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Kathleen Ellis
Kathleen Ellis is a Senior Policy Fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of National Defense University or the United States Government.
The Korean War, which began in June 1950 and ended in a negotiated ceasefire in July 1953, was a civil war that quickly turned into an international conflict. Although it started with North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, the United States quickly entered the conflict, perceiving the invasion as an act of Soviet-backed Communist expansion.[2] The international facets of the escalating conflict manifested a growing ideological and political competition between great powers of the world, including the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. In addition, it served as the stage for the first (and so far, only) armed conflict of the United Nations (UN) as it pursued its mandate “to maintain international peace and security.”[3] This complex conflict holds many implications for deterrence and war causation theory, and while the importance of the intra-Korean nature of the conflict cannot be underestimated, this paper focuses in particular on three international aspects of the war that are noteworthy in the context of U.S. foreign policy practice. One, the war resulted partly from the failure of the United States to deter the Soviet Union and its satellite North Korea from initiating war. Two, the subsequent U.S. failure to deter China from joining the war led to a fresh outbreak of fighting. Three, the first bold attempt by an international governance organization to check conflict resulted in disappointment.
Overview of International Events
The Korean War arose in the aftermath of World War II. Within days of the U.S. atomic bombing of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945, the Soviet Union deployed forces into the northern half of the Japanese colony of Korea; the United States quickly followed with a deployment of troops to occupy the southern region of the Peninsula.[4] The United States and Soviet Union eventually agreed to an artificial division of the Peninsula at the 38th parallel to facilitate the surrender of Japanese troops; those north of the parallel surrendered to the Soviets, those south of the parallel to the Americans.[5] In 1947, the UN, a new international organization established to prevent future wars, created a temporary commission to assist Korea’s transition from an occupied colony to an independent democracy.[6] However, the Soviet Union refused to allow commission staff north of the 38th parallel and instead established a Soviet satellite government in the north.[7] The UN proceeded to facilitate an election in the south that resulted in a Western-aligned representative government.[8] The UN and United States recognized South Korea’s government (the Republic of Korea) as the only legitimate Korean government, but both the South and the North claimed rights to the entire Peninsula and engaged in numerous armed clashes along the 38th parallel in pressing their respective claims.[9] The Soviet Union and United States withdrew their troops from the Peninsula by 1949 but continued providing material aid to their respective allies.[10]
On June 25, 1950, North Korea, equipped with Soviet artillery and heavy arms, launched a massive surprise invasion of South Korea.[11] U.S. leaders, suspecting that the invasion was a test of U.S. resolve by the Soviet-led Communist bloc and possibly a prelude to other Communist invasions, felt compelled to respond forcefully.[12]
President Harry Truman immediately convened the UN Security Council (UNSC).[13] The UNSC passed American-drafted resolutions demanding that North Korean troops withdraw back behind the 38th parallel and requesting UN members to provide assistance to South Korea to repel the attack.[14] As member nations offered military contingents, the UN authorized a unified military command.[15] Under the leadership of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, the combined UN force freed South Korea by October and thrust North Korean troops back across the 38th parallel. This achieved both the objectives of the UN mandate as well as the U.S. government’s openly stated aims for the conflict.[16] However, MacArthur’s quick success prompted Washington and its command partners to alter their objectives. The opportunity to decisively defeat North Korea and unify the Peninsula under a U.S.-backed government proved too tempting to resist.[17] Truman ordered MacArthur to push north of the parallel with the new objective of unifying Korea under one government.[18]
China, alarmed by the approach of U.S. and UN troops toward its border, launched a major military offensive into Korea in November, catching U.S. leaders off guard.[19] Chinese troops routed U.S. and UN forces, thrusting them back across the 38th parallel, and then pushed into South Korea. After over two years of brutal but indecisive conflict, all sides agreed to a ceasefire on July 27, 1953.[20]
Zero-Sum Game: U.S. Failure to Deter Russia
In his book Man, the State, and War, Kenneth Waltz suggests that the origins of war lie in the anarchic nature of the system of states: “With many sovereign states, with no system of law enforceable among them,…conflict, sometimes leading to war, is bound to occur.”[21] Two characteristics of this system—a system which Waltz terms a “self-help system”—include the common wish of all states to survive and the prevailing condition of anarchy among states.[22] Given these enduring conditions, the defining characteristic of international relations is constant competition between states as each state seeks to shift the balance of power in its favor.[23] However, this persistent competitive dynamic complicates the ability of any one state to deter war. “There is in international politics no simple rule to prescribe just how belligerent, or how peaceful, any given state should strive to appear in order to maximize its chances of living at peace with neighboring states,” Waltz explains.[24] “As competition in international politics becomes more intense…the peace-loving state faces the necessity of balancing between too little and too much strength, between too many failures that strengthen the potential enemy and too many successes that scare him unduly.”[25] Therefore, as stakes become higher in the competition for survival and power, the international order tends toward a zero-sum game.[26]
This delicate balancing act was precisely the challenge the United States faced leading up to the war in Korea. In the waning days of World War II, the United States and Western Allied powers, needing Russian assistance to defeat Japan in the Pacific, brought Soviet Premier Josef Stalin into the inner Allied circle. The Yalta and Potsdam Conferences of 1945 produced a cautious optimism among the Allies that, despite the immense ideological and political differences between the United States and Soviet Union, a spirit of cooperation might prevail beyond the war.[27] However, a systemic, intractable distrust soon emerged between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union which manifested itself in almost every region of the globe.[28] The post-war international order quickly devolved into a zero-sum competition between the United States, as leader of the world’s democracies, and the Soviet Union as patron of the growing Communist bloc.
In 1947, Truman publicly articulated a U.S. foreign policy to ideologically and materially support free nations and actively oppose the expansion of totalitarian regimes.[29] Recognizing that fragile, war-ravaged Europe was susceptible to Soviet mischief, the United States enacted the Marshall Plan, a massive economic aid program to help Europe recover from the war.[30] In 1949, the United States helped establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a defense pact aimed at resisting Communist aggression.[31] At the same time, Washington also led a rescue effort for the Soviet-besieged city of Berlin, airlifting hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies to Berlin over the course of several months until the humiliated Soviets relented.[32] The United States also advanced its power in the Pacific through its military occupation of Japan and the planning of Japan’s post-war future (without conferring with the Soviets) and prepared to establish U.S. military bases on Japanese soil.[33]
Despite heavy U.S. presence in Japan, East Asia had no NATO-like collective security pact and remained highly vulnerable to competition among great powers.[34] Since U.S. actions had decisively obstructed Stalin’s designs on Western Europe, the Soviet leader turned his attention toward Russia’s Asia front.[35] In 1949, he aided Chinese Communists, led by Mao Zedong, in overthrowing the U.S.-backed Chiang Kai-Shek and his Nationalist government.[36] As Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Formosa (Taiwan), Mao inaugurated a new Communist government.[37] Shortly thereafter, Mao traveled to Moscow to complete the Sino-Soviet alliance, revealing Russia’s increasing influence in East Asia.[38] The expansion of Communism in Asia distressed the United States, and the Soviet test of a nuclear bomb in September 1949—ahead of the timeline that the United States had predicted—compounded Truman’s sense of urgency.[39] As the zero-sum game intensified, Truman approved the recommendations of his advisors to reverse military demobilization and to engage in massive conventional and nuclear buildup.[40]
In zero-sum competitions, “[t]he more intense the competition becomes, the more difference small moves can make.”[41] U.S. actions at home, in Europe, and in Japan demonstrated to the Soviet bloc that America intended to occupy a preeminent position in the world, and Russia was no doubt alarmed by the pincer-like consolidation of American power on both its European and Far East fronts. Yet, despite the growing zero-sum standoff, the United States assumed that Russia would avoid risking a potentially escalatory war until acquiring a significant nuclear stockpile of its own, a prospect still some years away.[42] Regarding civil conflict on the Korean Peninsula, U.S. leaders surmised that Russia would keep its North Korean satellite under control to avoid chancing war with the United States.[43] So while Washington knew Korea was one of many possible trouble spots, it chose to prioritize other vulnerable areas for attention, failing to unambiguously include Korea in its orbit of influence.[44] In 1949, the United States withdrew its troops from South Korea. Washington continued to provide some material aid to the South but withheld armor and heavy artillery partly out of concern that the South Korean government might use them to advance their claims to the entire Peninsula, leaving the fragile government largely defenseless.[45] U.S. leaders also declined to publicly communicate that South Korea was strategically valuable to the United States; for example, in a January 1950 speech at the National Press Club, Secretary of State Dean Acheson omitted any mention of Korea when discussing the U.S. defense perimeter in the Pacific.[46] Washington failed to appreciate that these seemingly small decisions might constitute a tantalizing target of opportunity for the Soviet Union and its proxy North Korea.[47] U.S. leaders simply made the wrong deterrence calculation, and the result was a strategic, costly shift in the balance of power.
A New War: U.S. Failure to Deter China
In exploring the dynamics of the “self-help system,” Waltz explains that anyone who wants to win a game of two or more players must pursue a strategy that accounts for the strategies of the other players; failure to do so will result in a miscalculation of one’s own options.[48] In the Korean War, the United States did not adequately consider the potential interests and strategies of a third major player: China. The historical attitude of America toward China was one of “paternalistic” empathy that lacked any genuine understanding of the political and social dynamics at work in that nation.[49] Despite the decisive military defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek and the establishment of a new Communist government, U.S. leaders refused to adjust their attitudes and were therefore unprepared to effectively deter China from war with the United States.
“Third Wave” theory helps to illuminate U.S. deterrence calculations regarding China at the time.[50] Third Wave theory holds that one cannot reliably predict an adversary’s deterrence decisions based on the “assumed prevalence of rational, well-informed calculation in decision-making.”[51] Such a broad core assumption invariably leads to “mirror-imaging” in which one interprets an adversary’s perspective through one’s own conceptions of rationality or reasonability.[52] However, in reality, numerous other factors—such as personal beliefs, cognitive distortions, and overriding imperatives—can impact leaders’ strategic calculations, resulting in “decision-making that is surprisingly unreasonable, even though narrowly rational.”[53] In the case of the Korean War, Third Wave factors clouded both President Truman’s and General MacArthur’s decision-making, preventing them from understanding and anticipating the decisions of Mao Zedong.
Truman was a staunch anti-Communist and had trouble believing that Mao really had popular support.[54] While the Chinese Communist government warned the United States many times that it would attack if U.S. troops crossed the 38th parallel, Truman remained in denial that Mao had the domestic backing or the resolve to act.[55] Even after China launched its first foray into Korea, Truman refused to believe that the Chinese people supported their leaders’ decisions and therefore failed to adjust his position.[56] MacArthur—hubristic and egotistical—harbored a strong prejudice against Chinese soldiers, causing him to greatly underestimate their potential strength.[57] Consequently, in advising Truman, MacArthur minimized the possible consequences of a Chinese invasion while exaggerating his own prospects for defeating them.[58] Even when Truman was inclined to be cautious, MacArthur reassured him that China would not intervene—and if they did, that UN forces would massacre them.[59]
Such attitudes prevented Truman and MacArthur from accurately assessing the adversarial landscape. They failed to appreciate that Mao perceived the United States as a hostile, imperialist power that threatened the existence of his new regime.[60] Mao feared that the United States would overthrow the North Korean Communist government and place it under Western-aligned rule, stationing U.S. troops on China’s border.[61] This in turn would position the United States to pressure China and perhaps restore the Nationalists to power.[62] The United States exacerbated Mao’s fears at the outset of the war by deploying the Seventh Fleet as a buffer between the Chinese mainland and Formosa, the seat of Nationalist exile. This simply fueled Mao’s suspicions that Washington was preparing a hostile offensive.[63] MacArthur added to the trouble with public displays of support (independently of Truman) for Chiang Kai-Shek.[64] All the while, the Nationalists continued to occupy China’s seat on the UNSC.[65] In October 1950 when MacArthur crossed the 38th parallel, he instructed his commanders to press on to the Chinese border, overly confident that the Chinese would not invade.[66] Mao now perceived that he faced an overriding imperative: the survival of his regime.[67] Provoked to high-risk brinkmanship, Mao, openly admitting that not even American nuclear weapons could deter him, deployed a massive force into Korea.[68] Truman’s and MacArthur’s misjudgment of China’s threat perceptions and decision-making calculus resulted in an explosion of new conflict. When Chinese Communist forces engaged and defeated South Korean forces in late 1950, MacArthur admitted that a “new war” had begun—one that would ultimately erase all U.S. and UN gains up to that point.[69]
Global Government Solution: An Unsatisfactory Experiment
In closing his analysis, Waltz concludes that the logical remedy for war is global government.[70] Yet, he adds that though this conclusion is consistent in logic, it is unattainable in practice.[71] Under the anarchic system in which all states pursue their own interests as they deem best, there will simply never be enough trust among states to yield power to a world government.[72]
At its founding in 1945, the United Nations was the boldest experiment in history in applying a global government solution to war. Truman wholeheartedly believed that the UN concept could prevent future war, and at the signing of the UN Charter he congratulated the delegates, saying, “you have won a victory against war itself.”[73] The Korean War supplied the first test of the principles and machinery of this new world organization. Truman, eager both to avoid a third world war and to enlist the moral authority of the UN in addressing the conflict, immediately sought UN action.[74] For the first time, an international organization voted to meet force with force.[75]
Despite this historic milestone, the purity of the collective security ideal quickly fractured. First, all major UN decisions related to the conflict stemmed from American instigation. Second, the United States exploited the fact that both the Soviet Union and Communist China—the two great powers abutting Korea—were absent from the UNSC. The UN did not recognize the Communist government of China and continued to permit the exiled Nationalists to occupy China’s seat. In protest, the Soviet Union’s representative boycotted the Council.[76] Absent the Soviet vote, the American-drafted resolution demanding cessation of hostilities in Korea easily passed.[77] The United States then pushed through a second resolution requesting member military assistance, but only after Truman had already determined to commit U.S. military force—putting the UNSC in the position of following rather than leading.[78] Then in October 1950 after MacArthur had successfully repelled the North Korean invasion, the United States sought UN support to press beyond the 38th parallel. Truman had likely already decided that pushing north would be advantageous for the United States as well as for himself personally. China’s fall to Communism had cost him politically; now, with an election around the corner, he could win political points and enhance U.S. prestige with a decisive victory against Communism.[79] However, by this time the Soviet representative had returned to the UNSC, ending any prospect for passing another American resolution.[80] Not to be thwarted, Truman took his request to the UN General Assembly instead. On October 7, 1950, the General Assembly passed a resolution backing actions to reunify Korea; on the same day, UN forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea.[81] Notwithstanding Truman’s attraction to the collective security principle, he could not help but act first and foremost in his own interests and the interests of the United States. Though Truman continued to represent U.S. actions as on behalf of the UN and in the name of international peace and security, he had clearly blurred the distinction between global and U.S. national interests. In reality, the UN was supporting American objectives, not the reverse.[82] In the end, the UN proved a disappointing experiment in the ability of a central global governing body to prevent war. The great powers involved could in no way trust one another enough to yield their interests to the collective security ideal—even at the risk of further war.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this brief case study of a few of the international dimensions in the Korean War highlights three lessons for war causation and deterrence theory. First, in an anarchic system in which balances of power are constantly shifting, nothing can substitute for a strong understanding of one’s adversary. Although U.S. leaders already recognized the zero-sum nature of the rivalry with the Soviet Union, they miscalculated the actions required to maintain a conflict-free balance of power and unwittingly encouraged North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union, to seize power on the Peninsula. Second, Truman’s and MacArthur’s inability to reckon with their own personal beliefs and prejudices prevented them from accurately assessing China’s interests and capabilities, resulting in strategic surprise and a fresh outbreak of war. Third, the most progressive attempt in history to implement a global government solution to preventing war—instituting a central governing body among states—revealed the limitations that Waltz highlights: there is simply not enough trust between states to fully transform the “self-help” international system. Rather, national leaders can be expected to continue to prioritize their own nations’ interests above the interests of the collective good.
In his seminal work The Art of War, Sun Tzu explains that the key to victory is knowing both oneself and one’s enemy: “[I]f you know yourself and know your enemy, you will gain victory a hundred times out of a hundred. If you know yourself but do not know your enemy you will meet one defeat for every victory. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will never be victorious.”[lxxxiii] Several lessons from the Korean conflict corroborate the wisdom of this principle. Current and future U.S. leaders would do well to heed its counsel.
[1] This article is based on an unpublished paper prepared by the author for faculty of the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University, in May 2019.
[2] Harry S. Truman, Memoirs by Harry S. Truman, Volume 2: Years of Trial and Hope, 1946–1952 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1956), pp. 331, 333.
[3] “Charter of the United Nations,” opened for signature June 26, 1945, United Nations Online, Preamble, https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/; Dr. Clint Work, Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, personal interview, December 11, 2025.
[4] Robert McClintock, The Meaning of Limited War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), p. 32.
[5] David Rees, Korea: The Limited War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964), p. 9.
[6] Harry S. Truman, Memoirs by Harry S. Truman, Volume I: Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1956), p. 292; Rees, Korea: The Limited War, op. cit., p. 12.
[7i] Jonathan D. Pollack, No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and International Security (Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2011), p. 26.
[8] McClintock, The Meaning of Limited War, op. cit., p. 33.
[9] Rees, Korea: The Limited War, op. cit., p. 13; Dr. Clint Work, interview, op. cit.
[10] LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1966 (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1967), p. 95.
[11] Pollack, No Exit, op. cit., pp. 31–32.
[12] David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 778.
[13] McCullough, Truman, op. cit., pp. 780–782; Brian Crozier, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire (Rocklin, CA: Forum, 1999), p. 152.
[14] McCullough, Truman, op. cit., p. 782; United Nations Security Council, Fifth year, “Resolution 82: Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea,” S/1510, June 25, 1950, p. 4, https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/82(1950).
[15] Dean Acheson, The Korean War (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1971), p. 25; McClintock, Meaning of Limited War, op. cit., pp. 36–37.
[16] LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., pp. 99, 108.
[17] Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers (New York: The Free Press, 1986), pp. 45–46.
[18] LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., p. 108.
[19] Ibid., p. 110.
[20] Suisheng Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia: From the Old Chinese World Order to Post-Cold War Regional Multipolarity (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 95, 97–8.
[21] Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), p. 159.
[22] Ibid., p. 208.
[23] Ibid., pp. 208–209.
[24] Ibid., p. 222.
[25] Ibid., pp. 222–223.
[26] Ibid., p. 220.
[27] U.S. Department of State, “The Yalta Conference, 1945,” Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, Department of State, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/yalta-conf.
[28] Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia, op. cit., p. 85.
[29] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York: Harper Perennial, 1999), p. 811.
[30] Johnson, History of the American People, op. cit., pp. 811–813; Acheson, The Korean War, op. cit., pp. 9–10.
[31] Truman, Memoirs, Volume 2, op. cit., pp. 240, 250.
[32] Johnson, History of the American People, op. cit., pp. 813–814.
[33] LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., p. 96.
[34] Ibid., p. 100.
[35] Johnson, History of the American People, op. cit., p. 821; McClintock, Meaning of Limited War, op. cit., p. 35.
[36] Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia, op. cit., pp. 86–87.
[37] McCullough, Truman, op. cit., p. 749; Acheson, The Korean War, op. cit., p. 14.
[38] Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia, op. cit., p. 92.
[39] Acheson, Korean War, op. cit., p. 13.
[40] Loc. Cit.
[41] Waltz, Man, the State, and War, op. cit., p. 217.
[42] Rees, Korea: The Limited War, op. cit., pp. 14–15.
[43] Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia, op. cit., p. 93.
[44] Truman, Memoirs, Volume 2, op. cit., p. 331.
[45] McClintock, Meaning of Limited War, op. cit., p. 34; Dr. Clint Work, interview, op. cit.
[46] Loc. Cit.
[47] Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia, op. cit., pp. 93–94.
[48] Waltz, Man, the State, and War, op. cit., pp. 201, 204.
[49] John G. Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, 10th ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008), p. 84; Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia, op. cit., p. 88.
[50] Keith B. Payne, “New Conditions vs. Cold War Theory,” lecture, Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University, Fairfax, VA, March 20, 2019.
[51] Keith B. Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky, 2001), p. 39.
[52] Payne, Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, op. cit., pp. 7, 23.
[53] Ibid., pp. 40, 46, 52.
[54] Johnson, History of the American People, op. cit., p. 804; LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., p. 111.
[55] Payne, Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, op. cit., p. 53; Edwin P. Hoyt, On to the Yalu (New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1984), pp. 192–193.
[56] LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., p. 111.
[57] Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, op. cit., pp. 82–83, 87.
[lviii58] Payne, Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, op. cit., p. 54.
[59] Rees, Korea: The Limited War, op. cit., p. 119.
[60] Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, op. cit., p. 81.
[61] Priscilla Roberts, “New Light on a ‘Forgotten War’: The Diplomacy of the Korean Conflict,” OAH Magazine of History 14, no. 3 (2000): p. 12, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25163358; LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., p. 111.
[62] Hoyt, On to the Yalu, op. cit., pp. 210–211.
[63] Payne, Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, op. cit., p. 2.
[64] Truman, Memoirs, Volume 2, op. cit., pp. 354–355.
[65] Crozier, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, op. cit., p. 150.
[66] Hoyt, On to the Yalu, op. cit., p. 250.
[67] Payne, Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, op. cit., p. 46.
[68] LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., p. 110; Rees, Korea: The Limited War, op. cit., pp. 106–107; Payne, Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, op. cit., p. 46.
[69] McClintock, The Meaning of Limited War, op. cit., p. 39.
[70] Waltz, Man, the State, and War, op. cit., p. 238.
[71] Loc. Cit.
[72] Waltz, Man, the State, and War, op. cit., p. 238; Keith B. Payne, “The Causes of War, Waltz’s Three Images,” lecture, Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University, Fairfax, VA, February 6, 2019.
[73] Truman, Memoirs, Volume 1, op. cit., pp. 271, 289.
[74] McCullough, Truman, op. cit., pp. 780–782; Crozier, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, op. cit., p. 150.
[75] McCullough, Truman, op. cit., p. 781.
[76] LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, op. cit., pp. 97–98.
[77] Loc. Cit.
[78] Leland M. Goodrich, “The United Nations and the Korean War: A Case Study,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 25, no. 2 (1953): 90–104, https://doi.org/10.2307/1173269.
[79] McCullough, Truman, op. cit., p. 744; McClintock, The Meaning of Limited War, op. cit., p. 40.
[80] Goodrich, “The United Nations and the Korean War,” op. cit., p. 96.
[81] Goodrich, “The United Nations and the Korean War,” op. cit., p. 96; McClintock, Meaning of Limited War, op. cit., p. 38.
[82] Goodrich, “The United Nations and the Korean War,” op. cit., p. 103.
[83] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. James Trapp (New York: Chartwell Books, 2012), p. 21.
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