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On the 75th anniversary of the United States entering the Korean War, ���������� war and morality scholar David Youkey discusses the cost of the ‘forgotten war’

Seventy-five years ago this month, on June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. troops to the Korean Peninsula. North Korea had invaded the South just two days earlier, and with that decision, the United States entered a conflict that would claim millions of lives on its way to fading from the collective memory of the American public.

The Korean War, often called “The Forgotten War,” rarely features in Hollywood productions or history classrooms. But David Youkey, a ���������� associate teaching professor of philosophy who teaches the course War and Morality, believes it deserves a closer look.

“Being eclipsed by Vietnam is a major factor (in why the Korean war is often overlooked), but I’m not sure it’s the whole story,” he says.

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David Youkey, a ���������� associate teaching professor of philosophy, studies applied ethics, including war and morality.��

What makes a ‘just’ war?

In Youkey’s class, students examine centuries of moral and philosophical reasoning about when it is permissible to go to war and how wars should be conducted. One key concept, the just war theory, traces back to ancient philosophy, but its definitions were sharpened in the 20th century by the horrors of the world wars and the Geneva Conventions.

“Concerning justice of war, the idea is that only wars of defense are justified,” Youkey says, “and just war theory tends to define ‘defense’ very narrowly.”

This idea looks beyond the events preceding a conflict.

Youkey explains, “Within just war theory there is a basic distinction between justice of war, and justice in war. That is to say, the war itself might be just, but behaviors within the war might be unjust.”

Even a war that begins for morally sound reasons can turn morally questionable when boots—or bombs—hit the ground. Take the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II or the firebombing campaigns that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the preceding days. These actions may have helped end the war, specifically one the U.S. was “justly” involved in after Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, but they raise enduring moral questions.

“The most important idea is that civilians are off limits,” Youkey says. “There will be accidental civilian casualties in any war—that’s acknowledged. But civilians cannot be directly targeted, and the warring parties should do what they can to minimize civilian casualties.”

A morally gray conflict

So, how does the Korean War measure up under the framework of just war theory?

“I’d say, if we narrowly focus on South Korea defending itself from the North, that’s justified by just war theory. But the larger context is this Cold War element,” Youkey says.

North Korea’s invasion was a clear act of aggression, he notes. Therefore, South Korea’s response can be seen as just. But when it comes to U.S. intervention, the lines begin to blur. At the end of WWII, the Korean Peninsula was divided at the 38th parallel not by the Korean people, but by external powers—namely the United States and the Soviet Union.

“Were we in Korea to defend the universal human rights of the Korean people, or were we there because we didn’t like the ideologies of the Soviets and the Chinese?” Youkey asks. “Some of both, probably, but just war theory would only support the first.”

Then there’s the matter of how the Korean war was fought.

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Soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division take cover behind rocks to shield themselves from exploding mortar shells, near the Hantan River in central Korea. (Photo: Library of Congress)

“Apparently, McArthur gave the order to burn North Korea to the ground, and the same firebombing tactic used against Japan in World War II was imported to Korea. Again, from the point of view of just war theory, civilians are off limits,” Youkey says.

He adds, “It’s hard to understand how to interpret the scorched earth strategy used against North Korea except as an atrocity.”

What forgetting costs us

Youkey is less interested in labeling wars as “good” or “bad” than he is in encouraging critical moral reflection. Such introspection becomes even more imperative when a war fades from public memory.

“The U.S. military is currently, and has for a long time been, involved in conflicts all over the planet, and few civilians pay attention,” he says.

“How many military conflicts have we been involved with recently in Africa where the average American citizen has no idea? That’s not history. It’s stuff going on right now.”

That same forgetfulness—or perhaps willful ignorance, Youkey says—helps explain why the Korean War receives so little attention in our national memory despite its massive human and political costs. Remembering Korea only as a footnote to Vietnam or the Cold War limits our ability to engage with its moral complexity—and to question the long-term consequences of outside intervention.

“There are plenty of movies out there about the heroic deeds of U.S. troops in World War II. And there certainly were a lot of heroic deeds. But we also intentionally murdered hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians during the firebombings, a strategy we later exported to Korea and then to Vietnam,” Youkey says.

He argues that when wars are remembered selectively, often highlighting heroism while omitting brutality, our understanding of history becomes distorted.

Memory and maturity

If there is a lesson to draw from the Korean War 75 years later, reflecting on just war theory alone won’t teach it. Rather, Youkey says he hopes to see a collective cultivation of the moral maturity needed to seek peaceful solutions before conflict happens.

“I do believe there is such a thing as just war. And the world would be better off if more of its nations paid attention to just war theory,” he says. “But we really ought to be moving toward a world where diplomatic solutions are the focus.”

Realizing that vision requires a seismic moral shift in how Americans think about global conflict, he adds. Remembering wars like Korea—those living in shadows of more iconic battles—pushes us to look beyond easy right-versus-wrong debates. It reminds us that even wars waged with justification leave behind legacies of destruction.

As Youkey suggests, the burden of memory is not to glorify the past but to help us imagine a better future where we don’t repeat—or forget—our mistakes.��

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