Wednesday
27 October 1999
0830-1130 (SE)
The enemy commander will reason that no one would be so brash as to make such an attempt. Surprise is the most vital element for success in war.... By seizing Seoul I would completely paralyze the enemy's supply system-coming and going. This in turn willparalyze the fighting power of the troops that now face Walker....
Douglas MacArthur,
briefing on the Inchon Landing, August 1950
The war in Korea should not be speeded up, since a drawn out war, in the first place, gives the possibility to the Chinese troops to study contemporary warfare on the field of battle and in the second place shakes up the Truman regime in America and harms the military prestige of the Anglo-American troops.
Stalin to Mao Zedong, June 1951
Introduction:
During the two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century, the United States moved to a preeminent position of power in the world, having shown the capability to project military power to multiple theaters simultaneously. In 1950, however, Americans faced a war that tested them in a different way. The Korean War brought a number of nasty surprises to the United States: only five years after achieving global preeminence, U.S. forces were stunned by a third-rate military power; when U.S. forces had recovered, achieved the advantage, and were moving to complete the victory, China's entry presented an entirely new war; and the United States found itself leading the United Nations coalition in Korea while involved in the early stages of the Cold War with a Soviet Union that had recently acquired the atomic bomb. In the circumstances, the United States opted for a war of limited objectives and the use of limited means.
While limited war was not a new phenomenon, the Korean War brought to the fore characteristics distinctly different from the experience of World War II. For the United States, such a war provided far less justification for generating the popular will and support for paying that price. The conflict aimed at considerably less grandiose objectives, but, given the threat of an expanded war with devastating consequences, political and military leaders found it more difficult to design effective national and theater strategies for gaining limited goals in Korea. While the war required fewer military forces, the demands on those forces were of a different character and quality than required of temporarily conscripted soldiers. In sum, the limited war in Korea called for a rethinking of military theory concerning the character and conduct of warfare in those circumstances.
An in-class exercise offers you the chance to experience firsthand how the changes in the character and conduct of war limited the strategic choices available to American political and military leaders. The setting for the exercise is January 1951; the Chinese have entered the conflict following the UN drive to the Yalu River and have advanced south of Seoul in an offensive that threatens to push UN troops off the Korean peninsula. Designing a strategy that will stop the Chinese, pacify UN allies, and minimize the threat of Soviet intervention will not be easy. Yet it is the task that faces you as you assume the role of a staff officer serving in a special action group created by Secretary of Defense George Marshall. Unhappily, similar dilemmas are likely to await you in the "real" world following your graduation from the War College.
Objectives:
- Comprehend the character and conduct of the Korean War.
- Analyze and critique the application of military power during the Korean War in light of the theories studied thus far in the course.
- Gain experience using the NWC Framework for Military Strategy to develop courses of action for a crisis situation.
Issues for Consideration:
- What is limited war, and how does it differ from other kinds of war? Does the concept of limited war imply a particular relationship between the elements of Clausewitz's trinity? What ideas from theorists you've studied previously in this course seem particularly relevant to the phenomenon of limited war?
- The countries in the Korean War had differing political objectives. How did these differing objectives affect the character of the war? How well were these divergences understood by the parties involved at the time?
- Which elements of land, sea, or air operations successful in World War II were suitable for use in Korea? Which were not? Why?
- What constraints (physical, operational, and political) did each side encounter in the conduct of operations?
- Were the limits faced in prosecuting the war focused more on the objectives themselves or the means used to achieve those objectives? How did these constraints differ from those of eighteenth century "limited war"?
- What were the key domestic and international factors that affected the major combatants? Was it possible for the U.S. to secure outright victory in Korea? Please define "victory" in presenting your answer.
Required Readings:
* Larry H. Addington, The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century, 2nd ed.(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 270-279. (Student Issue)
* Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1977), pp. 382-398. (Student Issue)
* Thomas G. Paterson and Dennis Merrill, eds., Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol. II: Since 1914 (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1995), pp. 366-383, 395-414. (Reprint)
* 5 June 1951 telegram, Filippov to Mao Zedong, in Cold War International History Project Bulletin (CWIHPB), Issues 6-7, pp. 59-60. (Reprint)
* 13 August 1951 telegram, Mao Zedong to Filippov, in CWIHPB, Issues 6-7, pp. 67-68. (Reprint)
* "Record of Conversation between Comrade Stalin and Zhou Enlai," 20 August 1952, in CWIHPB, Issues 6-7, pp. 10-14. (Reprint)
* 29 March 1953 and 20 April 1956 telegrams in CWIHPB, Issues 6-7, pp. 83-84. (Reprint)
Supplemental Reading:
* T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: Korea-A Study in Unpreparedness (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1963).
* Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967).
* Dean Acheson, The Korean War (New York: W. W. Norton Company, Inc., 1971).
* Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1973), pp. 57-112.
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