The Nature of the Korean War

The nature of modern warfare is continually in flux, with advances in military technology and strategy evolving alongside shifting political motives and concerns. At times throughout the military history of the world, watershed conflicts between opposing forces have commemorated what would become the first of a kind of war that would captivate the planet for generations. In the post World War II world, a watershed conflict of this magnitude took place in Korea. The Korean War, as described in detail by T.R. Fehrenbach in his seminal account "This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History", was unique for many reasons. Ultimately, the Korean War would function as the macabre escort of the Cold War Era; it was the first true test of the Truman Administration's (and the United States') "real, if uneulogized foreign policy of� the containment of communism" (Fehrenbach, 1963, p. 51).

A conflict that the pages of history alone has rendered a war (for war was never officially declared in the region), the Korean War was fought by the United States of America not as a means to defend its homeland, nor as a means of uprooting by noble crusade an "unholy" dictator bent on world domination. On the contrary, the Korean War was a battle of wills in which the two dominant and opposing ideologies of the day, the Western Capitalists and the Eastern Communists, would fight in the first "checkerboard" war; a war by proxy in which the goal was to protect a kind of world order, and

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h soldiers who would not fire upon the enemy. American foot soldiers, stunned and slack-jawed at the sight of an advancing and aggressive enemy, seemed unable to believe that they were actually taking enemy fire. Less than half of the American men involved in this early confrontation with the NKPA even fired a round at the enemy. Many were too paralyzed with fear to react to even the most forceful orders from their superior officers. Others had simply misassembled their weapons. A sloppy and shell-shocked retreat by American forces was ordered, but not before many casualties had been sustained (Fehrenbach, 1963, p. 75-80). An early challenge to American leadership was growing clear: the men comprising the legions in the American army were not prepared for war mentally or tactically. Such a profound deficiency in the American armed forces would be difficult to counter in the months to follow. By the time winter was upon the combatants of the Korean War in 1950, the American Army was still supporting men in the ranks "who were poorly trained, and replacements who had no stomach for Korea, north or south" (Fehrenbach, 1963, p. 203). The Chinese Communist Army, by now waging successful strikes against the Eight Army at the

Category: Government - T