AFP NOTES 3/19

Lecture 14: Origins of the Cold War, 1945-1953, Part 2
sorry for the lack of organization, there was only a tiny outline given.

June 1950- N.Korea invades S.Korea
-up until that point, containment was the name of the game
-US has 'drawn a line in the sand'
-communists violate it, korea is the first test of containment

Up until this point, 'perfect communication' is assumed
-this is simply not true
-problems in communications and intentions, etc, complicate the situation
-mistakes begin to dominate the international playing field

Really, only a few possibilities of soviet attack were considered
-surprise attack against US territory
-pearl harbor was the model for this
-soviet invasion of western europe
-this was the area of the 'iron curtain'
-place where the us/soviet divide was most obvious
-the 'peripheral' strategy was never even considered

Korea was occupied by japan during WWII, then occupied by joint us-soviet command
-spheres of influence established, north are communist, south is democratic
-Soviets take at face value US pronouncement that korea is outside the US protection sphere
-US had allowed china to fall, that was a much bigger loss
-nobody thought they'd fight over tiny little korea
-MacArthur actually went through and named the islands under the protection of the US sphere of defense
-neither korea nor taiwan were mentioned
-american policymakers were still hoping that the nationalist forces would reconquest mainland china
-throughout 1949, US withdraws from south korea
-US essentially deliberately starves S.Korean forces to make sure they couldn't invade the north on their own
-Jan 1950- US SoS Dean Acheson specifically states that the US will NOT intervene in mainland asia
-Europe is the focus of any possible war
-the lesson drawn from WWII, however, was that unless aggressors are stopped early, they'll steamroll ahead until it becomes very difficult to stop them


A) Containment Tested: Korea

38th Parallel
June 25, 1950- S. Korea invaded by N. Korea
-2 days later, MacArthur commits massive naval and air forces to S.Korean defense
-June 30, MacArthur gets approval for ground forces as well
-also, unprecedented (and singular, during the cold war) action- UN sends peacekeeping forces through the security council
-UN member states contribute forces, it's not ONLY the US forces doing the fighting
-UN resolution gives truman moral leverage, he uses it a whole bunch
-US policymakers have NO plan for this sort of event
-peripheral, limited war was never considered
-US is playing this one by ear
-truman makes a few decisions to contain the war to Korea
-sends the 7th fleet to ensure Taiwanese defense
-first explicit US commitment to protect taiwan
-increased support to french forces in indochina

Pyongyang
MacArthur sees this as opportunity not just to contain N.Korean aggression, but to start a policy of 'rollback'
-could actually reunite korea up to chinese border
-truman picked up on this, announced that koreans had a right to be 'free, independent, and UNITED'
-says pyongyang will be the 'first' iron curtain capital to be liberated (implication is that it wont be the last)
-to do this, MacArthur makes an amphibious landing behind N.Korean forces, fuckslams their troops to all hell
-MacArthur gets authorization to go beyond the 38th parallel
-oct 7, US troops cross the parallel
-US introduces a resolution into the UN supporting this event, passes by vote of 47-5
this is known as 'mission creep'
-where your mission gradually moves forward and gets bigger
-truman makes 'reunification' the explicit goal of US policy in korea
MacArthur was ordered NOT to approach the chinese border (yalu river)
-unfortunately, the order was never made public, and macarthur ignored it anyways
if US policymakers had studied history, they'd have known what the chinese response would have been
-twice before, korea had been used as a springboard to invade mainland china
-end of the 16th and end of the 19th century
-chinese realized that the only way to make sure their borders were secure was to keep korea secure
-November 26th, chinese launch a MASSIVE invasion along the yalu river
-seoul is reoccupied by communist forces
Seoul
if the chinese had decided to just stop there, return to prewar borders, they would have won a huge moral victory
-mao decided to go forward, overplayed his hand just like the US did before

Douglas MacArthur
truman's guiding motive was to prevent a third world war
-macarthur did not accept this reasoning
-he believed the americans couldn't limit themselves and still win the war
-US was still massively eurocentric
-US sends troops into western europe even during the war
-asia is a 'holding operation'
-it's at this point that the US allows for germany to rearm
-does so to reinforce their capacities in europe
-macarthur calls administration 'europhiles'
-'it is ASIA that is the real test of containment'
-if asia falls, europe stands no chance
-his plan was to step up the bombing campaign to include mainland china (particularly airbases and industry)
-impose a naval blockade on china
-intensify US operations in Korea (the troops being sent to europe should have been sent to Korea)
-introduce nationalist chinese forces to the korean front
-this was the last straw
-April 11, 1951- truman fires macarthur
-scared that macarthur's comments would bring soviets into the war
-truman says that he didnt fire macarthur because he was a bastard, he fired him because he wasnt following orders
here's the problem now
-US can't win
-if they did, they risk brining soviets into the war
-US can't lose
-US has put far too much moral capital into the war to lose
-only solution is to reestablish stalemate
-the establishment of stalemate took sooooo long
-more american casualties during the negotiation time than during the rest of the war
This was first war fought by the US with limitations
-Offensive limitations
-limited war, no nukes
-Defensive limitations
-same kind of thing

post korean war, massive increase in defense expenditures
-up 257%
-leads to the security dilemma

the issue was that the US was a status quo power after the end of wwii, while soviets were a revisionist power
-soviets only gain from upending the international system
-this fact means there is no possibility of reconciliation between the two