WI: Korean War Lasts 11 Years (1950-1961)

The television show M*A*S*H lasted 11 years, which was far longer than the actual Korean War it covered. Inspired by that, what if the Korean War lasted 11 years, covering the span of the 1950s and into 1961?
 
I think either nukes would come out, the isolationist wing of the GOP would win Congress and the Presidency, or else somebody might simply run out of manpower long before 1961. The warfare would need to have long stretches of low-intensity struggle to keep it going that long.
 
I think the interesting thing is taking a Vietnam War situation and transplanting it back a decade. Korea was already viewed as something of a quagmire we were lucky to get out of like we did at the time. In contrast to Vietnam, Korea was a lot more of an astroturf conflict. The Communist North Koreans were put in place and puppeteered by the Sino-Soviet bloc, the Korean equivalent of the Viet Cong was astroturf and not the result of the popular will, and the list goes on.
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
If Stalin lives that long, the war would likely go on as well.
And would probably look like it did in 1952; hardly any movement on the frontline and massive US bombings.

I can't imagine any real offensive.
 
I could see two arguments on the backlash: one would be a hybridization of 1930s/1940s isolationism with 1960s acceptance of the US role as a nation on the world stage but protest of involvement in a foreign quagmire, and moral questioning of the conflict. Two would be a total drop of the former, and more in line with the 1960s treatment in regard to Vietnam. If not hippies, perhaps more of a 1920s "lost generation" reaction, with the additional fuel of politically conscious beatniks and the later folk revival movement. I would lean toward the latter of the two options. Isolationism died with the Robert Taft candidacy.
 
In contrast to Vietnam, Korea was a lot more of an astroturf conflict. The Communist North Koreans were put in place and puppeteered by the Sino-Soviet bloc, the Korean equivalent of the Viet Cong was astroturf and not the result of the popular will, and the list goes on.

You're bending the stick here. Korean Institute of Military History acknowledge the southern regime were installed, that the Northern regime had significant local and southern support, and that the southern regime lacked the ability to control an indigenous guerrilla insurrection prior to the war.

What the Korean party and revolution lacked was a deep competent guerrilla infrastructure capable of administering tax and spend in the rear while occupied during high intensity warfare.

Yours,
Sam R.
 
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