On The Distinction In Strategic Principle Between MacArthur And American Government During Korean War

Korean War, which broke out in the early years of the Cold War after World War II, was the first hot war during the Cold War period, and one of the severe conflicts between the East and the West. It escalated from Korean Civil War into international conflict involving armies of many countries. As a local war of internationalization, the conflict factors in Korean War were unprecedented in the local war history. It displayed a most fierce and extraordinarily complicated synthetic image due to its combination of military, political and diplomatic struggles.After the breakout of Korean War, disagreements in basic policy arouse between Macarthur and Truman government. Their arguments had been ups and downs along with the victories and failures of the American army in Korea, and finally caused MacArthur, General of the Army, to end his unparalleled military career early, and to be subjected to the blame of lacking political penetrating insight. The Truman government was vilified by the American ruling party and the opposition for the series of issues arisen in Korean War, and gradually lost its fame in American public. The unexpected war followed by the unexpected ending made the Americans to fall from the victory summit to a dilemma, and finally reach an armistice agreement with the communist country.MacArthur, though an outstanding strategist, didn't have the acute mind of a political analyst. After the Korean War broke out, MacArthur, the battlefield commander-in-chief, didn't give a wise and farsighted judgment from a politician and strategist's point of view. He failed to promptly readjust his war vision to stand by the government when Truman government set forth the American State policy over and over again, for he persisted in thinking that the limited war theory of the Truman government was actually a military confrontation tactics, and was the recurrence of the European appeasement policy in Asia. There is a saying in SunZi's Art of War,"One mind held by both the government and the public leads to victory", but the disagreements between MacArthur and Truman government made their coordinating actions impossible. Thus the United State waged a wrong war with the wrong enemy at a wrong time and in a wrong place.MacArthur and Truman had the identity of fundamental objective towards Korean War, trying to restrain the socialist power by force, though they held different views on specific military actions and steps. Truman dismissed MacArthur for his self-willedness and arrogance to ensure the implementation of the American global strategy, and to clear the obstacle in solving Korean issue peacefully. In the meanwhile, it defended the civil control principle of the army stipulated by the American Constitution and protected American bourgeois democracy system. The inherent flexibility in American policy-making system is well worth using for reference, for it has revealed a great important strategy enlightenment --------- All military actions of a country must follow the overall strategic needs of the country, and all generals must completely obey the orders given by the supreme commander of the military force.