FIGHTING AGAINST NEGOTIATION: SEOUL, WASHINGTON, AND THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS OF KOREAN UNIFICATION

Abstract

This thesis explores a crucial yet overlooked period of Korean War history, challenging the teleological assumption that the eleven months of post-armistice negotiations, culminating in the 1954 Geneva Conference, had failed inevitably. Instead, it foregrounds the contingent nature of these developments, arguing that Seoul and Washington played critical roles in ensuring that these diplomatic efforts failed to produce a political settlement on Korea. Moreover, this study also addresses the significant omission of Korean perspectives in the English-language scholarship by focusing on the role of the Republic of Korea (ROK), led by its mercurial leader, President Syngman Rhee, in fighting against the negotiations. Through diplomatic cables, official correspondences, and internal memorandums, it reconstructs ROK efforts in obstructing the discussions, revealing that Rhee’s belief in military unification fueled his obstinate opposition to the negotiations. While Washington disagreed with Seoul’s militaristic vision for Korean unification, it insisted that any political settlement would only succeed with ROK support, severely handicapping the negotiations since Rhee refused to cooperate with the diplomatic efforts. In addition, ROK-U.S. efforts successfully disrupted the diplomatic efforts despite pressures from other states to continue discussions for Korean unification, reaffirming the central contention that the post-armistice negotiations were not meant to fail, but made to fail.