Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, until the Cold War structure took shape, the Korean Peninsula was a geopolitical fault line between the continental forces of China and Russia and the maritime forces of Japan and America, and an arena in which a struggle for expansion of influence played out. Upon the end of Japan's colonial rule in 1945, the Korean peninsula was suddenly transformed into a stage for the ideological confrontation between the East and West, centered around the United States and the Soviet Union, despite the Korean people's desire to build an independent nation. Since 1948, the 85,270 square miles that make up the peninsula have been divided in two: in the south, the Republic of Korea, a liberal democracy based on a market economy with a population of 50 million; and on its northern half, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship with a population of 22 million.
In the processes of independence, division, and -- from 1950-53 -- war, the United States established itself as the single most important ally for the Republic of Korea, while North Korea, which had undertaken the invasion of the South with the blessings of the Soviet Union and China, remained the most direct threat to its security. ...