Taylor Downing reviews Korea, War Without End
This review by the historian Taylor Downing was published in https://the-past.com/review/books/korea-war-without-end/
General The Lord Dannatt, once Chief of the General Staff, has teamed up with military historian Robert Lyman to provide a fascinating new take on the Korean War of 1950 to 1953. Their book has three premises. First, that the conflict in Korea is a forgotten one that very much deserves retelling. Second, that the war is very topical today partly because it shows how to fight (or not to fight) a conventional war in a nuclear age, and partly because it shows how politics must always take precedence over military ambition. And, third, the authors argue that the war was not a single conflict but was in fact two wars, quite separate but consecutive.
The ‘first’ war is the story of the surprise invasion of South Korea by the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA), or the In Mun Gun, in June 1950 as their leader Kim Il Sung sought to reunite the Korean peninsula under Communist control without having any sense of the political response he would unleash. What followed was a rapid advance towards the southern city of Pusan in a form of Blitzkrieg that had not been seen since World War II.
This early phase covers the establishment of a US-led United Nations force for the first time in its history – only formed because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council at the time. US troops finally slowed the NKPA advance and then, in a brilliant counterstroke masterminded by General Douglas MacArthur, an amphibious troop landing took place behind enemy lines at Inch on. This resulted in a complete reversal in the fortunes of the North Koreans and their retreat to pretty well their starting lines on the 38th Parallel that had divided the peninsula since 1945.
This, the authors argue, is where the war should have ended. The UN had achieved its aim of liberating the south from a Communist takeover. But instead a ‘second’ war unfolded in which General MacArthur, convinced that he was fighting a crusade against world Communism, advanced rapidly through North Korea towards the Yalu River and the border with Communist or (as he called it) ‘Red’ China. For him, victory had to include total defeat of the enemy. In scenes of remarkable hubris, MacArthur was convinced he had the war wrapped up and his troops would be home by Christmas. Instead, he provoked an attack by the Chinese People’s Volunteers on a massive scale, leading to the humiliating rout of US troops and a midwinter retreat back into southern Korea.
This ‘second’ war had as its next phase the final standstill along lines roughly similar to the 38th Parallel and two years of stalemate, before an armistice was signed. The breakdown of the war into two separate conflicts is a fine way of interpreting the remarkable see-saw events of the first year of fighting. Seoul was captured and recaptured four times in nine months. Pyongyang was captured and lost, becoming the only Communist capital to have been taken in battle during the entire Cold War.
In the first stages of the conflict, UN troops, largely Americans who had been sent in from keeping the peace in Japan and who were entirely untrained and unprepared for combat, were thrown back so rapidly that many simply threw down their weapons and retreated. The NKPA, using the tactics the Japanese had used in their invasions of Malaya and Burma, completely outclassed the unprepared US forces.
Then, a few months later, the US-led advance made the Americans feel completely unstoppable as they headed north, only to be turned once more by the Chinese. Again, tactically outclassed and totally unprepared for mountain warfare in midwinter, where conditions were brutal, the UN forces collapsed. It is a remarkable story that very much merits the retelling.
Gripping account
Several features stand out in this gripping account. First, the utter unpreparedness of the United States for war in 1950. After triumphant victories in 1945, and feeling secure behind possession of the atom bomb, the US army had been depleted to the extent that it could barely deliver combat-worthy troops to the battlefield five years later. The horrors of the first shameful defeats of Task Force Smith in July 1950 are vividly told in the book.
Second, General Douglas MacArthur is praised for his tactical sense and his brilliant plan for the Inchon Landings, which turned the course of the war in September 1950. But then the authors spare nothing in pointing the finger at him in the following months. Being the political and military supremo in Occupied Japan for the previous five years (even Emperor Hirohito seems to have looked up to him) must have turned his head. Often described as a ‘Proconsul’, he felt answerable to no one. And he surrounded himself with staff officers who only told him what they thought he wanted to hear.
MacArthur was convinced he had the war wrapped up and his troops would be home by Christmas.
So, when he pushed UN forces on through North Korea towards China, he ignored all the evidence that the Chinese would respond. His advisers said there were merely 40,000 Chinese troops gathering on their side of the border. In fact at least 300,000 Chinese People’s Volunteers had already taken up positions in the mountains of North Korea. Driven on by his own hubris and sense of anti-Communism, he ignored the rules set down by his commander-in-chief, President Truman, who by this time was determined to confine the Korean conflict to a limited war. The one time they met, on Wake Island on 15 October, the President travelled 14,000 miles but the general travelled only 4,000 miles to meet his boss.
Truman should have laid down the law, but failed to do so, and their meeting only encouraged MacArthur to further reinforce his ambitions over the following months. The authors accuse MacArthur of the ‘curse of political stupidity’ for failing to understand how a conventional war should be fought in a nuclear era. By this point of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, backing North Korea, already had its own atom bomb. Instead of threatening China with the use of nuclear weapons (which only the president could authorise) MacArthur should have realised that his comments could cause an escalation to nuclear armageddon.
Having issued a statement that flatly contradicted the political views of his president and the chiefs of staff in Washington, Truman finally decided he had to act and dismissed his super-powerful general in April 1951. The calmer and more politically astute General Matthew Ridgway replaced him.
Heroic defence
Many pages are devoted to the heroic defence by British troops along the Imjin river in April 1951, when a new Chinese assault threatened Seoul once again. The Gloucestershire Regiment bravely fought off three Chinese divisions. Seoul was saved but the British units suffered more than 1,000 casualties, including 140 dead and more than 800 captured.
The authors each bring their own style to Korea. Some chapters are strong on the broad strategic significance of the war and of the relationship between politicians and military leaders. These sections were presumably written by Lord Dannatt. And the chapters that drill down into episodes of individual combat in considerable detail with a flair for describing the to and fro of military encounters are presumably written by Robert Lyman. [Authors’ note: its an understandable surmise, but actually not true!] One criticism, however: the book could do with more maps to help the reader follow the narrative with its many twists and turns.
From July 1951, Washington decided that complete victory in Korea against a determined Chinese army was impossible. Without the likelihood of unconditional surrender, negotiation was the only way to end the war. But the negotiations lasted two years of time-wasting and farcical tricks by the North to prolong the discussions. This cost another 375,000 casualties. It took 24 months for the Communist powers to accept that their own victory was impossible and that Korea would remain divided. Only after Stalin’s death and a threat to China from Eisenhower, the new American president, was an armistice finally agreed and signed at Panmunjom on 27 July 1953.
In their final reflections, the authors see many parallels between events in Korea in the early 1950s and those in Ukraine since 2022. In each case, ambitious leaders, Kim Il Sung and Vladimir Putin, launched an attack on a neighbour for political ends. Both misjudged the response of the other side. In 1950, the UN rallied behind a power that had been invaded. In 2022, no such global army was formed, but the international community responded in a way the aggressor had not anticipated. In both cases, what was expected to be a short smash-and-grab military operation resulted in a long and painful war. In both cases the lives of millions (in Korea) or hundreds of thousands (in Ukraine) have been lost.
The United States learnt an important lesson in Korea. In order to maintain the peace and deter the enemy, the possession of a nuclear arsenal was not enough. Whether in Europe through NATO or in Asia through their regional alliances, the US needed to keep military forces that could respond in whatever way was necessary to prevent outright aggression or political- led military operations. The leadership in America today needs to remember that lesson.