results of this study are as follow: first, regardless of the type of country, the national image was highly correlated with the degree of subjective contact evaluated by individuals, but there was a weak tendency with contact quality. Second, there was no significant interaction between the country type and contact status for national image, however, different national images for each country were detected. In other word, for contact quantity, contact groups showed more positive national images compared to non-contact groups in Russia, but not Japan, China, and the US. For contact quality, the positive contact experience group showed more positive national images compared to the negative contact experience group, but only in traditional alliance countries. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of implementing different strategies for countries to maintain peaceful international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christianity has a relatively short history in Korea, yet it has grown rapidly, consolidating the biggest percentage of Christians among East Asia. Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist churches are some of the mainline Protestant denominations in the country. Furthermore, alternative Christian groups, also referred to as new religious movements (NRMs), started to appear in the country after 1907 Pyeongyang's Great Revival Movement and expanded during the Korean War (1950-1953). Some of the most dynamic groups at the moment are Guwonpa, the World Mission Society of God, Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle, the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification and Christian Gospel Mission. This paper will focus on the origin of these two last groups' core doctrine, widely known as Unification Church and Jesus Morning Star (JMS) or Providence. Similar to other Korean NRMs, both founders emphasize their doctrine as new and unique, yet this paper will bring light to show how their narratives are interrelated and emanate from the same grassroots, namely Kim Sung-do, Baek Nam-ju and Kim Baek-moon1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature and popular media in the past decade have served to introduce the broader public to the infra-red night vision developments of the Second World War, yet focus has primarily fallen upon those devices made and used by Germany and the USA. Through archival research this paper explores the British perspective, detailing the history and design of an infra-red weapon sight produced experimentally before the war's end, as well as the organisations and companies involved in the process. This is followed by an assessment of Britain's immediate post-war efforts in the field, showing why it was instead American equipment which was used in Britain's first martial deployments of infra-red weapon sights in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the image of Taiwan (the Republic of China) in the Polish communist press in the mid-1950s. It focuses on the news coverage related to the two Polish cargo ships – the Praca and the Prezydent Gottwald – which were detained by the Taiwanese authorities in 1953 and 1954, respectively. Based on the press narratives and supported by declassified government documents, the paper analyses the impact of the Cold War conflicts and divisions on the detention of Polish ships and its coverage by the Polish communist media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In war powers analysis, reliance on the interpretive method of historical practice, also called the “gloss of history,” has made history a technology of the forever war. This approach draws upon the history of U.S. military conflict to interpret the scope of presidential war power and embeds past actions into the separation of powers. There is a crucial flaw in this methodology, however. The understanding of history in historical gloss is not informed by the changing historiography of war. This has led to a divergence between the “history” in legal authority and the revised historical understanding in scholarly works of history. Whereas lessons of history in other contexts often serve as levers for reexamination of government action, in gloss-of-history analysis the past instead serves to legitimate settled practices. The consequence is that presidential overreach is not recognized and corrected, but instead built into the doctrine of expanding unilateral power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest cover loss in the DPRK is intrinsically related to food insecurity and energy insufficiency. This study used qualitative research methods to understand the deforestation and afforestation history of DPRK. Forest cover in the DPRK decreased during the period of Japanese -colonisation, increased slightly after liberation, decreased again during the Korean War, increased because of socialist economic progress, and decreased, when Eastern European socialism collapsed after 1990. Between 1990 and 2010, the decrease amounted to 2.2 million ha, while the volume of growing stock continued to decrease by approximately 3% per year. This was due to the copious amounts of fuel wood harvested from forests. Slash-and-burn cultivation of food crops also increased during that time. The decline in forest quantity and quality required comprehensive measures, including favourable international relations, political and institutional reforms, the decentralisation of forest management, and proper technical support for local communities. The forestry issue in DPRK is complex and, therefore, is no longer solely the prerogative of the forestry sector, but is embodied in political, social, cultural, economic, environmental, and other broad development challenges to country faces. Solving the forestry crisis in DPRK requires addressing challenges related to international political engagement and domestic multi-sector coordination and collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Korean War, it has been claimed that the Chinese People's Volunteer (CPV) army "brainwashed" the American prisoners of war (POWs) into automatons. Recently declassified Chinese documents shed new light on a racial perspective in this story. Although the CPV activated an ambitious communist indoctrination program for the POWs in early 1951, the anticipated ideological struggle did not take place. By June 1951, the Chinese commissars overseeing American POWs discovered that these Americans were not the "proletariat brothers" deceived by the Wall Street financial capitalists. Rather, many of them rallied around Ku Klux Klan organizations to disrupt camp order and to resist the Chinese indoctrination. After mid-1951, the CPV essentially abandoned the goal of ideological conversion and prioritized controlling the POWs through none ideological means of alienation, self-punishment, and self-policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese decision-making process and the role of the Chinese leaders (mainly Mao Zedong) during the Korean War remain controversial topics in international academic circles. This article argues that China's main goal in 1950-1951 was to liberate Taiwan, and once the Soviet Union and North Korea had agreed to launch a military attack on South Korea, Mao was forced to support the war. After the United States entered the war in late June 1950, Mao advocated sending Chinese troops to aid North Korea. Although the decision-making process was tortuous and the motives changed along the way, the fundamental purpose of the Chinese was to gain Stalin's trust and use the deterrence of the Sino-Soviet alliance and Soviet assistance to stabilize the nascent revolutionary regime and safeguard China's national security. The factor that influenced China's decision-making the most was the Sino-Soviet relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]