Korea: No Substitute for Victory

General MacArthur stated that “There is no substitute for victory in war.” Regarding the Korean War, is this statement correct? If so, why? If not, why not?

Argument

There is no substitute for victory in war. Going to war with any expectation less than victory fails to effectively leverage a nations’ war machine to achieve its political goals. Additionally, failure to achieve victory conflicts with any prior cost-benefit analysis in the weighting of the expected outcome (victory) against costs borne (death, debt, etc). All of these prior statements are a gross simplification of the issue. They over-simplify the situation by casting a static view of war. War is by no means static. As Clausewitz said, “war consists of a continuous interaction of opposites.” It is a process which requires sophisticated gaming strategy and the availability of quality intelligence.

If confined to select whether MacArthur’s quote is true or false, I must say false. This selection is based principally on the fact that war is a dynamic situation where objectives may change between the time of onset and conclusion. At times, politicians will be forced to make a decision between “two evils” that may not have been within the initial purview of planning. Politicians may also underestimate foreign superpowers thereby increasing the likelihood of being painted into a corner where an exit strategy is more important than accomplishment of initial objectives (victory). In the case of the Korean War, politicians changed the objectives between the onset and conclusion of the war thereby making it difficult to answer the question: What was victory in the Korean War?

In the context of MacArthur’s statement “there is no substitute for victory,” he was frustrated with the increasing likelihood that the war may evolve into a stalemate. Such a war would result in avoidable American deaths according to General MacArthur. Executing MacArthur’s plans for a quick decisive victory would have required: 1) introduction of Chinese Nationalist forces into Korea, 2) bombing Manchurian bases and 3) blockading China. MacArthur argued that taking these actions were not necessarily escalatory when compared to the initial actions to intervene. He contended that the initial decision to intervene was escalatory.

The American objectives for Korea evolved over time. Winning one of them is not necessarily a victory but a continuance of U.S. policy. Initially, the U.S. stance on Korea was that it had no strategic significance to the U.S. General MacArthur and Secretary of State Dean Acheson both made statements to that effect in March 1949 and January 1950 respectively. There statements were weak in regards to defending South Korea and at least partially conflicted with a concurrent communist containment policy. Given MacArthur and Acheson’s statements, it is easy to see why the North Koreans invaded. They perceived that any invasion would not be challenged by U.S. troops. Thus, openly promoting a non-strategic view of Korea was a policy failure. But was it important to have this one policy victory? I would argue no. In this case there was not an imminent threat of invasion from the North. In fact, the North Korean head of state actually shopped his decision to invade the south around before taking any action. Additionally, the U.S. had the nuclear bomb monopoly. These period specific dynamics allowed the U.S. to take a moderate stance on Korea that did not necessarily need a policy victory. There was a substitute for victory here. That substitute, was tempering U.S. involvement in Korea with a Goldilocks approach. What is the minimum commitment by the U.S. that will result in containment of communism and preserving individual rights in Korea? In pulling out of Korea in 1949, the U.S. was on its way to determining what was just right.

The invasion of South Korea by Kim Il Sung’s forces proved to be the next stimulant in determining a Goldilocks policy solution. Now, President Truman was confronted with a remarkable chain of events: Berlin blockade, the Czech coup, communist victory in China and now Korea. This clearly showed that “communism was on the march and had to be stopped on principle.” The U.S. currently enjoyed the pro-western orientation of Japan which had the potential of being undermined if communism was allowed to spread. A victory was now needed to contain communism.

Truman gained the endorsement of the world, through the NATO Security Council, to drive the North Koreans back above the 38th Parallel. Enforcing the Security Council’s decision required no substitute for victory. Truman achieved this quickly, but based on both Joint Chiefs of Staff and Security Council input, authorized General MacArthur to operate north of the 38th parallel if there were no indication