From Stalemate to War

During the early phases of the Korean War, specifically on one important occasion on 9 January 1951, General Douglas MacArthur recommended to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that troops be withdrawn from Korea. Earlier the Joint Chiefs had identified MacArthur’s job as holding a series of defensive lines in Korea, causing as much harm to the enemy as possible, and then if that failed, to withdraw and see to the defense of Japan.

Interestingly, according to the release of some Soviet archives from the period, we now know that Joseph Stalin was also expressing the belief that Chinese Volunteers should stay north of the 38th parallel in order to avoid provoking a larger international war. It was from this political and military stalemate that the tide began to shift, the UN took the initiative while at the same time trying to open up talks on a potential cease fire.

Senior Fellow, Paul M. Edwards