Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
The major foreign policy issue of the early 1950s was the war in Korea. Ike, as the general who had defeated the Nazis, had a special credibility on this issue, and when he pledged to the American people that he would go to Korea, his victory was assured. Eisenhower had two options to shorten the length of the war. He could launch a general offensive against the Chinese and Korean forces, including air strikes into Manchuria, but the allies (as the war was technically a UN operation) would oppose such a move as it would probably involve Russian troops in the war. Barring such a move, Eisenhower could use nuclear weapons. He was uneasy about such a move, not on moral grounds, but because the Soviet Union (which by this point had its own nuclear arsenal) would certainly become involved if its Asian allies were attacked.
Instead, Eisenhower did neither, but let a combination of hints about the use of nuclear war, Stalins death, and his own military reputation do the job for him. By June, the Chinese and North Koreans were suing for peace. Eisenhower ran into an unexpected problem when Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, refused to sign an agreement. Since Rhees troops guarded 25,000 communist POWs and held most of the front line, his assent was critical to a workable ceasefire. Eisenhower communicated to Rhee that unless the South Koreans signed the treaty, the United States would withhold all reconstruction aid and military support and all American troops would be immediately withdrawn. Rhee signed the treaty, and the majority of American troops were pulled out in July 1953.
To Eisenhower, the lesson of Korea was clear: the American people did not have the stomach for prolonged fights without a conclusive end. This lesson would become amply clear in the 1960s, when another stalemate in an Asian land war tore apart American society.
D'ya think the cost of two Koreas for sixty years eclipsed anything both Presidents Bush did in the middle east?
Yeah, I think so.
The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.
George Orwell
English essayist, novelist, & satirist (1903 - 1950)
