The Sniper at War by Michael E. Haskew

Author:Michael E. Haskew
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781908273970
Publisher: Amber Books Ltd
Published: 2010-06-27T23:00:00+00:00

KOREA AND THE COLD WAR

Perhaps the most violent period in history, the half-century from 1950 to the new millennium spawned countless conflicts. From high stakes fighting on the Korean peninsula to proxy wars prosecuted around the globe, the sniper served his captain and his cause on a variety of fronts.

In the wake of World War II, the geopolitical situation across the globe was in the throes of unprecedented change. Contrasting ideological and economic visions of world order moved inevitably toward conflict.

From the devastation of the costliest war in history, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two superpowers, and in Europe the democracies of the West and the Communist states of the East built up their defences in two armed camps. Eventually, these military and political alliances would be formalized by the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact. The Cold War, as the tense stand-off became known, lasted more than 40 years, with most historians acknowledging its conclusion with the tumbling down of the Berlin Wall.

Another significant phenomenon of the post-World War II era was the emergence of the Third World, those nations which were underdeveloped, in many instances heavily populated and often governed by unstable or totalitarian regimes. After the war, the era of colonialism faded rapidly, fuelling a wave of nationalism which swept Africa, Asia, the Americas and areas of historical unrest in Europe with renewed vigour.

Although East and West flirted with disaster on more than one occasion during the latter half of the twentieth century, direct fighting was averted. Instead, a series of proxy wars were waged. Each side probed for weaknesses in the other, whether in military or political resolve. The armed forces of the United States and Great Britain, sometimes with the support of a United Nations mandate, assumed the burden of containing Communism and maintaining stability during a period of considerable nation building and political tension which seemed to ebb and flow with regularity.

THE KOREAN WAR

In Europe, the flashpoint for open war would certainly be a divided Germany. Further adding to the concern was the divided city of Berlin, where troops of both sides stood virtually eyeball to eyeball. The Asian powderkeg was on the Korean peninsula. The Communist north and the democratic south had been divided along the 38th Parallel at the end of World War II. In June 1950, North Korean forces rolled into South Korea, initiating a bloody struggle that was halted three years later by a tenuous armistice. To this day, thousands of US and South Korean troops stare across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) at their Communist adversaries.

After World War II, the sniper was once again relegated to unimportance in the armed forces of the United States and Great Britain; however, with the outbreak of the Korean War, as casualties due to Communist sniper fire mounted, the pendulum swung quickly in the other direction. North Korean snipers, many of whom were Soviet trained, often utilized the familiar Moisin Nagant 1891/30 rifle equipped with telescopic sights.

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