This document answers the question "How justified was president Truman’s claim that the Korean war ended successfully for the USA?"
Cambridge International AS/A Level – October/November 2015
Depth Study 3: International History, 1945–1991
Theme 1: The Cold War, 1950–1975
Syllabus 9389
Paper...
How justified was president Truman’s claim that the Korean war ended
successfully for the USA?
Cambridge International AS/A Level – October/November 2015
Depth Study 3: International History, 1945–1991
Syllabus 9389
Paper 42
President Truman’s claim that the Korean war of 1950-53 was a success for the USA is
debatable. Some historians believe that it was a success as the USA achieved their goal of
Stopping the communist invasion by Kim Il Sung into South Korea. Other’s see the USA’s
involvement as a failure as the war ended in a stalemate even though the USA were far more
powerful. I will now discuss to what extent the USA’s results supports his claim.
His claim is justifiable as the USA achieved their goal of defending South Korea against the
invasion by the Communist North. Even thought the war ended in a stalemate at the 38 th
parallel, the US army still achieved their aim of containing the spread of Communism in Asia.
Furthermore, they prevented the expansionist Kim Il Sung from reuniting the country as a
Communist state. The USA only suffered when China got involved in the war after they had
pushed the North Koreans back to Pyongyang. US marines successfully managed to outflank
North Korean troops when they landed at the undefended port of Incheon. The USA’s NSC-
68 Policy resulted in them having a monolithic view of the USSR, which implied that every
communist event was connected to Moscow. The USA therefore saw Korea as Soviet
expansionism hence why they got involved and successfully defended the South. The USA
managed to push the Communists back to the Chinese border from Pusan in South Korea.
Truman dismissed MacArthur after the rollback policy failed as he was seen to be too anti
Communist and was willing to lose more US lives to invade the whole of Korea and make it a
Capitalist Democracy. After the war, the US’ military budget was tripled which allowed the
country to improve its defence against the spread of USSR’s Communism.
On the other hand, the USA’s intervention in the Korean war is primarily seen to be negative.
Even though they technically won the war as they achieved their aim, the USA lost as they
could not defeat a country that was much weaker than the mighty USA. The Americans failed
to follow their policy of Containment as when they successfully pushed the Communists back
to the 38th parallel they decided to continue and invade the North. MacArthur changed the
policy to that of “rollback” due to his hatred of Communism. This policy failed as China
intervened and pushed the USA back behind the 38th parallel. The world’s superpower failed
to defeat two poor countries even though their firepower and military were superior. The
rollback policy resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths as the USA had already achieved
their goal. MacArthur’s actions and extreme policy resulted in the deaths of thousands of US
troops and civilians. The USA were unable to sustain such large casualties without receiving
political pressure from back home. This would later haunt the USA both in Vietnam and the
Middle East. When the USA threatened China with the atomic bomb to force her to surrender
the Chinese knew that they were bluffing. The USA were not going to start a nuclear war with
the USSR over Korea. The fact that Truman dismissed General MacArthur after the war shows
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