The third war the United States lost was the Korean affair:
The North Koreans drove us back to Pusan, we then drove them back more or less to the Yalu when the Chinese, aided by the Russian air force entered and drove us back nearly to Pusan. We then recovered and moved back north to an approximation of the pre 1950 dividing line. The American generals were seriously handicapped by the fact that Maclane was the Officer in the British Embassy in charge of liaison on the Korean War. He kept the Russians and through them the Chinese fully informed on our plans. MacArthur thought somebody was betraying his plans because the enemy so often pre-empted them. At the time, there was a tendency to discount this, but we now know it was true.
In any event, the war ended more or less where it had started. After much death and destruction, nothing had been gained. We may not have lost, but we certainly did not win.
I have to disagree on this one. Here is the text of the UN Resolution 84 on July 7, 1950:
——-
The Security Council,
Having determined that the armed attack upon the Republic of Korea by forces from North Korea constitutes a breach of the peace,
Having recommended that Members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area,
1. Welcomes the prompt and vigorous support which Governments and peoples of the United Nations have given to its resolutions 82 (1950) and 83 (1950) of 25 and 27 June 1950 to assist the Republic of Korea in defending itself against armed attack and thus to restore international peace and security in the area;
2. Notes that Members of the United Nations have transmitted to the United Nations offers of assistance for the Republic of Korea;
3. Recommends that all Members providing military forces and other assistance pursuant to the aforesaid Security Council resolutions make such forces and other assistance available to a unified command under the United States of America;
4. Requests the United States to designate the commander of such forces;
5. Authorizes the unified command at its discretion to use the United Nations flag in the course of operations against North Korean forces concurrently with the flags of the various nations participating;
6. Requests the United States to provide the Security Council with reports as appropriate on the course of action taken under the unified command.
Adopted at the 476th meeting
by 7 votes to none, with 3
abstentions (Egypt, India,
Yugoslavia).1
One member (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was absent.
——-
From the standpoint of the total victory of World War II, it looked like a defeat, and MacArthur felt that way. However, it wasn’t. Our objectives were to repel an invasion of South Korea and drive the invaders out. We achieved those objectives.
It looks like nothing short of total war, complete destruction, and unambiguous capitulation is good enough for the author. As he alluded to already, most of our wars have been limited engagements with limited objectives. Otherwise we’d have constantly faced armageddon and would never have lasted.
Those offensives of the Chinese only got the UN forces as south as about the 38th parallel. About where the war started.
The war was a stalemate but a brutal stalemate.
It is a wonder however that a most senior and experienced commander such as Mac Arthur was twice flummoxed by the commie. June and November of 1950 both. Ridgway was the only general officer that came out of Korea with his reputation intact?
Isn’t Tulloch over-egging the pudding a bit at this point?
His earlier assessments of the Barbary Wars and War of 1812 are useful correctives to the narrative up to a point.
Although not unique, until recently the assumption that every war should be an all-in crusade ending in total victory, or should be regarded as an embarrassing failure, has been a peculiarly American conceit. As a result, the Barbary War has been retold with a focus on heroics by William Eaton and Presley O’Bannon, or Stephen Decatur, without reference to the point and outcome. Or the War of 1812 recast as the Second War of Independence, the thwarting of a British attempt to recolonize the US [I'm Canadian, so that one is a real craw sticker.]It doesn’t seem to be enough to note the heroic efforts of the military in the Barbary war while acknowledging that war aims were not achieved, or to note that same heroism in the War of 1812 while noting that some aims were achieved [at sea and with the Indians] while others weren’t [Canada]. Or to accept that the UK mainly didn’t have to impress sailors anymore because the all-in war they were fighting in Europe was over.
So far, so good for Tulloch’s efforts.
But with Korea it is not clear to me the US ever had any idea what it’s war aims were- did anyone other than MacArthur assume that the aim of the US military effort was to crush the DPRK and unify the peninsula under the ROK, still less to win a war with China? And if not, how was the actual ceasefire not a successful outcome for the US? America’s puppet state was restored and went on to become a successful nation instead of being subsumed inside a peninsula-wide DPRK under Soviet or Chinese aegis.
That’s a win by the standards of most powers in most of military history. The Romans didn’t need every campaign to win back control of Armenia to turn into an attempt to destroy the Persian empire.
I feel like US leadership, government and military PR, media analysis, and public understanding would benefit by not thinking of every conflict as World War 2.
That doesn’t mean every war has to turn into a hundred year Indian war either. There has to be a happy medium.
The US had the ability to put both the USSR and communist China to sleep with nuclear weapons and saturation bombing. Thereafter, no more Korean war, no Vietnam war, no Malaysian conflict, no iron curtain in Europe.
The fact that the US restrained itself and allowed the two brutal and genocidal (over 100 million killed) states to grow and create mayhem the world over, indicates something about the US, although it is not clear exactly what.
Alice,
By your including Korea in your list [and ignoring Soviet nuclear retaliation anywhere] I assume your scenario would have had to feature this Third World War before 1950.
So between 1945-50 is the window for nuking Russia, and a hair-trigger window for nuking Communist China between 1 October 1949 and the start of the Korean war on 25 June 1950. The US decides little of importance that quickly.
So far as I can find, the US had 299 nuclear weapons in 1950, so enough possibly to knock both countries out if it takes this decision in 1949-50. again, a short window. Also, not sure how many of those were strategic, air-deliverable weapons as opposed to some of the early artillery shells or other projects, but since aerial bombs were the first and main area for nukes in that era, let’s arbitrarily assume all 299 are aerial bombs.
They would have had to be delivered by B29s, which could not reach any target in the western or central USSR flying from bases in the United States. They would have had to fly from airbases in the territory of sovereign European nations, sovereign Middle Eastern nations, European colonies, or after 1947 sovereign India or Pakistan. As much as the US made Pakistan a client state rapidly, and used their air bases for espionage, I don’t know they would have signed on for this before 1950. the European powers may have been getting Marshall aid, but I don’t know they would have signed on for Armageddon, or even for the launching of an aggressive conventional war during that period.
Or are you saying the US should have deployed B29 squadrons to these places and somehow managed to conceal it from its sort-of [pre-NATO] allied host countries until using their soil to launch a nuclear pre-emptive war? I doubt the western European countries would have thanked America for that, even if it worked perfectly. The eastern Europeans might have, but only if it worked perfectly. I can’t imagine it would have.
I am no expert on USSR air defence in that era, but they had large fighter forces. I note that the published service ceiling of a B-29 exceeds that of the Yak-9, but barely, and is comparable to that of the Yak-7. Presuming for a moment they could be detected, it is not impossible that in an attack of this scale some proportion of the US bombers could be prevented from delivering their weapons. That needs to be part of the calculations.
Unless some of the weapons were deployed in central Europe against Soviet forces, which would itself have meant killing civilians in European countries, this operation would most likely have resulted in a conventional Soviet attack on Western Europe. Admittedly, the Warsaw Pact did not yet exist and Soviet forces may not have been as prepared during this early Cold War period, but I will need to be convinced that they were weaker than the west, given the speed of US and UK demob in and after 1945 and the complete absence of a remilitarized West Germany. And the absence of NATO before 1949 or SHAPE as a unified command structure before 1951 {?}. The 3 allied powers would have had to use the occupation structure or revive SHAEF early.
Regardless of the precise correlation of forces, this scenario would pose a high risk of war in central Europe and significant fresh damage and high military and civilian casualties there, even if the outcome were complete defeat for the USSR due to the devastation of western USSR territory.
Not to mention any additional blows to the capacity of these fragile economies to recover from WW2, a process barely begun. It sure would have killed off some DPs, but probably generated new ones.
Given that the Iron Curtain posed a huge risk for generations but ultimately little loss of life in Europe, they at least would probably not consider this scenario a good alternative. Even ignoring any consideration of fallout drifting west.
Unless the US had had many more nukes and a much better delivery system, and significant conventional superiority in place in Europe, the odds on this scenario suggest it would have been nuts. Even US forces in Europe would have taken major losses.
Nor would using air bases in occupied Japan, which could not have complained or prevented use of its soil for this, have helped much. Nothing essential in the USSR could be reached by a B-29 from Japan, which would have been able to hit only identified targets [don't known how good intel was] in or east of the Urals even if flying from the northern tip of Hokkaido.
Taking out the Soviets before 1950 this way was almost certainly a non-starter. Definitely if the sole rationale is preventing the casualties of later conflicts, which would have likely been made good by casualties in the heart of Europe, including US military casualties.
There’s room for more comparative math of course. If we count all dead from the wars you cite including enemy/military and civilian dead [the bulk of the deaths in Vietnam by far would be these categories], then we should be calculating as well how many Soviet military and civilians the US would be killing in its first strike, as well as all military and civ dead of all sides in Europe. Even counting the mountains of Vietnamese civilians killed in that war, I am not so sure your nuclear war in Europe would not have killed more.
If the question is, as I might agree from the perspective of national interest and the needs of our own peoples and families, only the reduction of US and allied dead, then I would point out that really only Korea and Vietnam generated these in significant numbers. Malaysia hardly rates. AS I have suggested, I would need to be convinced that your scenario could be pulled off without blowback killing at least a corresponding 100,000 Americans and citizens of friendly nations in Europe. Perhaps, but it’s possible to take 100,000 dead fast if it’s an all in war with whoever was in place in Germany, and especially since friendly civilians are also going to get killed. It doesn’t need to take 3 years as in Korea or 10 years of pointless screwing around as in Vietnam.
I might even add that while Korea may have been inevitable, or something like it, participation in the war in Vietnam was a pure matter of choice by the US, and the absurd ten year plus mess by which that participation manifested was entirely the doing of US leadership. The 58,000 plus dead America left in Indochina were not a mathematical consequence of America not deciding to kill millions in 1949, possibly including >58,000 of their own men anyway.
[China isn't protected by all that geography stuff of course, and there were few civilians around about whom the US cared in 1949. The US could probably have dropped all 299 nukes on it from bases in Japan, so long as it was willing to waste its existing arsenal [production geared up FAST 1950-55]. OR fewer, to do an adequate job and maintain deterrence against the Russians, and presuming it could have arrived at a decision to launch a war of aggression in Asia between 1 October 1949 and 25 June 1950.
This from a country that was even then still whining about the appalling underhandedness of the Japanese, for daring to launch a surprise attack on a 100% legitimate military target that had substantial defences that could and should have been on at least some level of alert. The Japanese who actually had gone to the trouble of sending a formal declaration of war that sadly happened to get screwed up in the timing.
[This formality was a VERY recent concept in international law, barely preceding the 20th century and not formalized until after 1900. I think it was in the Hague Conventions. So if Japan had omitted it, it would have been a Hague violation, but hardly an unprecedented moral outrage worthy of Cordell Hull bunching up his skirts like an offended virgin. And, of course, the Japanese hadn't omitted it.]
This America, outraged for years by an accidental violation of international law and custom of recent origin, involving an attack on a geographically specific, defended military target, far less outrageous than say, the holocaust, is supposed by 1949 to turn around and launch an unprovoked nuclear attack on China, killing millions of civilians in attacks on cities. And then go on lecturing the Japanese about Pearl Harbor. I’m wholly down with Truman nuking Japanese cities to finish off a declared war started by Japan, after years of combat in which aerial bombing had already been a normal feature. I doubt he was prepared to turn around and be the guy who started a war in Asia by nuking the cities of country with which America was at peace.]
Addendum:
I suppose the US could have used airbases in Germany for this, but it would have been cutting it fine from a political point of view. And OpSec.
Before 1949, the US had in practice full charge of an occupation zone, so few legal niceties and no local host state to get annoyed by the abuse of its territory to launch a nuclear war of aggression. On the other hand, technically it was a US administration of part of a country under 4 Power occupation, and there were legal authorities allowing Allied observation missions in each other’s zones. I don’t know how rigorously the USSR carried these out in the western zones, but the allies did them in what became East Germany before and after 1950 and right through the Cold War. Plus the Soviets had stitched up western Germany with illegal observers pretty good. The arrival of multiple B-29 squadrons in occupied Germany would not have gone unnoticed. And it would have been reported fast.
And from 1949, although not yet fully sovereign, there would have been a German government in place in the west, the Federal Republic of Germany. They would have expressed their views obsequiously, but they would have had views.
Graham, you have a great imagination! Looking so far back in time is difficult for most so you are not to be blamed. Wikipedia and “common knowledge” are poor substitutes for what actually happned, of course.
The myth of the mighty USSR lives on in propaganda heaven.
I don’t see how mighty the USSR had to be for my scenario to come to pass, or indeed how its ‘mightiness’ on any scale affects the other considerations I raised.
I await information as to numbers of Soviet versus American troops in Europe 1945-50, and demonstration that Soviet drawdown had been larger or more rapid than American and British had been. My statement that West Germany did not exist before 1949 and there was no German army in place before the early 1950s is valid, and that army later formed a major component of western defences in terms of numbers and equipment. More important than any other than the US Army in Europe. With the former absent and the latter in a very stripped down occupation mode, European defences were not what they were even in 1955.
But the scenario in question didn’t require the USSR to be all that strong in Europe, or even ultimately strong enough to win. Please read again. To counter Alice’s scenario, all the Russians have to do in Europe in the wake of US nuclear attack on them is to kill at least 100,000 combined US and allied soldiers and, since they were friendly peoples, I included European civilians. That would not have been that hard. 100,000 is not that many under those circumstances. If they do that, even if they ultimately are crushed, then this putative US-launched war in Europe has killed more people than the later Cold War conflicts Alice cited, even excluding all the dead Russian civilians. Therefore it was not worth it by Alice’s own definition.
From the point of view of Americans, presumably it would not be worth it if the total US military dead equals or exceeds that of Korea and Vietnam. Perhaps it would be worth it from the American perspective if most of that 100k or so are European civilians, but if that is the decision point I reiterate that from the point of view of anyone else I would not appreciate 1949 America sparing itself 100,000 future military fatalities [58,000 of which indisputably in a war of choice which America did not have to wage or, in waging it, do so so stupidly] by killing at least that many European friendly civilians.
And none of that calculus has any bearing on the logistics. To launch their unprovoked nuclear attack on the USSR, the US would have had to either have the unlikely cooperation of one or more of its WW2 allies, or violate their sovereignty in order to launch a surprise nuclear attack on a country with which it was [and they were] at peace, killing millions.
And, again, this from an America that seemed to deeply believe [or at least whined like schoolgirls for decades that they believed] that Pearl Harbor was a first-tier outrage against law and morality.
And, again, this was not the age of missile farms, SLBMs, or even transcontinental bombers. Those aircraft would have had to be moved into place over time, and even if that time were days, an operation on that scale would have been noticed. Which means military and diplomatic reactions before the bombing takes place. It doesn’t get to be a bolt from the blue.
Also, I’m continuing to studiously ignore the heart of the matter, in which in this scenario America makes its foreign policy easier and spares itself minimum 58k Vietnam military dead that were its own fault in every way and in no way the inevitable product of the Cold War, by committing mass murder in the millions and devastating much of Eurasia.
Now, this plan would certainly seem sensible in retrospect if we had a massive nuclear war later that was far worse. But now we know it was possible to survive the Cold War without that. I guess that was the gamble. The coin having turned up as it did, I for one am glad America didn’t murder a whole bunch of Russians and Chinese for its own convenience in 1949, and risk at least some number of Europeans into the bargain.
I assume this mentality is the product of America’s assumption, then as now, that it should be able to do whatever it wants in the world without limit or consequence, without regard to the lives of anyone else or the interests of any other country, and above all without any difficulty affecting Americans at home, with the overall result being a perfect peace [for Americans] under the benevolent aegis of the US Air Force and the Jedi Knights. Conventional diplomacy and statecraft, or even having to lose troops in overseas wars whether largely necessary and circumstantial[Korea] or stupid and freely chosen [Vietnam]seems both dangerous [for Americans] and tawdry when perfect peace can be achieved with one act of mass murder [of non-Americans].
Funny how closely idealism and genocide can mix.