AHC: A Successful Korea for the West

[Stolengood]

...meaning, a Korean War that ends not in stalemate, but in some form of actual victory for U.S./UN/S. Korean forces. Barring that, at least a result that allows Harry Truman to successfully run for office again in '52.

Bonus points for plausibly sidelining MacArthur before the war!

 

[ZecoreZecron]

So China never intervenes then? Cause that's the most plausible way this happens.

 

[mlp]

...meaning, a Korean War that ends not in stalemate, but in some form of actual victory for U.S./UN/S. Korean forces. Barring that, at least a result that allows Harry Truman to successfully run for office again in '52.

Bonus points for plausibly sidelining MacArthur before the war!

• MacArthur dies during Battle of Inchon, and South Korea takes back only below the 38th parallel.
• MacArthur dies during Battle of Seoul, and South Korea takes back below the Pyongyang-Hamhung line.
• MacArthur dies during Battle of Pyongyang, and the Chinese get less freaked out about possible US aggression into Manchuria.

All in all, Doug needs to die or become a vegetable. Otherwise nobody can stop his ego.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Getting rid of MacArthur (somehow) aside, reassuring the Chinese in general would also be a good idea. Strange as it may seem to us today, knowing Korea was a limited war, in 1950 the Chinese seriously thought MacArthur might blast his way over the border, with the US Navy landing vast armies up and down their coast.

In a discussion with several other Party officials shortly after their intervention in Korea Zhou Enlai (then Minister of Foreign Affairs) stated "We are prepared to withdraw, if necessary, from the coastal provinces to the hinterland, and build up the Northwest and the Southwest provinces as bases for a long-drawn-out war." The Chinese seriously feared the American advance was a prelude to a full scale invasion of China to destroy the PRC. Even as they were sending troops into Korea they were evacuating key people and industry from border and coastal areas to the interior. They took this shit seriously.

A good way to signal to China that we didn't intend to attack them would have been halting after taking Pyongyang. The Taedong River forms a nice defensive barrier in the west, and with the sea lift of the US Navy he could have anchored the line at Hungnam or Wonsan in the east. That's still the "narrow" portion of the peninsula - north of there it widens with some nasty mountain ranges between, forcing any advancing force to spread out more and more.

Holding the capital grants a lot of diplomatic clout, and would have been a powerful argument in future re-unification talks, even if the Chinese did temporarily occupy areas to the north.

A defensive line that far south of the Yalu would also have been very difficult for the Chinese to breach. One of the advantages to letting MacArthur come waltzing all the way up to the Chinese border was it simplified their (greatly strained) logistics immensely, while simultaneously complicating MacArthur's own.

 

[cra0422]

Politically, the US needs to realize that 1) communist nations like China and North Korea are more than capable of acting on their own initiative and not merely taking orders from Moscow and 2) China wants to unify its country by taking back Taiwan and thus its "quarantine" of Taiwan has Red China thinking that the US planned to invade mainland China at some point.

Militarily, the best thing for the US would be for MacArthur to have a heart attack, stroke or some other health issue that would allow them to remove him from command, preferably after Inchon. Mac wanted to destroy the North Korean army, which could not be done without wiping out the North Korean state, i.e. reuniting the entire peninsula. The UN mandate was simply drive the North Koreans back across the 38th parallel. While Red China didn't really care for North Korea, they did want it as a buffer to keep American troops away from its border. If the US had announced that at the least, they wanted status quo ante bellum, and at the most, topple the Kim Il Sung government without absorbing North Korea into South Korea.

 

[Paul V McNutt]

On DW there was a TL that Truman bombing the Yalu River and cutting off the supply of Chinese troops. The North Koreans were only able to hold on to a small mountainous piece of territory.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

On DW there was a TL that Truman bombing the Yalu River and cutting off the supply of Chinese troops.

Leaving aside my dubiousness about the effectiveness of bombing the Yalu bridges (the Chinese proved to be quite good at building hidden pontoon bridges to facilitate their movement into North Korea), I take it that it ignores the possibility that the Chinese might have responded to such an escalation by, for example, launching air attacks against the ports which American supplies flowed through?

Mind you, I'm unsure of what bombers the PLAAF possessed at this time but I'm assuming that even if they lacked it they could acquire some from the Russians, who might be .

EDIT: Actually, I'm reading through a USAAF document highlighting a selection of air battles and bombing raids and apparently the idea that the US never bombed the Yalu bridges is something of a myth.

March 29: With fighter escorts, B-29s returned to the Yalu River to bomb bridges, which had become important targets again as the river ice thawed. Fifth Air Force light bombers and fighters, which had handled interdiction in the area during the winter, could not destroy the larger Yalu River bridges.

 

[frustrated progressive]

On October 12, Mao informed Kim that he wouldn't send troops, and ordered him to retreat into Manchuria and become a guerrilla again, but reversed course the next day. If Mao held his hard line with Kim, and the Americans had somehow assured Mao that they wouldn't invade Fake China, the war really could be over by Christmas.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Other possibility is the UN forces halt, except the ROK Army continues north. That is in fact what had been occuring the week previous to MacArthur ordering the UN forces north. It appears China had no problem with the ragged little ROK Army advancing far north. With UN air & logistical support the ROKs probablly could have secured the northern population centers & stalemated a guerillia war across the entire peninsula. Remnants of NKPA cut off in the south continued guerilia war through 52 & beyond. Odds are they would do so for quite while in the north too.

Odds are if the UN or US forces remain static in the south then Maos group would be relieved and not place a army of some 300,000 men at risk. Leaving the NKPA to lie in the bed they had made.

 

[ZhugeLiang]

I think the easiest solution is to let the PRC have Taiwan. The ROC was already extremely unpopular in Taiwan because of the White Terror and bad stuff.

In turn, the PRC would understand that the Korean War is a limited war (hopefully). IMO it's a good trade-off - no North Korea.

 

[okmangeez]

No MacArthur....

That's basically it.

 

[BobTheBarbarian]

...meaning, a Korean War that ends not in stalemate, but in some form of actual victory for U.S./UN/S. Korean forces.

It was a victory. The communist attempt to take over South Korea by force was smashed and defeated. South Korea still exists as a state and is today one of the strongest economies in the world.

 

[Stolengood]

It was a victory. The communist attempt to take over South Korea by force was smashed and defeated. South Korea still exists as a state and is today one of the strongest economies in the world.

It was a stalemate; there was no change to the status quo at war's end. Don't be ridiculous.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

It was a stalemate; there was no change to the status quo at war's end. Don't be ridiculous.

Eh... it's kind of a victory and kind of a stalemate: the American's original goal, to preserve the independence of South Korea was achieved. Their expanded goal that creeped later in 1950 after Inchon, to reunite Korea under southern leadership, failed. For their part, China achieved it's objective of keeping the Americans away from it's borders and getting them to take the US seriously as a major power but failed in unifying the continent under northern leadership. And the North Koreans of course failed in conquering the south but succeeded in preventing themselves from being conquered (even if that success basically rested on them having the good luck of having China come in on their side).

It's a very indecisive outcome, with both sides at some point or another setting objectives that either up-held or sought to overturn the status-quo... and then succeeding at the former while failing at the latter. So really, it isn't really a decisive enough outcome to even be called a stalemate.

 

[BobTheBarbarian]

It was a stalemate; there was no change to the status quo at war's end. Don't be ridiculous.

It's not ridiculous when the UN achieved its primary war objective (preservation of the sovereignty of the ROK) and both major communist players failed at theirs (unification of the Korean Peninsula under the Pyongyang government).

It also sent a clear message to the Soviets that any attempt to invade a capitalist country by force of arms would be met with a direct US response and prevented communism from creeping south. Hence it was both a military and political victory.

 

[okmangeez]

It's not ridiculous when the UN achieved its primary war objective (preservation of the sovereignty of the ROK) and both major communist players failed at theirs (unification of the Korean Peninsula under the Pyongyang government).

It also sent a clear message to the Soviets that any attempt to invade a capitalist country by force of arms would be met with a direct US response and prevented communism from creeping south. Hence it was both a military and political victory.

Despite my nationality, I completely agree with this statement. The war was a strategic US victory. The US fulfilled its objective to prevent the North Koreans from taking over the South and directly resisting a Soviet backed government. It demonstrated that the United States WOULD intervene if necessary.

It was a major political victory and the entire war was basically a huge blunder for the USSR and the North Koreans, cause it completely destroyed the Korean Peninsula.

 

[Blackfox5]

A more measured advance north of Pyongyang would likely have ended in frontlines very favorable to the UN forces. A frontline stabilized half way through North Korea would have resulted in a very different agreement because a viable North Korean state would not really be possible.

This is certainly something MacArthur could have done, but didn't. The man could be brilliant, but whenever he got complacent, he would become completely negligent and suffer disaster. He'd either need to recognize the danger himself, or have someone else in command by then.

A line north of Pyongyang and Wonsan would include the bulk of the population, key agricultural areas, and most industry. The area north of there would still have good mineral resources, some good agricultural land, and other assets, but the comparison between North and South would be overwhelmingly in favor of the South. The Communists might either abandon it in exchange for concessions, or the rump North Korean state would not have the resources to be as disruptive now. Plus not having Seoul within artillery range would be a big advantage in negotiations.

 

[Admiral Matt]

I think the easiest solution is to let the PRC have Taiwan. The ROC was already extremely unpopular in Taiwan because of the White Terror and bad stuff.

In turn, the PRC would understand that the Korean War is a limited war (hopefully). IMO it's a good trade-off - no North Korea.

Two thoughts in response to this:

[1] Is that realistically a policy that any plausible US administration in the era might pursue? If we can identify neither a POD to alter Truman's policy, nor an alternative administration more likely to accommodate the newborn Communist China, it matters little how reasonable the trade would be.

[2] Looking at the thoughtful comments on this thread, it seems the PRC leadership took an American invasion of China as a credible threat. If the US did "write off" the Republic of China, would that really alleviate the concerns of Mao, Zhou et al as a United Nations force advanced to the Yalu?

It would seem to me that in the context of the time a plausible threat to Manchuria would overshadow non-recognition of the 台北 government in the eyes of 北京.

 

[Riain]

Any permament line north of the 38th parallel that didn't bring in the Chinese would be seen as an unambiguous victory in a limited war, keeping the South 'free' and 'liberating' some extra Koreans.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I think sticking to the original aims and not having a serious dose of 'Mission Creep' with the exception of capturing a logical buffer zone at or just north of the 38th would do it.

Perhaps some encirclement ops but nothing like the invasion of Pyongyang with all forces eventually retiring

Then Dig in and make efforts to Jaw Jaw (involving all the players) rather than War War.