Could North Korea have ever won the Korean War in its early stage?

[King Helü of Wu]

1)How probable would it be for the Korean People's Army to push the UN forces into the sea at Pusan?

2)And how probable would it be for North Korea to prevent the Inchon landing at the same time?

 

[King Helü of Wu]

Would it be possible for North Koreans to mobilize more troops before the outbreak of the war, so that their initial advantage was more overwhelming? (connected to points 1 and 2)

And finally, would it be possible for Stalin to give more air support, so that the North Korean supply line was not broken by the US bombings?(connected to 1)

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

What if the Soviets did not boycott the UN Security Council due to the US's veto of the PRC in the United Nations? Would a Soviet veto alone prevent a single UN soldier from ever stepping into Korea?

 

[King Helü of Wu]

What if the Soviets did not boycott the UN Security Council due to the US's veto of the PRC in the United Nations? Would a Soviet veto alone prevent a single UN soldier from ever stepping into Korea?

I think US would go for South Korean even if they were alone in it.

 

[NORGCO]

1950 was not 2013

I think US would go for South Korean even if they were alone in it.

Given what terrible shape the US forces of the day were in - drastic force reductions, discipline and training changed to produce a 'civilised' army, Japan garrison at half strength with worn or nearly worn out equipment - the US was in no position to go in alone. Task Force Smith's fate was not an accident.

The account in 'This Kind of War' by T. R. Fehrenbach, originally subtitled "A Study in Unpreparedness." is both illuminating and horrifying on this point. The chapter 'Proud Legions' was, as I understand it required reading for any US officer selected for promotion to General.

The original question of whether North Korea could have won really requires a debate about what stopped them from taking Pusan? Were the Northerners preordained to be too weak and poorly supplied by the time they got there to actually be able to finish the job? How much difference would better preparation on their have made?

If Pusan had fallen would the Inchon invasion still have happened? Think about the political chaos in Washington with each party blaming the other both blaming Truman, the press making it out like the end of the world and MacArthur putting in his own two cents worth from the sidelines. Would there have been the political will to continue the war?

If the Soviets had been present to prevent the UN joining how big a difference would that have made in the first few months? I am still thinking about the survival or otherwise of the forces trapped in the Pusan pocket.

Would the US have stripped the Japanese garrison and then started systematically stripping forces from around the world to go to Korea if their allies had not thrown in with them? How much damage would the United States allies NOT coming to the party have done to the basic idea of the US being obliged to protect those same allies? The political leaders of the era had grown up with isolationism, that was their normal world. Keeping US forces in Europe had involved a lot of emotional debate in the late 40's, at least for the Republican's. The debates might have flared up again with a different outcome if Britain, France, Belgium in particular had not put men with rifles on the ground.

 

[EternalCynic]

Henry Kissinger has a theory that Stalin deliberately didn't provide sufficient aid to Kim Il Sung, allowing the US to continue fighting after Pusan. This would lead to UN troops approaching the Yalu River, putting Mao in a lose-lose situation: either accept the US at his doorstep, or fight the US directly. Stalin's goal was to prevent Mao and Truman from forming a strategic anti-Soviet alliance, which was being considered in Washington.

 

[King Helü of Wu]

The original question of whether North Korea could have won really requires a debate about what stopped them from taking Pusan? Were the Northerners preordained to be too weak and poorly supplied by the time they got there to actually be able to finish the job? How much difference would better preparation on their have made?

I may say it's US air and naval superiority that stopped the KPA. The US air superiority prevented the North Koreans from getting enough supplies, while the navy could supply Pusan with materiel from Japan.

The United States Air Force (USAF) interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground support sorties that destroyed 32 bridges, halting most daytime road and rail traffic. KPA forces were forced to hide in tunnels by day and move only at night. To deny matériel to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics depots, petroleum refineries, and harbors, while the U.S. Navy air forces attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the over-extended KPA could not be supplied throughout the south.

MacArthur reported 141,808 UN troops in Korea on August 4, of which 47,000 were in US ground combat units and 45,000 were in South Korean combat units. Thus the UN ground force outnumbered the North Koreans 92,000 to 70,000.

The US and ROK troops alone could outnumber the KPA, together with the fact that they were much better supplied, they could win the battle even without UN forces and/or Inchon.

Unless the Soviet Air Force intervened, Kim did not even stand a chance.

 

[King Helü of Wu]

Henry Kissinger has a theory that Stalin deliberately didn't provide sufficient aid to Kim Il Sung, allowing the US to continue fighting after Pusan. This would lead to UN troops approaching the Yalu River, putting Mao in a lose-lose situation: either accept the US at his doorstep, or fight the US directly. Stalin's goal was to prevent Mao and Truman from forming a strategic anti-Soviet alliance, which was being considered in Washington.

The thing was, even after the Chinese intervention, soviet support was still limited. The Soviet Air Force operated only in North Korean airspace, making the front-line Chinese and North Korean troops devoid of air support.

Did Stalin want a two-Korea situation as an outcome of the war?

 

[asnys]

If the US was ejected from the Korean Peninsula, Truman would have used atomic weapons. He thought this was Czechoslovakia in 1938 all over again, and it had to be stopped there and then or it wouldn't end until the tanks were in Paris again.

 

[Plumber]

If Inchon failed, I could see the North overrunning the entire peninsula. Without US intervention, a Northern victory is a given, of course.

If the US was ejected from the Korean Peninsula, Truman would have used atomic weapons. He thought this was Czechoslovakia in 1938 all over again, and it had to be stopped there and then or it wouldn't end until the tanks were in Paris again.

No, he wouldn't use atomic weapons. But I would expect another D-Day.

 

[asnys]

No, he wouldn't use atomic weapons. But I would expect another D-Day.

He moved atomic weapons, including the fissile cores, to Okinawa. That was an even bigger deal than it seems, because up to then the fissile cores had been under the exclusive control of the Atomic Energy Commission, a civilian agency, not the military. I agree that he wouldn't use them if he had any other viable option, but I think he would use them rather than allow the US to be ejected from the Korean peninsula. He makes the explicit comparison between Stalin in Korea and Hitler in Czecheslovakia in his memoirs, by the way, I didn't make that up - I think he was mistaken in his interpretation of Stalin's intentions, but that was what he believed, or at least what he said he believed.

 

[Plumber]

He moved atomic weapons, including the fissile cores, to Okinawa. That was an even bigger deal than it seems, because up to then the fissile cores had been under the exclusive control of the Atomic Energy Commission, a civilian agency, not the military. I agree that he wouldn't use them if he had any other viable option, but I think he would use them rather than allow the US to be ejected from the Korean peninsula.

This is true, but I think he would attempt an invasion before resorting to tactical nukes. He used the Bomb in WWII to quickly end the war, and save over a million lives. Using it to protect the fall of Korea could quickly escalate into destroying hundreds of millions of lives. Truman took nuclear weapons very seriously, and actively created a precedent that they were not to be used as normal tools of warfare.

He makes the explicit comparison between Stalin in Korea and Hitler in Czecheslovakia in his memoirs, by the way, I didn't make that up - I think he was mistaken in his interpretation of Stalin's intentions, but that was what he believed, or at least what he said he believed.

This is completely true. The fall of Korea would be considered the second stage of appeasement that led to WWIII (after China). I wasn't disagreeing with that.

 

[aktarian]

He moved atomic weapons, including the fissile cores, to Okinawa. That was an even bigger deal than it seems, because up to then the fissile cores had been under the exclusive control of the Atomic Energy Commission, a civilian agency, not the military. I agree that he wouldn't use them if he had any other viable option, but I think he would use them rather than allow the US to be ejected from the Korean peninsula. He makes the explicit comparison between Stalin in Korea and Hitler in Czecheslovakia in his memoirs, by the way, I didn't make that up - I think he was mistaken in his interpretation of Stalin's intentions, but that was what he believed, or at least what he said he believed.

I think that was mostly because Truman painted himself in the corner. First he was loud in his anti-communist rhetoric and rallied politicians around that to prevent US from becoming isolationist again. Then he had to live with both "loss of China" and Korean war so he had to live up to his rhetoric. Because of all this he had to achieve favourable end for US and with US forces being what they were that could lead to whole sort of unpleasant directions.

 

[asnys]

This is true, but I think he would attempt an invasion before resorting to tactical nukes. He used the Bomb in WWII to quickly end the war, and save over a million lives. Using it to protect the fall of Korea could quickly escalate into destroying hundreds of millions of lives. Truman took nuclear weapons very seriously, and actively created a precedent that they were not to be used as normal tools of warfare.

I think we agree more than we disagree, we just disagree about where the red line is for Truman. I admit I can't prove that he'd go for the Bomb if we were in serious danger of being ejected from Pusan, but moving the weapons to Okinawa while we still had troops in the peninsula seems to me like he was closer to the line than that. Especially since, AFAIK, he didn't publicize it the way he publicized the B-29 deployments to the UK.

 

[dgharis]

First, the North Koreans nearly did achieve that victory. A slight delay on our part, in some cases a matter of a few hours, would have seen them occupy all of South Korea.

Second, even if they had we would still have intervened, given the prevailing attitude of the US government at the time. That intervention would have been in the form of an amphibious invasion ala Inchon rather than atomic bombings, though, since we were wary of opening that can of worms. A successful North Korean invasion would have been the beginning of the story, not the end; see our invasion of Iraq for a similar situation.

Could the North Koreans have conquered the South and then held us off? With Chinese help, yes. Would the Chinese help them hold onto the South if we intervened? Maybe. IOTL they did not intervene until our forces crossed the 38th parallel; the same would probably apply here as well, with the same outcome, a stalemate.

 

[fscott]

First, the North Koreans nearly did achieve that victory. A slight delay on our part, in some cases a matter of a few hours, would have seen them occupy all of South Korea.

Second, even if they had we would still have intervened, given the prevailing attitude of the US government at the time. That intervention would have been in the form of an amphibious invasion ala Inchon rather than atomic bombings, though, since we were wary of opening that can of worms. A successful North Korean invasion would have been the beginning of the story, not the end; see our invasion of Iraq for a similar situation.

Could the North Koreans have conquered the South and then held us off? With Chinese help, yes. Would the Chinese help them hold onto the South if we intervened? Maybe. IOTL they did not intervene until our forces crossed the 38th parallel; the same would probably apply here as well, with the same outcome, a stalemate.

I seriously doubt Truman would have let the UN/US troops driven off of the peninsula. I see a lot of threats to use the A Bomb on China, NK and even the USSR. If they continue to push out our troops I do see the use of the bomb against China and NK. As a very long shot I could see MacArthur, I like him by the way, using the bomb without Truman's permission. MacArthur would probably have to resign but I don't see much else happening to him. Truman would look to a lot of American people as a weak leader who decimated our military since WW2, let Korea happen and who lost China. I don't personally feel that way about Truman but history could be viewed this way with a good publicist.

 

[EternalCynic]

The thing was, even after the Chinese intervention, soviet support was still limited. The Soviet Air Force operated only in North Korean airspace, making the front-line Chinese and North Korean troops devoid of air support.

Did Stalin want a two-Korea situation as an outcome of the war?

That's what Kissinger claims: Stalin wanted to provoke China into a no-win situation, or else Mao will become an anti-Soviet communist like Tito. And that would humiliate Moscow irreparably.

 

[asnys]

I seriously doubt Truman would have let the UN/US troops driven off of the peninsula. I see a lot of threats to use the A Bomb on China, NK and even the USSR. If they continue to push out our troops I do see the use of the bomb against China and NK. As a very long shot I could see MacArthur, I like him by the way, using the bomb without Truman's permission. MacArthur would probably have to resign but I don't see much else happening to him. Truman would look to a lot of American people as a weak leader who decimated our military since WW2, let Korea happen and who lost China. I don't personally feel that way about Truman but history could be viewed this way with a good publicist.

MacArthur never had access to the bomb, and he never will under Truman. The fissile cores of the bombs were only transferred to Okinawa about a week after MacArthur was relieved. I strongly suspect that that is not a coincidence.

 

[sloreck]

If the US is pushed off the peninsula completely, a successful amphibious assault (Inchon or elsewhere) becomes delayed at a minimum and problematical. Controlling the entire peninsula allows the NKs to redpeloy troops to areas easier to supply and also to concentrate on potential amphib assault areas. Furthermore they can then begin to improve logistics and build up supplies as they won't be expending "stuff" attacking the Pusan perimeter. Building up US airpower in Japan will take some time, as will getting full Navy air (carriers) ready & on scene - this assumes the US kicked out fairly quickly.

Since the minute the last bit of the peninsula is occupied by the NK you'll see a "unified" Korean People's Republic proclaimed, with possible instant treaties with the USSR & China, this makes the US invasion different from "coming to the aid of an invaded country". One worry the USN had was Soviet subs attacking shipping from US/Japan to Korea of the various amphibious TFs during the war. If all of Korea is "NK" the Soviets might "reflag" some subs, making any invasion trickier.

There are 2 extremes that might occur: (1) The US decides that an invasion would be too bloody & might lead to direct confrontation with the USSR (and US European allies were scared sh*tless about that OTL) and accepts fait accompli or (2) US decides that when they invade need to have "liberating" all of Korea as goal, not just restoring status quo antebellum.

 

[Kome]

That's what Kissinger claims: Stalin wanted to provoke China into a no-win situation, or else Mao will become an anti-Soviet communist like Tito. And that would humiliate Moscow irreparably.

On the other hand, the American administration has never been the best at guessing the intentions of Moscow.

The same of course applies in reverse with the Soviets and Washington.