The Redacted Testimony That Explains Why McArthur was fired

[quincannon]

I agree with both of you but that is not what I was saying.

For one reason or another some countries do have mindsets that tend to make them anti-western.

If you lived in Russia, and had been invaded dozens or more times, from the south and west as they have over the past two thousand years, you would be quite paranoid, and wish to have some buffers between you, and those who have proven to be your natural enemies.

If you lived in China, and had seen your nation carved up by the west, and have the west have its foot on your neck, as recently as seventy five years ago, you too would still have a severe case of heartburn.

None of this is to say that the average Russian or Chinese feels the same was as those who lead them do. Most, the vast majority just want to be left alone to live their lives and follow their dreams just like you and I. They do not desire strife, or war, or depravation any more than you or I. They want nothing more than three squares, a place to dwell, and a chance to raise their families, just like you and I.

Countries are not the problem. The leaders who for whatever reason follow the pathway that leads to ultimate destruction are the problem, and the reasons for that are both legion, and wrong.

Have we not had enough of simple on the surface, but complicated in the depth problems, being given lip service over simplistic solutions, by generation upon generation of simpletons? I have.

[Beth]

It isn't so much upsetting the apple cart as every country has a bit of an identity that has been existed for ages. Most of Europe has learned to agree to disagree but those differences are always evident. When any country feels that that which makes them unique is threatened they become defensive which translates into nationalism. Right now we are at a point of very high nationalism on the level of pre WWI or II. The last time we had such a level it resulted in the Cold War-though really the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam could be viewed as just a continuation of WWII. I suspect hundreds of years from now the 20th Century will be viewed like the 100 year war and just lumped all together as one war. Even the current situation in the Gulf and Arab countries has its roots firmly in WWI and II and the way colonies were treated.

Russia has a history of being leery of outsiders. It also has a national mindset that currently is more acceptable to a strong single leader who protects what they see as their pride as a nation. It does not have the experience with democracy and it would take generations to gain a trust that such a system could work. China has pretty much the same mindset. Japan used to be very closed to outside influences but it has become very open to what perhaps could be considered Western ideas, perhaps because Japan has also always borrowed heavily from other cultures and made it a part of their own.

[deadwoodgultch]

Another issue here is that some wish to take what others have developed and earned, by bringing down what those others that have developed and earned. Sharing is not the strong suit of many Nation States.

[yanmacca]

I honestly believe that Russia and China face a bigger threat inside their own borders then from the west and Nato, the danger a lot of countries face is a break up of its internal structure.
I know the old Soviet Union has already been through such a dilemma with a score of break away countries, but they and China are still huge nations and still could face another threat from break away states.
When I was in Spain you could sense that a number of regions want to be independent, with the Basque and Catalan regions pushing their claims.

[Beth]

Going back to the article--hint hint--I found it surprising that the US was so poorly prepared for another war less than a decade after the end of WWII. Was it because of war exhaustion or because of a cut back on military expenses.

[deadwoodgultch]

Beth,

What you suppose above, combined with changes in the power structure in China, the fact that we were spending a great deal of national treasure to rebuild Japan, Europe/Germany, and technology. Our weapon systems had somewhat been put on the back burner to the rebuilds. See Marshall expenditures.

regards,
Tom

[dave]

Beth, I am venturing into QC's turf but will try, Americans have always had a distrust of the military. After every conflict we back down all the war efforts, men in arms as well as military hardware as planes, ships, tanks. Korea was an anomaly in that it was only 5 years after the end of WW II. We had men in the various reserves who could be called back to active duty as well as vessels which could be quickly recommissioned. 

Post War Europe and Japan were completely rebuilt with new factories and modern inventions which far surpassed American manufacturing plants. The Marshall Plan saved Europe but did not aid Americans and her industries which had compacted post War.
Regards
Dave

[Beth]

Was there too much reliance on 'we have THE Bomb" for national security?

[quincannon]

Feel free to venture anywhere you damned well please.

The very thing that fascinates me about Korea is the fact that a page turned in how wars were waged. That statement is far reaching I know, but examine the evidence.

1)A nuclear war or the possibility of it, made large scale warfare completely obsolete. Our mistake was to make the judgment that with nuclear deterrence, war itself was obsolete. That was to prove completely false. War broke out in Korea as early as 1946 between north and south. The incursions were small scale, and nearly no one in the world knew about it. Communist in China kicked out the Nationalists in 1949. A civil war waged among the Greeks broke out as soon as the guns of WWII grew silent.

2) Virtually every weapons system and platform in all of the Armed Services that had won World War II were obsolete or obsolescent by 1946. Every carrier we had in commission save three could not adequately handle new generations of aircraft. The super bomber of 1945 was duck soup for some hotshot in a MIG-15. Our Army was reduced to ten divisions, and not a damned one of them save the 82nd Airborne was anywhere near full strength in men or equipment. The 5"/38 which protected the fleet in 1945, could not train fast enough, nor the radar that directed them get a fix on a jet fast enough to shoot it down. We had the A-Bomb so what the hell. No one was going to mess with us.

3) Our adversaries saw deterrence differently. Certainly it would deter and invasion of Europe through the Fulda and the Hof Gaps, but an A Bomb would not or could not do diddly squat about that little red book the Chairman was so proud of. It could do nothing about stirring revolution is every sewer in the known world. It could do nothing about the subversion of governments in Central and Latin America.

4) Then there was that rat bastard Johnson, who succeeded Forrestal as Secretary of Defense, a guy who never saw a program he did not wish to cut to the bone. Remember that the USMC nearly ceased to exist at Johnson's hand.

5) Then there was the "new" Air Force who convinced the administration that a blue uniform and the B-36 alone was the answer to all of the countries defense needs.

6) And finally, after all the hard won experience of World War II, where time and again special operations forces had proved their worth in almost every aspect and area of the military spectrum, they were all disbanded, and all that experience lost, some of it forever.

I have said it here many times, and I will say it until they shovel my sweet ass off in a box that ----- Bigger is not better, only better is better. To that I will add that -- It damned well must be the RIGHT better, not yesterday's better, but that of today, and as far as we can see into tomorrow.

I am a member of the Naval Institute, and I received "Proceedings" just yesterday. With the exception of some bozo Ensign objecting to the naming a new ship after Harvey Milk (something I happen to agree with him on) it is, along with "Parameters" (the journal of the Army War College) one of the best of the trade magazines. There were two articles that caught my eye, one on the defensive and offensive use of cyber warfare, and the other questioning the future need for the nuclear triad. Both made their points well. The second is heretical thinking in what has become a stodgy strategic community.  Both are the type of thinking we need, where the ideas of the past that no longer have value, are thrown in the can, in favor of those that have relevance for today and the near term future.

The cost of one Littoral Combat Ship could fund a new special forces group for ten or more years. How many Littoral Combat Ships do you need to train the Kurds to secure their borders and help to oust a mad man?

Then there was poor old Bob Scales, in that same issue, citing the fact that our Infantry soldiers do most of the dying and are last in line for the dollars to buy innovative (and commercially available in many cases)equipment that save lives on the battlefield. Same old frigging story when Congress is more concerned by a plant losing a contract in their district, than diverting that same money to what we need.

And I don't want to hear one damned word about the administration, until those that wish to speak to the issue first check the Constitution and determine which branch of government is charged with the responsibility of raising and maintaining armies, and then turn to the list of UNFUNDED REQUIREMENT on the Defense Department's need to have list. We can find all the money in the world for the big tickets, but nary a dime for the foot soldier.

Rant complete.  Out.

[yanmacca]

I remember in the very early 1960s being just a little kid and hearing the grown ups talk about how Germany got all the help it needed to get up and running again.

Which I suppose was right, but apparently it did not go down to well over here, as the allies won the war but the people in Britain were still on really low rations and lived in bombed out streets.

It was a hard time which was made harder by the influx of demobbed men who had no jobs to go to. My eldest Sister who is nearly eighty said that she saw her first banana years after the end of the war.

I wonder if that was why my dad stayed on in the army for another fourteen or so years, as there was no work in civvy street.

[quincannon]

Getting back to the subject of this thread, and I really don't think we strayed that far off because the subject itself is the root of any discussion of limited, localized, and thereby modern war, I finally read the article, and as I suspected it covered no new ground, IF you, like I am a student of Korea.

To put it mildly all of the big guys in the defense establishment of the day thought MacArthur was nuts. A wider war in Asia, was exactly what Bradley said it would be - Wrong place, wrong time, and with the wrong enemy. That is not to mention what the testimony cited in the article said - We do not have the combat power. We had yet to build the baseball bat of solid alliances world wide.

MacArthur was a very poor general officer in my opinion, considering only one aspect of his career, that of a strategic thinker.

He was a better than average brigadier in World War I.

He failed completely in the defense of the Philippines, and should have been relieved about 10 December 1941. The Japanese did not win so much as MacArthur lost, and lost in a miserable fashion. He was saved from relief only by his close association with the Philippine president, a political entanglement that made him think he was bullet proof, and in many ways led to his confrontation with Truman, and his attitude that he could roll over the President, a president who himself was tougher than woodpecker lips.

He was an adequate operational commander in the Southwest Pacific. Strangely enough his reputation was built on island hopping, and the use of, for want of a better term, the football analogy of the end around. Was it brilliant as his acolytes claim, or was it a matter of no other choice, as any military professional, above the rank of a five year old playing corporal in their back yard will tell you?

When the history of these things is written two hundred years from now MacArthur's greatest achievement will be the enlightened manner in which he rebuilt Japan, causing a complete break in the previous Japanese society where it counted, but at the same time allowing them to maintain their ancient traditions. Japan is our strongest and most reliable ally in the Pacific today, and an economic powerhouse, because of MacArthur. Despite his military and strategic shortfalls, his arrogance, his sometimes stupidity, and his most egregious sin of disrespecting the office of the President of the United States, MacArthur should be proud of his contribution to Japan, and we should be proud of him for it. Other than that he was past his sell date about 1935. Take him back to Safeway and get a refund.

[quincannon]

I am hopeful that this thread will generate interest in, as well as further reading and study of the Korean Conflict. I believe if you do then you will gravitate toward the Commonwealth effort in Malaya, the French in Indo China and Algeria, and ultimately our own efforts with the help of our Asia Pacific Rim allies in Viet Nam.

The reason is not an effort to fill both your time and your bookshelves any further, but rather increase your knowledge and appreciation of what is going on today. These earlier conflicts are not directly related to today by region, but they are in terms of the limitations of power, and the importance of a complete look at strategy, using DIME.

Then after you have become familiar, contrast the factors in play today, with the Grant approach of total war, in fact the American way of war, that we have discussed so often. Grant as you know approached war as bludgeon them to death, then put the pieces back together, where today's approach must me a more finessed and restrained waltz, while sticking a shive in deep. We failed in Iraq, because we took the former method as a gospel like dictum.

Before we blame ANY administration, we need to first look at who we are, and if we really look we will find a not so pretty picture in the attitude department. By that I mean that we must not take the attitude of steamrollering over any and all. We must rather beat them, but then pick them up and give them a big wet kiss. I don't mean nation build, but rather an opportunity to build their own. PRODUCT WARNING - The process is so messy as to resemble defecation on the sidewalk, so it will take an abundance of patience, generations worth, but we must not become discouraged.

If we are successful the results will be more like South Korea, than Germany and Japan. We gave aid to Germany and Japan and set the parameters for them. It was a success, and a much quicker success than South Korea. In South Korea the situation was different in that while we stationed troops, and still station troops there, the SK government and economy developed largely on their own, and anyone familiar with the Rhee era knows that it was not the shining example of democracy at work. They did evolve though, and it was largely due to the rising expectations of the people themselves. Never sell populations short. They instinctively know where a brighter future lies, if given a chance.
 

[yanmacca]

I always wondered why the Chinese committed so many troops to aid the North Koreans, they must have suffered horrendous casualties.

I can see why the Russians threw weapons in the shape of T-34/85 tanks and 75mm and 122mm guns and howitzers because they were up-dating their army and many of these weapons were considered surplus, saying that they were still effective and dangerous weapons. But as far as I know the Soviets never committed ground troops.

But that's the Russians for you, they were shipping in their weapons and sitting back to watch the blood letting.

So what was China's beef with the west, I know they were communist but only a few years before they were readily excepting aid from their western friends and fought as allies against the Japanese.

Did they fear that the allies would eventually invade China?
Did they feel that Korea should become communist?

[yanmacca]

I think that Iraq was a melting pot just waiting to over flow. Up to then Saddam kept the lid on this pot by brute force and once he went then all hell was unleashed. I know we could have done things better but we had never fought a war like that before and vital lessons were I hope learned, as this was a unique country with many warring fractions, but that is what you find in these regions, and that's why the middle east will never see peace.
I think we just got in the way.

[quincannon]

The one thing you never do with China is threaten their borders. Had MacArthur only restored status quo anti-bellum then the Chinese would have had no interest at all. The minute Mac moved north toward the Yalu, all bets were off. The Chinese came flowing into North Korea to keep that state as a buffer against western influence on their border.

Remember that the Chinese had just the year before kicked out the Nationalists, and they were trying to consolidate power internally. The last thing they needed was what would have become a western style festering cancer on their tender backside. From their point of view I do not blame them a bit.

What the Chinese feared most of all at that time, and still do, is an invasion of ideas.

Remember Ian, as far as western aid to China, a mere five years before, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The Chinese both hate and fear Western Devils. The west carved up, sliced and diced China for a century or more. From your perspective how would you like a Chinese gunboat patrolling the Thames so that those rabble rousers in the City of London do not get too far out of hand. Use the easy way as a primer to the times of discontent. Watch "55 Days at Peking", and "The Sandpebbles". Better yet read the book the latter was based on by the same name. Think you can still get a copy from Naval Institute Press. A classic.

As far as the Russians go, they were doing the same thing then as they are today, testing western resolve by proxy. Pushing and prodding here and there to elicit reaction, or from their point of view lack of action.

Sun Tzu tells us that If you know both yourself and your enemy you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. We do a piss poor job of both. You must look at these issues of today through the lens of the other guy. If you do not look and further do not understand, the name Sunny would apply to you is loser, because you can bet your ass they are both looking and understanding you.