Korean War Lessons

It is 1952. A new president, Eisenhower, has been elected in the US. Your task is to write a report for him on what lessons the United States can learn from the war. Your report should advise the President on:

the US aims in Korea
how the support of the UN helped
how far the US achieved its aims
whether MacArthur should have been allowed to invade North Korea
why MacArthur was removed
the military and civilian cost of war

Finally, make up your own mind as to whether, on balance, the policy of containment succeeded and then write up your ideas as a balanced report.

The United States partially succeeded on its policy of containment. In the years after WWII, many countries fell to Communism, the most important being China. China's fall to Communism was a great blow to the U.S and its policy of containment; it had always thought that China was one of its major supporters in Asia. The spread of Communism was contained in North Korea however. It was able to push North Korea out of South Korea, which were its goals as stated in the UN. However, MacArther did not follow the strategy, and continued into North Korea against warnings from the UN, and U.S officials. He caused China to enter the war, and caused many civilian and military casualties that were not necessary, as well as loosing all of North Korea again to the Communists anyway. The decision to remove him was a good one, but could have been better if he had been removed after he secured South Korea, and not have been allowed to invade North Korea. This caused casualties that were much larger than one would expect for the actual size of the war; 1.4 million. Granted, the majority of these were Communist casualties (both civilian and military), but the fact remains that the conflict should not have been allowed to reach this level, but was necessary up to the point of attacking North Korea. The lesson to be learned from this is not to trust that enemy militaries are lesser than our own, because the Soviet Union will help them gain modern militaries very quickly. Just as important as the U.S meeting its goal to push North Korea out of South Korea, the U.S also was able to gain support from the UN, and have an American lead the UN forces against North Korea. The U.S was able to do this because it supported the attacked nation, not the attacker. This also proved that the U.S had the support of other Nations in its fight against Communism, which was very important. However, even though the UN forces did help the Americans, the Americans still bore the brunt of the burden in fighting North Korea.