Successes and Failures of the Korean war for the USA

Successes:

  • Getting involved shows Truman’s determination to fight communism

  • Choosing MacArthur to lead the UN forces was good as he is a well-known war hero after accepting the surrender of Emperor Hirohito of Japan in 1945, and he had the best knowledge of South-East Asia.

  • The Inchon landing were successful, and forced the North Koreans back to the 38th parallel which allows General Almond’s X corps to capture Seoul back and Walton’s 8th army to break out of the Pusan perimeter

Failures:

  • MacArthur visits Chiang in Formosa before arriving in South Korea, against Truman’s orders. Chiang offers to send troops, but MacArthur denies saying it might jeopardise Formosa. It seems like Truman is condemning Mao’s China.

  • Truman pursued rollback, giving in to MacArthur who didn’t believe that China would intervene as they had just fought the civil war, and because he was getting harassed by the American people and press, “why is the president holding back general MacArthur” – Lucius Battle. He failed to listen to experts on the matter, such as the CIA “from a military standpoint, the most favourable time for intervention in Korea has passed” and others such as Paul Nitze, author of NSC-68 stated “we guarantee you that the United states will not be permitted to defeat the North Korean regime”

  • Truman allows MacArthur to pursue rollback, and as the troops approach the Yalu river (border between China and North Korea), China launches a counterattack under the leadership of Peng Duhai. 6000 US soldiers die.

  • MacArthur demands Truman to threaten China with atomic attacks if they refuse to withdraw from Korea, stating famously “there is no substitute for victory”. Truman refuses MacArthur as he knows that Russia has atomic weapons and due to the Sino-Russian pact of 1950, Russia would most likely retaliate, causing nuclear Armageddon.

  • Truman decides to fire MacArthur, stopping the outbreak of WWIII, but republicans call for Truman to be placed on trial for cowardly betrayal of the US army.