A Perceptive Account of the Generational Korean War

Korea: War without End is a thorough, comprehensive, and grippingly told history of the Korean War, by two prominent and experienced British military authors and commentators. They make a serious effort to give the British interpretation of a highly controversial subject – making it even more controversial. American readers may well find it somewhat annoying and irritating, but it is certainly stimulating and well worth pondering. They begin their book by saying bluntly that this war is forgotten, and it is forgotten because it is misunderstood. And it is misunderstood, in their view, because it was really two distinct wars.

These three terms– “forgotten,”
“misunderstood,” and “two distinct wars,” are the key to understanding their book. That it is forgotten is beyond dispute. That it is misunderstood is perhaps the heart of the matter. But that it is two separate wars is dubious, and perhaps contradicts their own narrative; indeed, one could just as easily separate it into five separate wars. But it was misunderstood, at the time, just as much as now. Contemporary statements calling it a “police action” minimize the significance of a very large, bloody, dangerous conflict. America suffered 136,000 soldiers killed, wounded, and missing. China lost a million troops; and South Korea 1.5 million people, and North Korea 2 million, including civilians. It was truly a major war that upended East-West relations in 1950 and was seen plainly as threatening – or as being waged to prevent - World War III and a possible nuclear exchange. Marked by several total reversals of fortune, It was confusing to people at the time and remains so today.

The authors give a thorough military history of the war, which this reviewer finds very perceptive and insightful – in particular their description of American battlefield failures, defeats, poor materiel, and wrong doctrines, tactics, and strategy. This is alongside a sometimes conventional and sometimes controversial analysis of the political background which often smacks of 20/20 hindsight. BUT – other readers will no doubt take exactly the opposite viewpoint from this reviewer. Well, fine – this stimulating book will inspire serious debate.

So, first, what are the authors’ two Korean Wars – or your reviewer’s five?

Korean War Number 1 begins with the North Korean surprise drive into the South on June 25, 1950 – and the shocking, surprise collapse of the US troops who opposed them. (Done with Stalin’s approval. Zubok and Pleshakov say in “Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War” that Stalin’s papers reveal he planned it as a probe of Western reactions to a possible move in Europe, but this book doesn’t mention this.) Following the demobilization of the US conventional forces after WW II, our troops in South Korea and Japan were hopelessly untrained, unprepared, and poorly equipped. In addition, some Soviet equipment, particularly the T-34/85 tank, was superior to anything we had, smashing everything ranged against it. But the elephant in the room was the NK infantry – harder, better trained, better disciplined than our soft green troops. By 1950 US troops were pushed back, to the horror of the American public and leaders, to the “Pusan perimeter”, and in apparent danger of being pushed into the sea. But the authors note the fatal NK error of attacking on all fronts, instead of seeking a breakthrough and punching through on a direct drive to seize Pusan, trapping the US Army in Korea. And then on Sept. 15, 1950, MacArthur launched his landing behind their back at Inchon, trapping the now over-stretched NK Army in the South Korean peninsula, and completely reversing the situation from impending disaster to triumph. The authors call it a totally brilliant maneuver – and that’s the last good thing they have to say about MacArthur. And that is the “First Korean War” – the successful effort to fulfill the UN mandate to throw back the aggressor and secure the freedom of South Korea.

The humiliation of the beginning is a major reason for the American people to forget it. It was like Pearl Harbor, but with no revenge and no final victory. But at the time, in a heady state of triumph, the American public, the UN, Truman, and MacArthur embraced an offensive into North Korea, to conquer it and unite Korea under the South, exceeding the original UN mandate.

Thus begins Korean War Number 2, which the authors blame on MacArthur but provide plenty of quotes that show the public and Truman were totally behind it. Ill-planned and precipitous, it provided the Americans with another disastrous surprise defeat when the Chinese invaded in great force starting Oct.-Nov. 1950. The authors say we should have quit when we were ahead, after Inchon, but this writer simply wonders how this could have been achieved, diplomatically or psychologically. (How much of the decades of rigid hostility of the North Korean regime has been due to its bitterness at being cheated of its almost-victory at Pusan over world power America?)

Again the Americans folded, retreating in disorder. At this point they had a massive superiority in firepower, artillery, armor, air; but the Chinese infantry was tougher, more motivated, superior in tactics, able to take losses and mount costly human wave assaults. As the authors explain it, MacArthur lost confidence in his army and turned more and more to advocating an air war on China, maybe with nuclear weapons, while Truman turned – gradually - against this.

But a new “Third Korean War” began with the arrival of General Matthew Ridgway in Dec. 1950. Briefly, Ridgway went on the defensive, and let the Chinese offensive beat itself to death against a strong, well-planned line of positional defenses – something completely outside the US Army’s WWII experience. The Chinese took huge casualties, MacArthur was sacked and replaced by Ridgway, and again the situation was totally reversed.

The “Fourth Korean War” phase then begins in April 1951, as the Chinese again launched a massive offensive, at Mao Tse Tung’s command, to break Ridgway’s line and take the South again. Here, the US superiority in firepower told, and Mao’s willingness to sacrifice his infantry in frontal assaults rather than rely on infiltration and envelopment cost him intolerable casualties – a huge and callous waste of his own men’s lives. Ridgway then surprised the Chinese by not undertaking a new offensive to regain the North. And here everything changed again; with the death of Stalin, Russian support evaporated. The Russians proposed negotiations, and after refusing them for the previous year, China and North Korea sat down to talk, but with no desire for peace. And so we have our “Fifth Korean War”, empty talk and a stalemate with violence continuing until President-elect Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons; and there was a ceasefire without a peace treaty on July 27, 1953, that continues to this day.

The authors do us a great service in showing just how complex this situation really was. It’s no surprise that the American public has long chosen not to think about it, since it fits neither the political narratives of our right or left. The right does not like its defeats and military failures, and the left would have it that American anti-communism caused the antagonisms that resulted in the Korean War – not Soviet and North Korean aggression. It’s worth mentioning that the desire for good relations with the USSR persisted strongly after WWII, as shown in Henry Wallace’s “Progressive Party” insurgency in the 1948 election, where he had the Democratic left and the Communist Party USA solidly behind him until the “Berlin Blockade” when the USSR first sought to overturn the specific agreements that ended WWII, and threatened war to achieve this. This shock ended the open influence of the US Communist Party in American politics, though Wallace only changed his positive stand on Russia with the second shock of the Korean invasion.

Another point the authors might have considered was the disturbing ambivalence of the American people over nuclear weapons – fear mixed with the hope that they might enable us to enforce peace throughout the postwar world without the huge expense of a conventional army and navy. After all, if the atomic bomb could destroy all conventional weapons, why keep them? In 1949, with “the Revolt of the Admirals” Truman came down very hard on the all-nuclear side of the argument, cutting the Navy and firing its leadership when they rose to protest, and also raise the question of the morality of the direct attack on civilian populations urged by the US Air Force. The possibility of a “limited war” like Korea was thus a shock to Truman’s own preconceptions.

And a final point, the authors could have given us a bit more on the Korean historical and cultural background. Like Japan, Korea seems to be a nation so devoted to its identity and culture that it was willing to isolate itself from the outside world to preserve them. But unlike Japan, Korea was located between powerful neighbors, China, Japan, then Russia, then the US, and preserving its identity and unity while playing them off against each other was a desperate struggle. The Korean War is all of a piece with Korea’s struggle to survive throughout its long history.

In summation, this highly intelligent book may not be the last word on the subject, but it is highly recommended, both to those who know nothing about the subject, or those who think they know everything about it. Its critical look at the military performance, weaknesses, and tactics of both sides is very, very perceptive.

---///---

Our Reviewer: Robert P. Largess is the author of USS Albacore; Forerunner of the Future, and articles on the USS Triton, SS United States, the origin of the towed sonar array, and the history of Lighter-than-Air. He has contributed book reviews to ‘The Naval Historical Foundation’ (http://www.navyhistory.org) and The International Journal of Naval History (http://www.ijnhonline.org). His earlier reviews here include The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, King Arthur’s Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England, Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Winning a Future War: War Gaming and Victory in the Pacific War, The Fate of Rome, "Tower of Skulls", A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the Fall of Corregidor, July 1937-May 1942, and Nathaniel Lyon’s River Campaign of 1861.

---///---

Note: Korea: War without End is also available in e-editions.

StrategyPage reviews are published in cooperation with The New York Military Affairs Symposium

www.nymas.org