Fascism by Madeleine Albright

FOR NATIONS, THE REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST IS MEASURED in eras separated, sadly and most often, by war. So it is with Korea. For nearly thirteen hundred years, until the twentieth century, the country was administered from a central capital and its people were held together by shared religious and social customs, a common tongue, a distinctive cuisine, and art. Korea was never an aggressive power, but it had to endure external attacks and periods of occupation, including, most ignominiously, in the sixteenth century, by Japan. After repelling the warriors of the Rising Sun, Korea fortified itself, excluded most foreigners, and became known as the Hermit Kingdom. Then, about 150 years ago, imperial powers cracked open its shell. Deals were made and, in 1905, Japan pushed its way back in. For almost four decades the invaders exploited Korea for their own purposes, exiting only after their empire's defeat in World War II.

Following the Axis surrender, Korea's fate, like that of Central Europe, was still to be worked out. Officially, the victorious Allies were committed to a free, united, and independent Korea. Then, in the war's last week, Stalin's Red Army penetrated far into the country's northern half. American diplomats, their inboxes overflowing, shifted their focus from what should be done to what could be achieved most easily. In Washington, late one night, they met with their Soviet counterparts and, tracing lines on a map from National Geographic magazine, consented to the peninsula's "temporary" division along the 38th parallel. The people who lived there were not consulted.