Challenge: Win the Korean conflict

Let's see...

Stalin doesn't back Kim.
The US gets a quick victory in Korea, resulting in victory disease.
The Soviets now have a tighter hold on the communist bloc, with no Sino-Soviet split.
The US gets it's butt kicked in Vietnam, resulting in stab-in-the-back syndrome in the military.

I have a feeling the cultural events of the 60s will still result in a "counter-revolution" by the Christian authoritarian right.

A bunch of vets of a lost war with stab-in-the-back syndrome, a rising authoritarian right socio-political movement, the spectre of a unified communist threat... Why does this story sound familiar?
 
When did that happen?

The *first* Chinese offensive. An entire ROK force was literally annihilated. MacArthur's comment was "Well, there are a lot of Mexicans in Texas so a few Chinamen in Korea doesn't mean anything" (a paraphrase). Their more famous strike over the Yalu was the *second*, so getting the degree of surprise they did after a first such strike IMHO puts MacArthur into the Hanlon's Razor method of incompetence.

The understrength, underequipped U.S. and ROK troops got absolutely routed early on in the war. That could serve as a lesson as well.

It did not, however, do anything of the sort. Rather it fueled MacArthur's ego.
 
Let's see...

Stalin doesn't back Kim.
The US gets a quick victory in Korea, resulting in victory disease.
The Soviets now have a tighter hold on the communist bloc, with no Sino-Soviet split.
The US gets it's butt kicked in Vietnam, resulting in stab-in-the-back syndrome in the military.

I have a feeling the cultural events of the 60s will still result in a "counter-revolution" by the Christian authoritarian right.

A bunch of vets of a lost war with stab-in-the-back syndrome, a rising authoritarian right socio-political movement, the spectre of a unified communist threat... Why does this story sound familiar?

My scenario is a little more complicated than that. Rather, the USA-UN forces get a quick victory in Korea, leading the Louis Johnston faction to think that their policy of cutting the army to the bone won a war, so why change it? This leads to two parallel developments: the Soviets take a much more direct role in just what their potential proxies do (which potentially could have some nasty butterflies in say, the Middle East ITTL), while they learn from this rapid repulse and actually upgrade their tactics.

The USA keeps its army understrength, sees a long emphasis on massive retaliation at the base of a force any number of Cassandras will indicate is not up to snuff conventionally, and as per OTL will likely think Vietnam will result in an equally rapid repeat of Korea. Where the Soviets, by contrast, do the Apparatchik equivalent of hugging themselves with glee and the Vietnamese have the Korean Commies as an example of why something like Tet is a bad idea, while this USA is even less prepared than the OTL one for a protracted land war in Asia. It will be able to sustain one, and in actual combat US firepower is no less lethal ITTL than it was IOTL, but unlike IOTL only WWII veterans of the CBI theater remember how a protracted Asian war actually works.

The OTL USA drew equally wrong lessons from OTL Korea, so this actually is consistent in terms of patterns between TLs. As per OTL the USA would face a prolonged counterinsurgency paired with an impossible logistical situation of an enemy whose major logistical strongpoints are untouchable and will think it can repeat in Vietnam what it did in a couple of months in ATL Korea. Realizing it doesn't will lead it to adopt failed tactics as per OTL, while handicapped by an even worse overall situation than the OTL not-that-great one, resulting in a culture shock of disastrous proportions.

It's not so much victory disease as the USA keeping a bit *too* much of its traditional phobia of a strong ground army catching up to it a few decades later than it did IOTL with far more severe repurcussions for US prestige.
 
The *first* Chinese offensive. An entire ROK force was literally annihilated. MacArthur's comment was "Well, there are a lot of Mexicans in Texas so a few Chinamen in Korea doesn't mean anything" (a paraphrase). Their more famous strike over the Yalu was the *second*, so getting the degree of surprise they did after a first such strike IMHO puts MacArthur into the Hanlon's Razor method of incompetence.

Do you have any links described the first Chinese offensive?
 
Do you have any links described the first Chinese offensive?

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/kowar/50-chin/50-chin.htm

http://www.history.army.mil/reference/Korea/KW-P3.pdf

http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/kw-chinter/chinter.htm


http://www.paulnoll.com/Korea/Maps/Korean-map-Chinese-offensive.html

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...udies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article06.html

http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/CCF1stCampaign1.htm

http://www.history.army.mil/books/korea/20-2-1/sn36.htm

There's plenty of information on this in any book on the Korean War. The Chinese made an initial offensive aimed at ROK troops, there were Chinese POWs in Chinese uniforms captured here, and Dugout Doug completely missed the obvious and declared that it meant nothing. Then he wanted nukes to bail his sorry ass out when reality slapped him in the face with a tire iron thereafter. :rolleyes::mad:

If the Chinese had actually had surprise on their side when they crossed the Yalu in force in a single go, that would be bad but at least somehow excusable. A full-scale annihilation of ROK forces followed by subsequent complete surprise? That's entirely Dugout Doug's fault.
 
Do you have any links described the first Chinese offensive?

I'd recommend This Kind of War by TR Fehrenbach. It's a comprehensive overview of the war and takes Communist sources into account as well, giving an interesting insight into the psychology on the other side.

It's interesting just how much goodwill surrounded the UN effort to support the ROK- even countries like India (socialist sympathetic and leery of anything that smacked of Western imperialism) contributed to the effort (in India's case, elements of their medical corps).

On the Chinese side, striking across the Yalu was genuinely seen as a pre-emptive assault to secure their own border and prevent MacArthur from getting any funny ideas.

It's sad, really- the impression one gets is that if the UN forces hadn't overreached themselves and stopped short of the Yalu, leaving a rump DPRK, the Chinese would have been happy to join in the usual anti-Imperialist rhetoric and not actually do anything.
 
My scenario is a little more complicated than that. Rather, the USA-UN forces get a quick victory in Korea, leading the Louis Johnston faction to think that their policy of cutting the army to the bone won a war, so why change it? This leads to two parallel developments: the Soviets take a much more direct role in just what their potential proxies do (which potentially could have some nasty butterflies in say, the Middle East ITTL), while they learn from this rapid repulse and actually upgrade their tactics.

The USA keeps its army understrength, sees a long emphasis on massive retaliation at the base of a force any number of Cassandras will indicate is not up to snuff conventionally, and as per OTL will likely think Vietnam will result in an equally rapid repeat of Korea. Where the Soviets, by contrast, do the Apparatchik equivalent of hugging themselves with glee and the Vietnamese have the Korean Commies as an example of why something like Tet is a bad idea, while this USA is even less prepared than the OTL one for a protracted land war in Asia. It will be able to sustain one, and in actual combat US firepower is no less lethal ITTL than it was IOTL, but unlike IOTL only WWII veterans of the CBI theater remember how a protracted Asian war actually works.

The OTL USA drew equally wrong lessons from OTL Korea, so this actually is consistent in terms of patterns between TLs. As per OTL the USA would face a prolonged counterinsurgency paired with an impossible logistical situation of an enemy whose major logistical strongpoints are untouchable and will think it can repeat in Vietnam what it did in a couple of months in ATL Korea. Realizing it doesn't will lead it to adopt failed tactics as per OTL, while handicapped by an even worse overall situation than the OTL not-that-great one, resulting in a culture shock of disastrous proportions.

It's not so much victory disease as the USA keeping a bit *too* much of its traditional phobia of a strong ground army catching up to it a few decades later than it did IOTL with far more severe repurcussions for US prestige.

I would like to read such a story, very much.
 

Hyperion

Banned
That's not bad. Matter of fact, that's pretty good.

How much time you figure you'll have to get that set up before Beiging throws their hat i nthe ring? (It's a good idea to assume that they will.)

In OTL the Chinese really started getting directly involved when the UN/US/ROK forces where close to the Yalu river, and the Chinese border.

Here, if they stop for a while to set up some proper defense lines, and to bring in some decent reinforcements both from the US and elsewhere to man their defense lines, the pause in advance would probably result in the Chinese not attacking for a while beyond their OTL entry into the war.
 
Yes, in the wake of the sudden failure in Korea, it's arguable that the Vietnamese will be *less* likely to pull something like Tet, as they'll have that example of why you *don't* give the West the kind of fight it wants. Vo Nyguen Giap's tactics would be adopted the whole way through, and the US Army's unfortunately probable development in the ATL from a rapid Korean War sets up in this case a major ticking time bomb. The USA will think it can just spam things with firepower and use European-style tactics everywhere, refuse to consider its enemies can learn and change things, and then a decade or so later it sees Saigon fall and wonders what the Hell just happened to it.
Except for the fact that a victory in Korea likely means Truman gets a third term, which means Vietnam is gone since Truman favored making Ho the Asian Tito after Dien Bein Phu, instead of Eisenhower and the Dulles Bros. idiotic approach to the issue.

But I'm sure whichever Republican elected in 1956 will find that tossing a few American boys in, say, Cuba and the Congo would be just fine and dandy...
 
In OTL the Chinese really started getting directly involved when the UN/US/ROK forces where close to the Yalu river, and the Chinese border.

Here, if they stop for a while to set up some proper defense lines, and to bring in some decent reinforcements both from the US and elsewhere to man their defense lines, the pause in advance would probably result in the Chinese not attacking for a while beyond their OTL entry into the war.
I could see it.

Of course, Snake Featherstone has succesfully convinced me that an American victory in Korea would be a long term foreign policy disaster for the AMericans.
 
I could see it.

Of course, Snake Featherstone has succesfully convinced me that an American victory in Korea would be a long term foreign policy disaster for the AMericans.
It also butterflies away Operation Ajax, the clusterfuck in Guatemala, the alienation of India, and many many more decisions made by the Eisenhower Administration. Including the Vietnam War.

So it all depends on who succeeds Truman in 1956 really. Both parties will most likely be socially liberal too: Truman would actually act after Brown v. Board unlike Ike, and the Republican in 1956 would finish the job. The Dixiecrats really might go on parade on their own.
 
It also butterflies away Operation Ajax, the clusterfuck in Guatemala, the alienation of India, and many many more decisions made by the Eisenhower Administration. Including the Vietnam War.

So it all depends on who succeeds Truman in 1956 really. Both parties will most likely be socially liberal too: Truman would actually act after Brown v. Board unlike Ike, and the Republican in 1956 would finish the job. The Dixiecrats really might go on parade on their own.

Ah, the Dixiecrats, yes, they WOULD have a party would they not?
 
Except for the fact that a victory in Korea likely means Truman gets a third term, which means Vietnam is gone since Truman favored making Ho the Asian Tito after Dien Bein Phu, instead of Eisenhower and the Dulles Bros. idiotic approach to the issue.

But I'm sure whichever Republican elected in 1956 will find that tossing a few American boys in, say, Cuba and the Congo would be just fine and dandy...

A few months' victory happens in 1950, the election would be two years later. A lot can change in 2 years.
 
It also butterflies away Operation Ajax, the clusterfuck in Guatemala, the alienation of India, and many many more decisions made by the Eisenhower Administration. Including the Vietnam War.

So it all depends on who succeeds Truman in 1956 really. Both parties will most likely be socially liberal too: Truman would actually act after Brown v. Board unlike Ike, and the Republican in 1956 would finish the job. The Dixiecrats really might go on parade on their own.

Why does it necessarily do any of this? Remember a quick Korean War begins and ends in 1950 and reinforces the early-developing concept of American invincibility, while the next election, in 1952, will occur in a context where winning Korea means as much as having offed Bin Laden.
 
Why does it necessarily do any of this? Remember a quick Korean War begins and ends in 1950 and reinforces the early-developing concept of American invincibility, while the next election, in 1952, will occur in a context where winning Korea means as much as having offed Bin Laden.

Exactly, the party that "Wins" the Korean conflict is going to keep the White House at least, if not the COngress as well.
 
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