Imagine you are a U.S. diplomat in the early 1950s, and you are tasked with explaining the importance of the Korean War to a group of international students. How would you articulate the U.S. involvement in this conflict in the context of preventing the spread of communism?

The Korean War began when North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union and China, invaded South Korea in 1950, threatening to turn the entire peninsula into a communist state. The United States, acting under the U. S. policy of containment, joined the United Nations to defend South Korea because a communist victory could spark a domino effect, pushing neighboring countries toward communism. By helping repel the invasion and stabilizing the South, the U.