Memorial Day thought: What good did it do for the United States to have fought in the Korean War? Was it worth it?
The question is analogous to America's involvement in the Ukraine War
Arlington Nation Cemetery.
It’s especially important today, Memorial Day, to consider whether America should have sacrificed some 36,000 Americans in the Korean War. What was America’s interest in fighting a war half way around the world?
The difference between the Ukrainian and Korean wars, of course is that President Harry S Truman eventually put a couple hundred thousand American boots on the ground—an unlikely prospect now in Ukraine.
The Korean War pretty much ended as it started: A North Korea, governed by a communist regime, and a South Korea, supported by a coalition of American and other free nations divided the peninsula nearly in half.
So, what was gained in this bloody and costly war, that technically continues to this day?
At first blush, it seems no one won, as some million people on both sides, military and civilians, died.
And yet…
The war was started initially with the support of Joe Stalin’s communist Soviet Union. China later joined the war, providing wave after wave of human fodder against the American and allied forces. Left unchallenged, South Korea would quickly have fallen and the entire Korean peninsula would be controlled by communist forces.
So what?
The so-what would have been the loss of a now-important strategic ally. South Korea is a great display of democratic vitality.
If we hadn’t fought in Korea, we now would be faced with two tyrannical communist nations controlling the entire north Asian Pacific coastline. Potential and real threats against Japan, another essential ally and democratic showcase, would be much greater today.
Millions of free South Koreans would now be living under a cruel and murderous autocrat, just as Northern Koreans are today. Of course, some might say that it’s not our concern, that we can’t be the world’s policeman. The first neocon, John F. Kennedy might disagree. In his first inaugural address he said, “…we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."
Ultimately, our involvement demonstrated to our foes that America was willing to fight instead of sitting on our hands while “evil empires” expanded to our detriment. As we draw imaginary “red lines in the sand” that we don’t enforce and as we scramble in disgrace in Afghanistan, we’ve given opponents a green light to further chip away at our security, freedom, economic health and peace of mind.
On the other hand, we found ourselves repeating history years later fighting on the “good” side in Vietnam. We strove to halt the spread of autocracy and communism. Reference was made to “falling dominoes” in Laos, Cambodia and the entire Southeast Asia. Our war effort there failed because we didn’t fully engage the North, out of fear of drawing Communist China and the Soviet Union into the war and risking a nuclear catastrophe. Sound familiar?
No small reason for South Vietnam’s fall was our betrayal—pulling out any semblance of support, motivated by a growing and sometimes violent anti-war sentiment in America.
And yet. The advance of communist rule in Southeast Asia was halted.
These kind of decisions are immensely complicated. Today’s isolationist rhetoric too often is simple minded, failing to recognize that the consequences are often unforeseen. For good or bad.
The Vietnam War ignited an era of radical individualism in the late 1960s that has dominated our culture on and off for years. I personally witnessed its emergence as a young man. Facing the draft (few Americans remember how that drove our decisions and lives) I volunteered for the Navy, but never saw combat. My generation accepted the draft as a fact of life. While serving, I thought that the war was unwinnable the way it was being fought, but I opposed its expansion into Cambodia. As if what I thought mattered.
As a dad with a draft-age son and daughter, I opposed the U.S. intervention in the bloody Bosnian War. However, I favored America’s armed release of Iraq’s takeover of neighboring Kuwait. And I supported our post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
I’m riding the fence on Ukraine. I fear the ignition of a wider and perhaps nuclear war. I see lots of unmet domestic needs. Yet I feel a deep sympathy with the beleaguered Ukrainians and disgust that a crazy man like Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin can get away with inflicting so much pain and destruction. And I fear America’s impotence
I suppose that faced with a decision today about saving South Korea’s liberty we wouldn’t intervene. For good or bad, America is in an isolationist mood,
But reading prior wars unfortunately doesn’t tell us clearly about what to do in Ukraine.
What we’re left with on this Memorial Day is a country deeply divided but deeply thankful for the men and women who served, especially those who were maimed or killed. God bless them.