Pembroke - Korea

Also by Michael Pembroke

Trees of History & Romance
Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy

For my father (1928),
who was there.

I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

Mark Twain, New York Herald, 15 October 1900

In Korea, Americans revealed all the arrogance, the
paternalism, the insensitivity in handling of local peopleand
the local armywhich later revealed themselves in Vietnam.

Sir Max Hastings, The Korean War, 1987

In Korea, China convinced the whole world that she was a
force to be reckoned with, after centuries in which she had been
dismissed as an ineffectual society of mandarins and warlords.

Sir Max Hastings, The Korean War, 1987

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of
history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays, 1958

On War

Of all the enemies of liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honours and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of the state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfareWar is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

James Madison
Political Observations, 20 April 1795

Contents

Koreas shadow loomed over my boyhood. It was apparent to me that my fathers experience was deep in his psyche and that it was impossible to conceal. I guessed that the irredeemable had happened; that violent and unmentionable things had occurred; things that were too painful to recall, or inappropriate to recount. I rarely asked and we spoke only cautiously. In a vague way, through that unfathomable process of intuition that a sensitive child possesses, I absorbed my fathers experiences so that their darkest elements became a small part of my own subconscious. I knew they had been grim and frightening. I knew there had been fear and confrontation, desperation and death. Gradually I learned that the outcome of war is rarely good; that its most aggressive proponents are usually those who have never fought with butt and bayonet; who have never heard the moaning of the wounded or the anguished cries of innocent civilians; who have never been required to kill and maim in the name of their country.

I have waited a long time to tell this story. But there is more to it than my own insights, informed by one mans experience in a corner of a foreign field where blood was spilled in a desperate military conflict. It is a wider account, a cautionary tale, an explanation of the modern era. It is a story of politics and militarism, hubris and overreach.

Princeton, New Jersey
November 2017

For millennia the Korean peninsula was a place of continuous civilisation like no other; a world defined by virtue, nature and superstition; a society built on hierarchical respect; and a culture that was neither Chinese nor Japanese. By the seventh century it had been mostly unified. By the tenth century the kingdom of Kory had more or less established the boundaries that continued into the modern era. In subsequent centuries the peninsula endured its share of invasion and conquest from the Mongols, the Japanese and the Manchus. But for most of the population, most of the time, the prevalent condition was one of prolonged and extensive stability, if not necessarily prosperity.

In the nineteenth century the historic rhythm of Korean life began to weaken when the missionaries, traders and gunboats of the Western powers arrived. At the end of the century, a rampant Japan returnedassassinating Koreas Queen Min and subjecting the peninsula to a savage period of colonial rule until 1945. In the final days of World War II, it was the turn of the Americans, who proposed an arbitrary division to suit their own perceived strategic interests. The partition was an invitation to conflict and made a war for the reunification of the peninsula inevitable, creating a source of discord and international tension that continues today. When war arrived, fewer than five years later, it became the first of Americas failed modern warsits first modern war against Chinaopening the door to ever-increasing military expenditure, marking the true beginning of the American Century, and launching the long era of expanding American global force projection. This is the story of how that war came to pass; how it was fought; how it was needlessly extended; how so much of it was characterised by hubris and overreach; and why its lessons have not been learned.

The war finished more or less where it beganalong the 38th parallel. It started as a United Nations police action to repel the North Korean invasion and restore peace at the border. After three months, Kim Il-sungs ambitious attempt to reunify the peninsula with Soviet tanks had been defeated, the mandate of the United Nations Security Council achieved, and the North Korean forces pushed back to the 38th parallel. But as has happened so often since, Washingtons ideological and military enthusiasm ensured a wider and more substantial conflagrationcontinuing the war for nearly three more years. Civilian deaths are estimated to have been over three million, but we will never know. And the daily death rate for American servicemen over three years (195053) was more than four times the daily rate suffered in Vietnam over fourteen years (196175).

After repelling the invasion, the American-led crusade to cross the 38th parallel, to invade North Korea, to impose regime change and to threaten the Chinese border on the Yalu River, was an unmitigated disaster. The following words are as apt for Korea, as they were for Vietnam, and for so many subsequent American interventions: In attempting to snuff out a small war they produced instead a massive conflagration. Determined to demonstrate the efficacy of force employed on a limited scale, they created a fiasco over which they were incapable of exercising any control whatsoever.

China reacted by entering the conflict in forcewith great bravery and using exceptional infantry tactics. The resulting retreat by the Eighth Army was not merely the longest in American military history, it was the most disgraceful, the most infamous and one of the worst military disasters in history. In reality it was a rout and President Harry S. Truman declared a state of emergency. Legitimate questions about the wisdom, morality and legality of taking offensive action north of the 38th parallel were lost under a wave of moral righteousness and misplaced confidence. Doubters were sidelined, sceptics labelled as appeasers and allies were either with us or against us. Washington wrapped itself in an armour of certitude.

In a pattern that has been repeated, the quest for UN authority to cross the 38th parallel was mired in unconvincing rationalisation, transparent ambiguity and diplomatic and legal machinations reminiscent of the wrangling over the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The British government agonised. Canada was troubled. India opposed, and Australia dared not disagree. Washington would not be deterred. A conflict that started with noble intentions as a United Nations police action, transformed itself into an unnecessary war in which the principal antagonists became China and the United States. But it did not have to be. And it only made things worse.