6･25전쟁 전후 이승만 정부의 위기관리에 관한 연구: 정부수립 이후부터 서울 피탈 까지를 중심으로

Abstract

The term crisis basically means a status that has possibility of being harm or has been damaged to the sovereignty or core factors consisting of politics and economy of a nation, but nowadays it is used in various fields such as politics, diplomacy, national defense, the military, economy, society, sports and even in personal health. In addition, political and military crisis management indicates the actions – planning, modification, execution and control – that can effectively prevent and recover to national crisis by using resources of a nation. The first crisis after the foundation of Korean government commenced with sudden attack of North Korea on June 25th, 1950. As North Korea had steadily reinforced military establishments prior to the sudden attack, the crisis was being formed gradually, and the government of South Korea had information on this situation. The president and the Minister of National Defense made a press conference to notice the possibility of imminent war. Furthermore, the government tried to manage crisis on preventing war through diplomat and military actions even in inferiority of military forces. However, deficiency of adamant circumstantial judgments and a strategy to prevent the war caused the aftermath of outbreak of Korean War. Three days after the sudden attack, the capital city Seoul was taken away, so the government moved to Dae-Jeon. Nation’s forces were being damaged, and they evacuated mainly because there were no supply for weapons, ammunition and combat ration. The nation’s policy, such as governmental function, stability of civilian life and supplying resources for military operations, utterly did not work at the early stage of war. Moreover, managing crisis failed. This thesis proposes and analyzes the crisis management of Lee Seung Man Government. Since the Korean War occurred 2 years after South Korean government was founded, it was not easy to develop the ability of state to defend the attack of North Korea. Nevertheless, a number of lessons can be extracted by analyzing those situations with a crisis managing perspective. The essential purpose of crisis management is to prevent or deter a certain crisis by managing given situations and modifying circumstances, and to alleviate the crisis that already occurred. The current ability of crisis management in South Korea is much more developed so that it cannot be easily comparable with that of prior status. North Korea, however, has been researching nuclear weapons, kept threatening the Korean peninsula. As a result, it is sincerely recommendable that the South Korea government should effectively deter the analogous tragedy to maintain peace by scrutinizing the Korean War.