The Chinese People's Volunteers and the Strategy of People's War(BARF ALERT)

Revolutionary Worker #1060 ^ | June 25, 2000 | unknown

[Jacob Kell]

Wasn't he called Well-fed Bullsh--?

[Eternal_Bear]

They have tens of thousands of agents on our soil but they keep most of their heavy equipment in the deep caves of the Sierra Madre. Hope your are ready when they give the word!

[HighRoadToChina]

You forgot to mention that through the wonderful UN and their spies, American tactics and daily operations were being broadcasted to the Commies usually on the same day.

"MacArthur lost control of the battle in Korea, and spent his energies on fruitless fights with his superiors, seeking escalation, instead of on pulling his existing force together or learning to master the new enemy. This led to his recall."

Somehow, I recall that MacArthur didn't lose the war in Korea but become "too success" and THAT was the reason Truman recalled him.

[The Pheonix]

If MacArthur, became, as you said, "too success" in his Korean War Campaign, why did he, on his death-bed, advised Pres John F, Kennedy, (face to face,), never, ever, to get America involved, again, in another land war in the Mainland of Asia ??????

[hinckley buzzard]

I hope the "Chinese" feel special about all this.

It's likely to be the only chance they'll get if they are so childish and culturally infantile as to pick a fight with the current "Rummy" Pentagon. They will be stunned, as were the ignorant backwater Japanese savages after Hiroshima.

Irresistable image of the geeky "ninja" type primitive, flashing his swords all around to the amazement of the barbarian Middle East crowds, until Indiana Jones calmly pulled out his .38 and plugged the fool.

[hinckley buzzard]

The "massing " of "endless streams of reserves from Manchuria" sounds curiously like the human hordes you deny were important.

Looks to me like you have a little too much book learning and PC contam for this subject. Pedantry is no virtue in the study of warfare. Ask Robert McNamara.

[JasonC]

No, not at all. The high command approved the invasion of NK, including Truman personally. MacArther discounted the possibility of Chinese intervention when pressing all the way to the Yalu river at the northern border, and his advice on the subject was accepted. His reasoning was that the communists - including Russia - would only start a general war if they wanted to for other, overall strategic reasons, and that they would not move or refrain from moving based on what line US forces reached. This proved to be a spectacular miscalculation - but it was accepted before the intervention by the Joint Chiefs and by Truman, who were deferential to Mac's expertise on the subject, knowledge of conditions in Korea, and recent enourmous successes from Inchon to the fall of 1950.

The split came -after- Chinese intervention, and concerned what to do about it. In an overall atmosphere of declining confidence in MacArther by the Joint Chiefs (not just Truman). MacArther responded to the scale of the defeats at the hands of the Chinese by calling for escalation. He wanted to turn loose Chiang's forces on Taiwan to fight against Red China, opening another front outside of Korea. He wanted strategic air, and naval air and gunfire, to attack targets in Red China was well - especially in Manchuria, but also opposite Taiwan. And he urged the consideration of use of nuclear weapons. He presented these recommendations inside the chain of command, and portions of them outside, through the press. It was the last of those that most got Truman's goat.

Meanwhile, he was giving more and more pessimistic reports from the front, saying in effect "agree to my urged escalation, or I will be forced to evacuate Korea". The Joint Chiefs responded by ordering him not to escalate, to fight to hold on in Korea if possible, and to withdraw to Japan if absolutely forced to do so - which they regarded as his call, and he wanted to make their call. He was, in effect, blaming defeat in Korea on failure to escalate - in an effort to bring about an escalation, which he thought it was his duty to achieve, to support his men in the field.

Ridgeway arrived in command of 8th Army while Mac was still in charge of the joint Far East HQ in Tokyo. Ridgeway was the one who turned in around on the ground. The awful conditions he found - morale in the basement, a high command out of the loop, in constant battles upward rather than giving direction downward, the Chinese with the initiative, jumbled units, no clear plans - showed to a demonstration that Mac had lost control of the battle. The Joint Chiefs were aware of the disconnect between the gloom coming from Tokyo, and a new confidence in the ability to defend in Korea, after making essential changes, coming from 8th Army.

-Then- Mac was recalled. He was most definitely -not- recalled because he had been "too successful". That is revisionist horsefeathers. He got knocked silly as a pure military commander by the Chinese intervention he had failed to predict, and never regained his footing. Ridgeway fixed the mess than resulted. Mac deserves great credit for the Inchon plan and the success it brought the previous year against the North Koreans alone - but it was Ridgeway, not Mac, who mastered the Chinese.

Ridgeway is not nearly so well known to the general public as Mac, because he wasn't a media star (unlike Mac or Patton) and never went into politics (unlike Ike or George Marshall). His leadership style was to let his subordinates get the limelight, as long as he got results. But within the army, his performance is well known - particularly in the art of the defensive, against long odds.

For those unfamiliar with him, Matthew B. Ridgeway practically created the US airborne during WW II. He commanded the 82nd airborne from 1943 through Normandy. General Gavin, his successor in command of the 82nd, was one of his proteges. General Taylor, commander of the 101st, did a stint under him in the 82nd before getting his own division. Ridgeway was the commander of the 18th airborne corps during the battle of the Bulge, when the 101 in Bastogne, and the 82nd first in St. Vith and then to the west, stopped the breakthrough. It is no exaggeration to say that he is the guy who won the battle of the Bulge, in its defensive phase (in the counterattack, Patton had a major role, as most know).

He achieved the same quiet, stellar record in Korea, leading 8th army to mastery of the Chinese before succeeding Mac at Far East HQ in Tokyo. He is one of the unsung professionals of the US army of the era, and made an enourmous difference, doctrinally, and organizationally long after his time. Press level or political accounts of the war tend to play up the drama of Mac and Truman, as politicians, over the issue of escalation. But the military reality on the ground is that Mac failed purely as a general, giving up as hopeless (without escalation) a fight Ridgeway showed could be won.

[JasonC]

Looks to me like you need to learn a little more to read what people actually write, instead of what you want them to have written. I said the Chinese beat us without a numbers edge in the initial attack - meaning the winter of 1950-1951 - due to surprise and their superiority in the high country. And it is not just me that says so, the US army says so - and that's where I learned it.

I also said that -after- Ridgeway had developed the defensive system that stopped them - meaning by the summer of 1951 - they were indeed reduced to attrition by "hordes". When all they had left were "hordes", we beat the heck out of them. When they had a quality edge (in "mountain infantry") and the jump on us (early), despite not yet having superior numbers in the theater, is when they nearly beat us. Wars are won and lost by military technique and leadership.

And falsifying history by pretending otherwise is not absence of pedantry, it is begging to pay for the same mistake twice - in blood.

[The Pheonix]

MacArthur wanted to nuke China but Gen. M. Ridgeway and the Joint-Chiefs advised Pres Truman against this

Ridgeways' arguement is simple. If the US nuke China , then the US has to garrision in China. If the US would not do this, the pro-USSR faction of the CCP of China would re-unite China with the USSR into an Alliance. A USSR-China alliance would pose a big headache for the rest of Asia, and the US

[HighRoadToChina]

Read from your prespective presented, it still can be argued that Truman did not want a possible further escalation that the contemplated actions of MacArthur would have bought. MacArthur wanted to finish off the NK once and for all and if that meant taking on the Communist Chinese with ROC help, so be it. History can now reveal that if MacArthur was allowed to pursue his victory instead of the half-baked truce between NK and SK that Truman wanted and got, we would not be facing a potential NBC holocaust in SK today. And possible China might be free today instead of her path towards military confrontation with the US and Taiwan.

[The Pheonix]

And if the US were to garrision troops in China, there would be a long and drawn out guerilla warfare campaign.

H. Kissenger ,in his book, Diplomacy, said that if Mao had stopped the Chinese initial advance at the 38th parallel and dig in, and seek peace talks, then , the Chinese would suffer less casulties. But Mao's ego, made him push forward, and caused the volunteers much more casulties

[JasonC]

And possibly, 20 million Americans might have died in a general nuclear war in 1951. Which would have been oh so loverly. Revisionism is an amusing sport but doesn't decide anything. Counterfactuals are false premises from which anything follows, inside a "maybe" that isn't so.

Whereas the historical facts that are known are (1) Mac said the fight on the ground in Korea was impossible and China would eject all UN forces from Korea by force if his escalation policies were not implimented, (2) he said so while his command was falling apart on his watch, out of a sense of helplessness induced by his own command failures, which him proceeded to blame on his superiors, (3) Ridgeway then proved him completely wrong by beating the Chinese and holding South Korea.

Command shock exists. It is a military reality. No one is immune from it. When an enemy does unexpected things, disrupts all of one's previous calculations, seizes the initiative, destroys portions of one's force, makes men one is responsible for and to suffer in appalling ways, breaks the spirit of some of them, and appears to resist the application of the obvious levers one has at one's command, then it is possible - not necessary but possible - for any commander of whatever quality otherwise and previously, to "snap", get depressed, spread gloom to those around him, lash out at men on his own side above or below in the chain of command, lose contact with ongoing developments, brood on what might have been, what went wrong, imagine entirely different trajectories of events in which the unpleasant realities do not transpire, live in the world of those fantasies, seek unworkable solutions or grasp at straws, demand reinforcement, escalation, withdrawl, relief, ascribe all contrary or optimist advice to others supposedly being out of touch with gloomy realities, and the like. It is a real psychological, military phenomena of the greatest practical importance. When it occurs, it needs to be recognized and faced, and then dealt with ruthlessly. By relieving any commander "hit" by it, no matter how distinguished in rank or past accomplishments, immediately.

This happened to Mac in Korea. You don't have to like that fact for it to be true. You don't have to like what happened for it to be true. You can wish the cold war went entirely differently, can think Truman was a boob, whatever. The military, not the political reality, remains. Mac suffered command shock and lost control of the battle; Ridgeway's vastly superior performance with the same "hand" proved it.

[JasonC]

That is not the critical point. The critical point is not advice about which course of action was advisable, it was starkly different assessments of what was militarily possible. Mac said that without escalation UN forces would be ejected from Korea and forced back to Japan. Ridgeway said that with the existing forces, he could stop the Chinese and hold southern Korea. To accomplish this, he needed to replace failing commanders and change our tactics, but did not need either significant escalation or withdrawl.

This was an assessment of practical possibilities, which Mac should have been able to make. And the corrective actions taken by Ridgeway were ones Mac should have already taken. Mac did not make the correct assessment of the state of the battle, nor see the problems to correct, nor how to correct them, nor the weaknesses of the Chinese in Korea to exploit.

He failed to see these things properly because he was in a state of command shock. His recommendation of escalation was not merely a difference in policy objective. He thought without it, we'd flat lose. And that assessment was wrong, empirically. His pessimism and his recommendation fed on each other. Optimism about the battle in Korea seemed to him to preclude significant escalation.

He saw the worst, and argued the worst, hoping a gloomy enough assessment of the situation, accepted by the Joint Chiefs in Washington, would lead them to make his military problem significantly easier by either taking responsibility off of his shoulders for a withdrawl from Korea, or by large scale reinforcement of his available means. He was not seeing the situation objectively. He had lost touch with the critical variables at the front (particularly US troop morale, and Chinese supply constraints).

Ridgeway's critical argument was not about a hypothetical escalation, but about the non-escalation that actually happened. He told the Joint Chiefs that with command reshuffling and changes of tactics, he could beat the Chinese and hold Korea with his existing force. Mac said it could not be done. Ridgeway did it.