[794] Collins, War in Peacetime, p. 175.
While America put great military value and reliance on its massive destructive air power, for example, we were confronted by an enemy who practically never employed his own air capability, but instead moved freely at night and hid by day and was thus little deterred by our aerial harassment. And while our own battle summaries regularly cited kill ratios of 1 USMC to 3.75 CCF and substantial Communist losses,[795] we seemed to ignore an enemy mind that thought in terms of numerical superiority and was little concerned about the high human cost of holding key terrain or annexing a desired position. In the last month of the war alone, Eighth Army estimated that CCF casualties numbered 72,000, with more than 25,000 killed.
[795] Official records show that the 1stMarDiv inflicted approximately 59,805 CCF casualties (11,957 KIA; 15,111 estimated WIA or KIA; 32,643 estimated WIA; and 94 POWs) during the Apr 52-Jul 53 period on the western front. For the same time, Marine infantry casualties were approximately 13,000 plus some 2,500 for its 1st KMC/RCT.
In both battlefield tactics and high-level strategy, the Korean War revealed a strong tendency on the part of the UNC to predict enemy action by values and ideology largely reflecting our own. Whether because of wishful thinking, basic mistakes in judgment, or international naiveté, the 1950–1953 experience repeatedly indicated a need on the part of Allied nations for considerably more hard-headed realism in dealing with a Communist adversary. The original UNC military objective of halting Communist aggression in Korea had been successfully accomplished, without enlarging the conflict into a nuclear war. At the same time, Korea had also provided a sobering lesson. It demonstrated how, in a limited war, overriding political considerations may permit the enemy to operate from a privileged sanctuary and allow him to seize and, in many respects, retain the initiative.
The Korean War had made America more aware of the threat of world Communism and had resulted in the strengthening of our national defense commitments in the Far East as well as in Europe. It had also validated the concept of a balanced defense force. In contrast to the emphasis on air capability and atomic power that had dominated the strategic thinking in the post-World War II era, the Korean hostilities pointed to the requirement for a balanced, diversified military force of sufficient strength and readiness to cope effectively and on short notice with any emergency. Korea had underscored how severe peacetime budgetary cut-backs had led to unpreparedness. The Korean experience had also shown the need for flexibility in mobilization planning. Previously, this had been projected for an all-out, general war, based on America’s role in World War II. The Nation’s post-Korean policy thus sought, for the first time, a military strategy that would effectively deter either a major war or local aggression.
Korean hostilities illustrated another important lesson. South Korea had been attacked by an act of direct aggression, in flagrant violation of the Cairo Declaration and U.N. Charter. It was apparent that, despite the defense treaties and mutual aid pacts which the United States had signed during and after World War II, “any number of alliances, if not supported by strong military preparedness, would never restrain aggression.”[796] It had taken the Korean War to drive home the harsh reality that military preparedness, possession of superior power, and the willingness to use that power were the only deterrent to enemy aggression throughout the world.
[796] Marshall, Military History of Korean War, p. 2.
The Korean War also caused the Communists to modify their strategy from one of overt aggression to more insidious means of gaining their political and economic objectives. As the Marine Corps Commandant, General Shepherd, warned: “Their tactic is to use war by proxy, war by satellite, war by threat and subversion.”[797] And, although it was not fully apparent at the time, the Korean attack “was to prove to be one of the first in a series of ‘wars of liberation’”[798] that the world would be witness to.
[797] Anl Rpt of the CMC to SecNav, FY 1955, p. 3.
[798] Collins, War in Peacetime, pp. 3–4.