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the Korean War intensified in a way that it felt as though WWIII was about to begin

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WWII had two theaters which eventually combined and became a global war

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people in 1950 still had this in mind

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June 1950, Korean War starts

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September 1950: Americans get enough forces so that they can turn the tide

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America controls the air and the sea

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launches a high-risk invasion behind North Korean lines, collapses resistance

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British, French, and Turks are sending troop contingents

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American forces begin to overrun North Korea

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there are arguments in hindsight that the U.S. should have stopped after that invasion and not keep going north

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there was no chance that they would have chosen that, given the precedent in WWII, that fact that you had to crush and utterly defeat dictators to win a war and not just push them back

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the goal was the control the peninsula and organized along the lines provided by the United Nations

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North Korean allies' response

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Soviet Union argues that China needs to go to war against the United States and the United Nations

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a large fraction of the Chinese leadership does not want the larger war

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they want to concentrate on building the new People's Republic

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the chief advocate for the war is Mao Zedong himself

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Mao is asking Stalin for assurances in equipment and supplies, and air cover

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one can very quickly see how this could turn into WWIII

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Stalin's arguments:

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USA is not ready for a big war

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Japan is not yet capable of giving much help to the Americans

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USA will be compelled to yield to China

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USA will have to also give up on Taiwan

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of course, this could all set off a chain reaction which involves China more deeply, and then the Soviet Union

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but if a war is inevitable, let it be waged now and not after Japan and Germany have regained their military strength

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Mao accepts this reasoning and brings China into the fight

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October/November 1950

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Chinese have hundreds of thousands of soldiers for a mass offensive

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but the USA has complete control of the skies and the seas, and have much better fire power

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the Chinese offensive can work if the US forces are scattered over a mountainous countryside

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not in prepared positions

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Douglas MacArthur continues to scatter his forces across the map of North Korea

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the Chinese, lightly armed, cut these forces off, at night, in the winter, in the mountains

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what MacArthur could have done is held a solid line across the peninsula

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MacArthur was over-confident wanting to have troops home by Christmas

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U.S. flees in retreat fighting China

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by January 1951 Mao and Chinese push south

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U.S. declares national emergency and triples the defense budget over night just at it did at the outbreak of WWII

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Douglas MacArthur is replaced by Matthew Ridgway

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are able to hold the line Korea with United Nation troops

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the Chinese lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers

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American forces are now integrated, black and white

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America decided not to widen the war into World War III

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Douglas MacArthur, however, had argued to widen war but Truman finally removed him in April 1951

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in spite of this, MacArthur comes home to ticker tape parades