Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea 1950-1953 [Hardcover]

D. Clayton James (Author), Anne Sharp Wells (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 1992

This book examines the Korean War, the paradigm of America's conflicts with communism. He argues that, like so many wars, the Korean War was fought broadly along the lines of the war before, World War II. It shows, however, that the consequences of this error were limited by the State Department. The book examines the roles, leadership, personalities and prejudices of five key commanders - President Harry S. Truman, General Douglas MacArthur, General Matthew B. Ridgway, General Mark W. Clark and Admiral C. Turner Joy. It goes on to look at the crucial issues that confronted them during the conflict: Truman's decision to commit US forces to war without congressional approval; MacArthur's pressure for an assault on Inchon; and the decision to open truce negotiations. The book analyzes the ground-level results and long-term consequences of command decisions, and explores the course the war might have taken had certain crucial decisions been taken differently.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

James ( The Year of MacArthur ), writing with freelancer Sharp, discusses the five principal American commanders of the Korean War (President Truman, Generals MacArthur, Matthew Ridgway and Mark Clark, and Admiral C. Turner Joy) and six crucial command decisions they made during the three-year conflict. According to this Virginia Military Institute history teacher, those decisions were: sending U.S. troops to fight in Korea; initiating the amphibious landing at Inchon; launching the counterattack in North Korea; settling for an armistic rather than total victory; and imposing tactical restrictions on ground, sea and air operations. What sets this book apart from other histories of the Korean War is the original thesis that both sides, without a word of formal agreement, set up an intricate system of limitations specifically designed to avert a general war. James argues that the kind of devastating American conquest that was possible in the post-WW II era would have guaranteed the eruption of another and more terrible global war. This is a fresh look at the "strange and ugly war" which, according to James's cogent analysis, was unique in its self-imposed limitations.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

James (military history, Virginia Military Inst., and author of the three-volume Years of MacArthur , LJ 4/1/85) has reinterpreted America's first limited war. He analyzes the roles, leadership abilities, personalities, and prejudices of five American commanders--Truman, MacArthur, Ridgway, Mark Clark, and C. Turnery Joy--and then looks at six crucial decisions confronting them. Among the topics discussed are Truman's decision to go to war without the consent of Congress; MacArthur's preoccupation with Inchon and the Yalu; and Joy's two-year stint negotiating with the Communists. James argues that the Korean War is the key to understanding American decision making in all subsequent conflicts and concludes that each new war is fought using the lessons of the last war. This is hardly a new or startling conclusion. Graduates of the Army War College and specialists in civilian-military relationships in a democracy will find this work of interest, but it is too specialized for the general reader. For large collections of military history.
- Stanley Itkin, Hillside P.L., New Hyde Park, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 290 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition edition (November 2, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029160014
• ISBN-13: 978-0029160015
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,047,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evaluation of the People and Command Decisions of the War, December 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea 1950-1953 (Hardcover)

This is a good text that highlights the (5)critical players and (6) command decisions that were part of the war.

Truman left the details up to Acheson but felt the war, and especially prisoner repatriation, were moral imperatives. (The later cost Truman the election in '52...an armistice would have been signed before the election had Truman yielded). Ridgway, stabilizing the front after MacArthur's collapse, decided to extract maximum Chinese casualities for largely insignifcant terrain. Admiral Joy wore two hats as commander and negotiator. His minesweeping and Marine air support were often underappreciated, even as his worst fears about the Soviets in Vladivostok never materialized. On the other hand he often negotiated as much with his own State Department as with the communists. General Clark chafed under the restraints of limited war, and wound up signing the Armistice 'with a heavy heart.'

As an analyst the command decisions are more interesting.
***The decision to intervene showed the growing strength of the state department vis a vis military matters. It had been the Joint Chiefs ,after all, who had said a war on the Asian mainland should be avoided. But pressure of McCarthyism and fear of a Kremlin monolith pushed us in. For their part, the North Koreans assumed that the US machinery of declaring war would be too cumbersome for a timely response. While bypassing congress was justified under the urgent circumstances that late June of 1953, it was foolish not to engage and consult with key leaders as the war progressed.
***The author, as many do, gives a good description of the insurmountable logistics of the Inchon landing. Asked about its risks, MacArthur (perhaps sarcastically) commented that the real risk was putting US boys on the mainland in the first place. The author could have pointed out that 'donkeys' revealed the Flying Fish Channel was not mined, nor was the port heavily guarded. In any case, the momentum gained at Inchon was lost with the Wonsan landing on the east coast.
***With regards to the decision to cross the parallel, James points out that speeches and excitement about uniting Korea predated US force breakouts. But the success foundered as US forces outran their supplies in the west; the peninsula widened and the temperatures plummeted; the Taebek mountains prevented the 'pincers' from closing. As for the disaster of Chinese intervention, the author lays some blame on Truman. He used the Wake Island meeting with MacArthur largely for political grandstanding when it called for hardnosed geopolitical analysis.
***On the decision to fire MacArthur: Keep in mind MacArthur felt US policymakers placed too much emphasis on Europe. [Reviewers comment: we still do. Can you say BOSNIA?] His proposals to extend the war into Manchuria and China involved limited air and sea operations, not ground troops. [Clark made the same proposals 2 years later]. As for the advance itself, MacArthur took full advantage of what he felt were ambiguous orders. A final source of misunderstanding was simply that links between MacArthur, the JCS and presidential advisors (especially Acheson) were weak.
*** In his chapter 'Victory or Armistice' James deals well with arguments that we should have exploited the weak CCF instead of pursuing an Armistice in mid 1951. Should we have advanced to the Korean 'waist'-- the line between Wonsan and Pyongyang? Considering the difficulties we encountered later at the Iron Triangle and the Punchbowl, this might not have been as easy as we thought. True, Van Fleet and Admiral Joy felt we had fumbled an opportunity to 'crush the enemy'. But the author states frankly the American led alliance decided that 'if the blood of their young men' was to be shed further, it should be in areas more strategically critical. (of course this means, Europe.).
***Could the war have been fought in another way or by other means?? America never decided to use Chiang Kai Sheks forces; not only could this be provocative, but there was a feeling that they were not up to snuff, anyway. America sent its extra 4 divisions to Europe partly as a signal to the communists that we wish to keep the war confined to the Peninsula.
What about more of a sea war? Not only would a blockade of Manchuria have been ineffective, but it might have brought in the Russians from nearby Vladivostok. Shelling of Chinese cities and bases also would have been largely ineffective since many facilities were beyond the range of coastal gunfire.
Could the air war have been different? Strategic bombing had little impact on the defensive lines of the enemy. Atomic bombs were a charming threat, but overkill ; and ineffective in such rural terrain. [nuclear bombs are good for one and only one thing...blowing up large cities.] Hot pursuit of MiGs scooting back north of the Yalu was eventually allowed. (and effective: read No Kum Sok's book, A MiG15 to Freedom).

There were other limits and sanctuaries as well: UN bases in Korea (Pusan, for example) were never bombed; Russian air and naval support was never more than just adequate. These limits illustrate the complex, political nature of cold war warfare. If it was new to us then, it most certainly is not now. Have we learned from it??

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sending children to do a man's job, November 29, 2008

By 

Harry Eagar (Maui) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea 1950-1953 (Hardcover)

Despite its being based on a weird premise, Clayton James' study is a model autopsy of muddled politico-military thinking. When he wrote it, in 1993, he explicitly linked his discoveries of errors in Korea to repetitions of the same errors in Vietnam and during Gulf War I. He was a prophet, because the same stupid errors were made and are still being made in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His premise is that there is "an American tradition of preferring strategies of annihilation, instead of attrition." It's true that that was the strategy of World War II, where all the high commanders in the Korean War had served, but World War II was the exception. Except for the unique Civil War, American wars have always been limited wars.

Perhaps, as James says, men like Douglas MacArthur and Matthew Ridgway would have enjoyed the satisfaction of another total victory. But they were supposed to be professionals, and a genuine military professional tempers his wish for a crushing victory to the fact that he usually faces an enemy who declines to let him have it.

There is a childishness in the American way of war, most obvious in the airmen but present everywhere. In World War II, the airmen envisaged cheap, complete victories which they never delivered. In the Pacific, the prudent, always victorious Raymond Spruance was constantly sniped at by the airmen, led by John Tower, with their jejune visions of a naval Cannae. Yet when the airmen got their way, at Leyte Gulf, they barely escaped disaster. The airmen overpromised again in Vietnam.

Similar examples of childish thinking will spring to mind from the past five years.

Surprisingly, this bee in James' bonnet does not get in the way of a mostly excellent analysis of who did what when -- and sometimes why.

James' approach is unusual. He starts with chapters on the careers of the five leaders who had command responsibility: President Harry Truman, General of the Army MacArthur, General Matthew Ridgway, Admiral Turner Joy and General Mark Clark. (Joy's command responsibility was less significant but he deserves his spot as lead negotiator of the armistice, even if his hands were tied from Washington.)

James is an admirer, not uncritical, of all five men. He wrote a three-volume life of MacArthur (which I have not read) and in this book calls MacArthur a "flawed genius." In reality, MacArthur was an incompetent, who, among other professional failings, neglected logistics, misunderstood air power, failed to assess intelligence, ignored flank security, disparaged the fighting men under him and failed to faithfully follow orders. In addition, he was corrupt, imagined wrongly that he had some almost mystical understanding of "the oriental mind" and by 1950 was insane. Even James calls him "paranoid," but psychotic would be more accurate.

This misassessment of the overall MacArthur, however, does not interfere with James' generally persuasive account of the steps and missteps of each of the \five, and of the officers and high civilian officials back in Washington.

The second part of the book examines in fair detail the five key decision points: sending troops to defend South Korea, the flank attack at Inchon, the advance into North Korea, the entry of China and seeking an armistice.

James comes to a number of conclusions, most of them still important and still unlearned:

-- Resorting to coalition warfare gave undue influence to minor players (a point they could have gotten out of Clausewitz).

-- The influence of McCarthyism distorted the American response.

-- The Joint Chiefs of Staff displayed hesitancy and lack of clarity, and they lacked easy communications between the Pentagon and Tokyo. (Not physical communications; the actors were not listening to each other.)

-- American military power was in a low state. The Army had just 10 divisions, the same number it has today.

-- The opposing sides were able to limit the conflict without either side's ever communicating with each other. James considers this marvelous, although more recently the historian Peter Paget has convincingly described it as a normal state of affairs.

James misses a few points, however.

-- It is a rule of adult warfare that you must anticipate not what you expect your enemy to do but what he can do. MacArthur was the worst but not only offender in this respect.

-- The manpower equation worked against the United States. The North Koreans, the Chinese and the Soviets all maintained enormous armies. The United States had a small one. A big part of the reason was economic. The United States had a productive use for its young men in a booming peacetime economy. The backward communist states, besides not having to consult public opinion, did not enjoy expanding economies and could afford to keep millions of men idle in uniform.

"Refighting the Last War" is a meaty book and demonstrates that even starting from (and finishing with) a wrongheaded premise does not preclude an incisive analysis as long as all the evidence is taken seriously.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Though Provoking, Insightful and Informative Work on Leadership in the Korean War!, November 11, 2007

By 

Gilberto Villahermosa - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea 1950-1953 (Hardcover)

In "Refighting the Last War" historian Clayton James, biographer of General Douglas MacArthur, reexamines the leadership of five key commanders in the Korean War:

- President Harry Truman;

- General Douglas MacArthur;

- General Matthew Ridgway;

- General Mark W. Clark;

- Admiral C. Turner Joy.

The author then examines six critial issues confronting these leaders in the Korean War:

- Sending American troops to fight in Korea;

- MacArthur's Obsession with Inchon (vice a breakout from the Pusan Perimeter by General Walton Walker's Eighth Army);

- the Liberation of North Korea;

- the Chinese Intervention;

- Victory vs. settling for an Armistice as the strategic goal;

- fighting a Total or Limited War in Korea.

One would expect James, sympathetic to Douglas MacArthur, to skew this book in the General's favor. To his credit, the author does not, although he does marshal impressive evidence to support the assertion that MacArthur was indeed carrying out Harry Truman and the Joint's Chief's objectives in Korea. James clearly shows that MacArthur was out of touch with the Joint Chief's and the situation in Korea and bears a heavy responsibility for the significant reverses suffered by the unprepared American forces there.

It is clear that American forces were needed in South Korea if that country were to be rescued from North Korean domination. James, however, argues that a breakout from the Pusan Perimeter by Eighth Army could have achieved the same effects as the landing at Inchon without most of the drawbacks. He goes on to question the wisdom of the liberation of North Korea as a strategic objective and shows that most of the senior commanders in the war believed the American and United Nation forces should have pursued victory rather than a armistice to end the war. Finally, he discuses the inability of the United States in the 1950s to pursue a total war in Asia against Communist China and perhaps even the Soviet Union.

True, this book suffers from some drawbacks, most importantly the lack of Chinese or Soviet sources to provide a greater strategic perspective on the war. Still, James has utilized the sources available admirably and produced a thought provoking, insightful, and informative work that will cause the reader to reconsider the issue of strategic leadership in the Korean War.