Why is the US seen as the sworn enemy to the DPRK when there were many other belligerents involved in the Korean War?

Question

According to Wikipedia, there were many belligerents on the South Korean side involved in the war. This includes The UK, France, Australia, Canada, Greece and many, many others.

Why, then, is there so much more hatred towards the US when other countries were a part of the war? Was the hatred for the US spawned from that war, or has it been the US actions (sanctions etc) towards the DPRK over the years which has created the situation we are in now?

Are other countries involved seen in the same light by the DPRK, as the US is?

Answer 1

While Alexander's points are correct and certainly do not help the USA win North Korean sympathies, I think that more than an historical view the answer lies in the current situation:

• USA is the only foreign power that still has troops stationed in South Korea.

• USA was the most powerful nation of the UN coalition. The advantage it had in the Korean war has only increased.

• The other major powers (UK, France) have lost or granted independence to most of the colonial possessions that helped them to project power in the area (Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, former Indochina comprising of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos), reducing their influence and making it less visible.

• As a consequence of the above, USA remains the most significant and involved foreign member of the "Western coalition". The six-party talks, for example, included Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and USA. Of the latter:

  • Pressuring South Korea into submission is not a viable tactic, specially while it has the support of the USA¹.

  • Japan has a limited military so it is not much of a threat.

• Other members of the former UN coalition seem to be happy following the USA lead (there are no separate political initiatives coming from the UK, France or Australia).

I have seen some different analysis behind NK politics, but the above points make the USA the prime target. For example:

• They want to invade South Korea and the USA presence is an additional obstacle. NK leadership thinks that threatening the USA will get it to retire its support to South Korea and leave the South Korean army without allies.

• They are honestly afraid of the USA and South Korea invading them, and want to have leverage to avoid that.

• They need a foreign threat to justify its military control of the population, and the USA gives the most terrifying threat.

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¹ And @SoylentGray has a point that North Korea has not been ignoring South Korea: there have been artillery attacks across the border and there are strong suspicions that a NK submarine sunk a SK destroyer.

Answer 2

The US maintained a particularly destructive and deadly bombing campaign on North Korea during the Korean war:

During the course of the three-year war, which both sides accuse one another of provoking, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of explosives on North Korea, including 32,557 tons of napalm, an incendiary liquid that can clear forested areas and cause devastating burns to human skin. (In constrast [sic], the U.S. used 503,000 tons of bombs during the entire Pacific Theater of World War Two, according to a 2009 study by the Asia-Pacific Journal.) In a 1984 interview, Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, claimed U.S. bombs "killed off 20 percent of the population" and "targeted everything that moved in North Korea." These acts, largely ignored by the U.S.' collective memory, have deeply contributed to Pyongyang's contempt for the U.S. and especially its ongoing military presence on the Korean Peninsula.

"Most Americans are completely unaware that we destroyed more cities in the North then we did in Japan or Germany during World War II... Every North Korean knows about this, it's drilled into their minds. We never hear about it," historian and author Bruce Cumings told Newsweek by email Monday.

This is recent enough to still be a living memory in North Korea, and plays heavily in North Korean propaganda.

http://www.newsweek.com/us-forget-korean-war-led-crisis-north-592630

Answer 3

Also according to Wikipedia (same article, in the box on the right, under "Strength"), albeit the Korea war was a U.N. mandate, the U.S. was the main force, providing 326k out of 370k of the allied personnel, or about 90%, plus they supplied most of the armament; and they appointed the commander of the allied forces. Without the U.S., North Korea would have won over South Korea, period. No other ally, even if their contribution may have been helpful, could have made any difference to the outcome of the war.

Answer 4

The US has a variety of justifications for having hundreds of thousands of troops and thousands of bases overseas. The US presence in Japan and South Korea, in particular, is contingent on the North Korean threat. If North Korea ceases to be a threat, the US troops stationed in South Korea and Japan will have even less support from local populations then they have now.

This is why the US politicians and the mainstream media cheerleaders continue to cast DPRK as an extreme threat.

Or, alternatively, the US would need to cast China into the villain role that DPRK currently fills. Unfortunately, there is so much Won, Yen, and USD invested in China that making China into the next pariah would be deeply unpopular with the powerful investment classes in these countries.

Most of the other countries you mention in the question - UK Commonwealth, France, etc - no longer have a large overseas presence due to the end of colonialism. Therefore, they have no interest in having a large troop presence in East Asia. Said another way, these countries now trust the US to "police the world" and enforce post-colonial international security.

Sooo... the US, the most powerful nation in the world, uses DPRK as a justification to station troops and nuclear weapon in its vicinity. The most powerful nation minces no words in stating that the DPRK is the reason for having those troops there. The US has bombed the entire DPRK economy to dust, and has aggressively invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and others since the 1950s. The US has sponsored coups and attempted to overthrow governments in Venezuela, Guatemala, Chile, Ukraine, Syria, Cuba, Nicaragua, South Korea, and throughout Africa.

The threat of overthrow by the US has also worked to keep the DPRK regime in power; in a word, the presence of a threat has worked to unify the regime. In many ways, the US presence keeps the DPRK government in power. Thus DPRK must keep the US boogey man in place.