"Korean War Outbreak: A Study in Unpreparedness" Topic

"The outbreak of the Korean War is a classic example of an army facing battle totally unprepared. Numerous histories of the Korean War have been written and many historians have discussed the outbreak of the Korean War. A point they nearly all agree upon is that the combined forces south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Korea were unprepared for what turned out to be a long and extremely grueling war. That is, war, and most certainly not "police action," as it has sometimes been referred to, raised catastrophic havoc with soldiers on the ground during the initial stages of the action that devastated the Korean Peninsula and Korean people.

Although this theory is contested by some because of the early and dramatic success of the US and combined UN forces after the landing at Inchon, it is generally agreed by experts that we were unprepared for the Korean hostilities in 1950 as they unfolded at the outbreak of the war. It has been a common mantra often coined to justify military budget increases that we were a "Hollow Force " and classically unprepared to face the rudimentary, even outmoded, and ill equipped force that we faced in the North Korean aggressors. This was after we had victoriously emerged from W.W.II as the undisputed number one power in the world. In a very real sense, after the Japanese capitulated with an unconditional surrender on the battleship Missouri, the Pacific became undoubtedly an "American Lake." Why after such a hard fought but overwhelming victory in 1945, and undisputed power in the Pacific and East Asian theater, were we so unprepared to face a foreign enemy only 5 years later?…"

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Armand

Let's not forget that the Secretary of State released a list of countries that the United States would defend against Communist Aggression, and that South Korea was not included in that list.
Possibly because the division was supposed to be temporary. Also because the "government" in the South was notoriously corrupt.

MacArthur, our proconsul in Japan, had a long history of being totally unprepared, and this was just another example. His occupying troops were very unprepared and lacked proper training. Whose fault? Rot starts at the top. And our men suffered from that.

While the writer is generally correct about the Army's unpreparedness at the time, he is missing some vital elements from his thesis:

1. While he hints at this in the early paragraphs, he underestimates the US military chiefs belief in air and atomic power. During this time, there was a significant trend within senior leadership that the Army/USMC should be severely reduced as they wouldn't be needed to do anything more than hold ground….after the air bombardments and atomic attacks. The US military was buying into the idea that war would be won by airpower and the threat or use of atomic weapons. The idea of MAD did not exist yet, nor the idea that atomic/soon to be nuclear war was suicidal. Many military chiefs believed they could win a war using atomic weapons. The Army leadership was so worried about losing relevance, they developed the pentomic division to hopefully sway civilian leaders to the need to retain a large Army.

2. That being said, the statement "MacArthur wasn't ready" is significantly misleading, as this unreadiness was reflected Army wide, and the "social scientists" aspect of training should not be stressed as much as the writer implies. That may have been a factor in the poor performance of TF Smith, but overwhelmingly the belief in the atomic battlefield was far more influential.

3. However, it is correct that the US did not plan on defending Korea or even thought much about it. Stalin, who was the deciding factor in the North's decision to invade (they effectively waited for his permission), was fed the same information, not just by spies, but by public pronouncements by US political leaders. Stalin and the Soviet leadership were actually shocked by the US response as they were just as afraid of another round of "world war" as many in the West.

4. But….we can thank the Kennan telegram and its profound influence on US government thinking during the prior 5 years for the US' swift about face. The NK invasion triggered panic and "proof" of a world wide communist conspiracy to seize power and that it was in motion. The massive build up, and subsequent large expenditures over the next 20 years for defense, spy agencies and overseas meddling was a direct result of the NK invasion-and it led to the US' blunder into Vietnam…

Maggot +1

MacArthur was asleep at the wheel in the Philippines.
He was caught napping as proconsul of Japan. He couldn't demand that the occupying troops keep up their training?
And the Chinese caught him with his pants down at the Yalu.

Other than that…