Korean War in 1950 (NSC) — Student

Set in September 1950. At the conclusion of World War II, Korea—formerly under Japanese control—was divided at the thirty-eighth parallel into a U.S.-occupied south and a Soviet-occupied north. Although the division was meant to be temporary, by 1948 both countries had declared independence. North Korea became a Soviet-supported communist state; South Korea was supported by the United States. Two years later, North Korea invaded South Korea in an attempt to bring the entire peninsula under its control. After several weeks of fighting, U.S. and South Korean forces were defending an area called the Pusan perimeter, in the southernmost portion of the peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur, who was commanding U.S. and allied forces as part of a UN mission, was also making plans for a landing at Inchon, near the South Korean capital of Seoul, in order to surprise North Korean troops and recapture Seoul.  

Anticipating the possible success of the Inchon landing, President Truman has convened National Security Council members to advise him on whether to extend the U.S. military intervention north of the thirty-eighth parallel in an attempt to unify the Korean Peninsula. As the dividing lines of the emerging Cold War start to solidify, the United States will have to weigh whether intervention in North Korea is worth a potential conflict with another great power.

The United States plays a critical role in establishing and maintaining international order. This is particularly true in an increasingly globalized world. The range of foreign policy issues that require its attention is vast. The United States must consider foreign policy issues from conflicts in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Syria to tensions with Iran and North Korea; from long-standing alliances to complex, evolving relationships with Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa. Issues on the agenda range from the stability of global finance to the promotion of economic opportunity in low-income countries; and from climate to health to nuclear proliferation to terrorism. The United States has a vested interest in myriad world affairs. Further, issues such as immigration, trade, cybersecurity, climate change, and global health underscore the fading distinction between domestic and international matters.

Regardless of the scale of the problem, a successful foreign policy–making process starts by defining interests and goals. Policymakers and their advisors then formulate policy options to meet those goals and consider each option’s strengths and weaknesses. This process is challenging. In the best of times information can be unreliable or incomplete or an adversary’s intentions can be unclear. Often a decision’s consequences can be unknowable. Leaders frequently have to choose from a list on which every option is imperfect. Adding to this uncertainty is the complexity of the U.S. government’s foreign policy machinery. Numerous agencies—each with its own interests and biases—seek to influence how policy is decided and carried out. It takes considerable effort to run a process capable of producing sound policy decisions.

The National Security Council (NSC) plays a critical role in this effort. Its mission is to help the president effectively use a variety of instruments—military, diplomatic, or otherwise—to forge policies that advance U.S. national security goals.

The NSC was created by the National Security Act of 1947. This act defined the NSC as an interagency body intended to “advise the president with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security.” The period after World War II was an age of expanded American interests and responsibilities. The NSC was expected to provide a place where the heads of federal departments and agencies could cooperate to develop recommendations for policies that would advance U.S. aims. The NSC and its staff were also meant to manage the policymaking process. This ensured that the president would receive a full range of advice and opinion from the departments and agencies involved in national security.

The NSC has evolved significantly over the years. The NSC has adapted to the preferences of successive presidents and the challenges they faced. Variables such as the attendees, the frequency of meetings, the manner in which information is passed to the president, the importance of consensus, and the relative dominance of the NSC over other government institutions have changed over the decades.

The NSC has evolved to comprise various interagency committees and a large staff to prepare analysis and coordinate policymaking and implementation. The NSC is at the center of the interagency process. This process is one through which relevant government agencies address foreign policy issues and help the president make and execute policy choices.

I. National Security Advisor

The national security advisor (formally assistant to the president for national security affairs) is at the heart of the NSC structure. The national security advisor’s role is twofold: to offer advice to the president and to coordinate and manage policymaking. Because they have direct access to the president and do not represent a cabinet department, national security advisors are in a unique position. From this neutral perch they drive foreign policy decisions, manage the actors involved, and mitigate conflict throughout the decision-making process.

II. National Security Council Staff

The NSC staff consists of individuals from a collection of agencies that support the president, the vice president, and the administration. NSC staff members are generally organized into directorates that focus on regions or issues. The size and organization of the staff vary with each administration.

The NSC staff provides expertise for the variety of national security policy matters under consideration. It manages numerous responsibilities, including preparing speeches, memos, and discussion papers and handling inquiries from Congress on foreign policy issues. Staff members analyze both immediate and long-standing issues and help prioritize  the agenda.

III. Committee Structure

Committees are at the core of policy deliberation and policymaking in the NSC. They fall into four categories:

This committee structure tackles both immediate crises such as an outbreak of conflict and enduring issues such as climate change. IPCs conduct analysis on an issue, gather views on it and its importance from various departments, formulate and evaluate policy options, and determine what resources and steps would be required to carry out those options. The Deputies Committee manages the interagency process up and down. It decides what IPCs to establish. and gives them specific assignments. It also considers information submitted by the IPCs before relaying it to the Principals Committee or the full NSC.

The Principals Committee is the highest-level setting, aside from the NSC itself, for debating national security issues. It consists of the heads of the NSC’s component agencies. The Principals Committee is essentially all the members of the NSC except the president and vice president. Formal NSC meetings, which the president chairs, occur whenever the president sees fit. They consider issues that require the president’s personal attention and a direct presidential decision.

The goal of this committee structure is to foster consensus on policy options or highlight where and why consensus cannot be reached. If officials at one level agree on an issue, it does not need to go to senior officials for a decision. This practice reserves the president’s time and that of members of the Principals Committee for the most complicated and sensitive debates.

When a crisis erupts issues sometimes do not follow the usual path up from the IPCs. In these cases, NSC staff members and officials in government departments and agencies generally draft papers drawing on their expertise, available intelligence, and any existing contingency plans. Policy options are then debated and decided at the appropriate level. The policymaking process can also deviate from this model based on the preferences of each president.

For the purposes of this NSC simulation, you will role-play the NSC meeting with the assumption that the committees described have already done their jobs. Any critical information has already been passed to the highest-level decision-makers.

Presidential Decisions

When the president makes a policy decision, it can take the form of a verbal instruction recorded and shared with relevant departments and agencies. The president can also issue formal decisions in documents that lay out the administration’s policy and explain its rationale and goals. These documents have gone by different names under different presidents. President Joe Biden issues national security memoranda and national security study memoranda. President Donald Trump issued national security presidential memoranda.

The president can also issue an executive order (EO). EOs are a more formal and public declaration of policy. In contrast, national security directives are generally directed internally to federal departments and are often classified. In the past, presidents have issued EOs for such purposes as facilitating sanctions against foreign individuals and establishing new offices in government departments to carry out foreign policy aims. For federal agencies, both national security directives and executive orders carry the full force of law.

Although many executive branch departments and agencies are involved in foreign policy, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community form the core of the foreign policy bureaucracy. The Department of the Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice often play crucial roles as well.

Department of State

The Department of State conducts the United States’ relations with other countries and international organizations. It maintains U.S. diplomatic presence abroad. The Department of State also issues visas for foreigners to enter the country, aids U.S. citizens overseas, and manages other programs to promote American interests. The secretary of state is the president’s principal foreign affairs advisor and has a keen understanding of the United States’ international relations. They are also well informed on the relationships between foreign countries, and the behavior and interests of their governments.

Department of Defense

The Department of Defense carries out U.S. defense policy and maintains U.S. military forces. It includes the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, as well as an array of agencies related to defense. The department employs more than two million military and civilian personnel and operates military bases around the world. The secretary of defense is the head of the department and the president’s principal defense policy advisor. They also stay up-to-date on the security situation in foreign countries and the possibilities and implications of U.S. military involvement. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is the highest-ranking member of the U.S. armed forces and the president’s top military advisor.

Intelligence Community

The U.S. intelligence community consists of eighteen agencies and organizations, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which gather and analyze intelligence. Each of these agencies has its own mission; for example, the NSA focuses on signals intelligence (information gathered from communications and other electronic signals) and the Defense Intelligence Agency on military information. The director of national intelligence is the president’s principal advisor on intelligence issues. They oversee this network of agencies with the aim of ensuring that they work together and deliver the best possible information to U.S. policymakers.

Department of the Treasury

The Department of the Treasury carries out policy on issues related to the U.S. and global economies and financial systems. The secretary of the treasury serves as one of the president’s chief economic advisors and is responsible for addressing a range of economic concerns. The Treasury’s ten bureaus, which include the U.S. Mint and the Internal Revenue Service, do much of the department’s work, which ranges from collecting tax to printing currency and executing economic sanctions.

Department of Homeland Security

Created soon after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Department of Homeland Security works to counter and respond to risks to American security. It focuses on issues such as terrorism prevention, border security and immigration, disaster response, and cybersecurity. Familiar agencies within the department include U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Transportation Security Administration. The secretary of homeland security oversees the department and advises the president on relevant issues.

Department of Justice

The Department of Justice investigates and prosecutes possible violations of federal law. The Department of Justice represents the U.S. government in legal matters and works more broadly to prevent and respond to crime. Agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration are part of the department, as are divisions focusing on particular areas of law, such as national security and civil rights. Leading the department is the attorney general, who offers legal advice to the president and the heads of other departments.

On June 25, 1950, Soviet-backed North Korea invaded U.S.-backed South Korea.  North Korea sent its forces across the agreed boundary at the thirty-eighth parallel in an attempt to bring the entire peninsula under its control. In response, President Harry S. Truman approved U.S. military action to help South Korea. Truman and others believed what was at stake was not simply U.S. interests in Asia but also the confidence of U.S. allies everywhere in U.S. willingness to stand up to communist aggression. The military action was in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 83—advanced by the United States—which authorized the use of force to “repel the armed attack.”

After several weeks of fighting, U.S. and South Korean forces were defending an area called the Pusan perimeter, a zone of southeastern South Korea around the port of Pusan, against North Korea’s southward advance. General Douglas MacArthur, who was commanding U.S. and allied forces as part of the UN mission, was also making plans for a landing at Inchon, near the South Korean capital Seoul.

A successful Inchon landing would mean the prospect of swiftly liberating South Korea. Truman faced a weighty decision. Should the United States simply restore the prewar status quo, pushing North Korea’s military back to the thirty-eighth parallel? Or should U.S. forces, leading UN forces in what Truman called a “police action,” advance into North Korea and try to unify the peninsula? On September 1, 1950, Truman pledged U.S. help for the Koreans “to be free, independent, and united.” But there was no consensus among administration officials. Likewise, members of Congress questioned how far U.S. involvement should extend. 

A U.S. move into North Korea would therefore bring the risk of war with the Soviet Union, China, or both. It would also carry the possibility of a unified peninsula, at peace, under leadership friendly to the United States. Merely restoring the status quo would reduce the risk of war with the communist powers. It would also preserve a hostile North Korean leadership and leave the peninsula divided. This could serve as an open wound, and potential battleground, in the intensifying Cold War.

DECISION POINT—Set in 1950.

President Truman has convened National Security Council (NSC) members to advise him on whether to extend the U.S. military intervention north of the 38th parallel in an attempt to unify the Korean Peninsula. The president has made clear that this decision depends on the success of the Inchon landing and victory in South Korea. It is also clear that NSC members will need to consider a few critical questions. First, what is at stake in the conflict? Is it just a Korean national issue, fueled by North-South rivalry, each side seeking to lead a unified nation, or could the conflict become a major flash point in the Cold War? Second, what are the chances of Soviet or Chinese intervention if the United States invades North Korea? Finally, does reunifying Korea offer a better prospect of a durable peace than stopping at the thirty-eighth parallel would? 

Slightly smaller than the United Kingdom, the Korean Peninsula juts southward from China between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The peninsula’s northern edge shares a long border with China and a short one with Russia. East of the peninsula is a maritime boundary with Japan.

For much of the early twentieth century, Korea was a protectorate of Japan. Japan seized control of the peninsula—which had been ruled for centuries by the Choson dynasty—in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). Japan maintained its control despite challenges from Russia and frequent domestic uprisings. Japan’s grip on the peninsula was tight politically, economically, and culturally. Japanese authorities outlawed social and political organizations. They also banned the teaching of the Korean language, and forced the population to speak Japanese and adopt Japanese names. Japan did industrialize the peninsula, building highways, railroads, and factories. However, much of this effort was gradually directed toward military use by an increasingly aggressive imperial Japan.

By the late 1930s, Japan was well into its campaign of conquest throughout East Asia. In 1931, it invaded and seized Manchuria, a resource-rich region in northeast China, and renamed it Manchukuo. It followed up in 1937 with a full-scale invasion of China, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1936 and 1937, Japan formalized its friendship with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy by signing the Anti-Comintern Pact. This created the alliance that would come to be known as the Axis powers. 

When war broke out in Europe in 1939, Japan saw an opportunity to seize European colonies and grow its empire. However, it faced growing economic sanctions from the United States and its Western allies, who were worried about Japan’s imperial expansion. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese carried out a surprise military strike on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack was intended to avoid an extended conflict by debilitating the U.S. fleet. Instead it brought the United States into World War II. 

During the war, Japan brutally exploited Korea’s people. It drafted more than 240,000 men into the military, as soldiers and civilian employees. More than five million men and women were conscripted to work in war-related industries under dangerous conditions. In addition, some 670,000 were forcibly brought to Japan. Hundreds of thousands died. But the most notorious abuse involved the so-called comfort women. Up to two hundred thousand Korean women were kidnapped to serve as sex slaves in military brothels, or comfort stations, for Japanese soldiers. Japan contests its responsibility for the treatment of these women to this day.

By early 1945, the war in the Pacific was entering its final phase. U.S. leaders started to think about how to handle the territories Japan had acquired since beginning its expansionist campaign in the late nineteenth century. At the Yalta conference in Crimea in February, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who were allies against Nazi Germany in the war in Europe, agreed to establish an international trusteeship for Korea following Japanese surrender. This agreement, though, was only a general framework. The precise arrangements for governing a postwar Korea were not finalized.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945. Shortly thereafter, Soviet forces invaded Korea and Manchuria. U.S. military leaders feared that, if the Soviet Union ended up occupying Korea in the course of the conflict, it would never cede control. This concern spurred the U.S. government to finalize a formula for administering the peninsula. U.S. officials hurriedly proposed the thirty-eighth parallel as a demarcation line between U.S. and Soviet forces, cutting the peninsula almost in half. This line was intended as a temporary operational boundary that would hinder Soviet ambitions and prevent confusion among military forces operating in Korea.

The order came down on August 17, 1945, two days after Japan’s surrender ended World War II. (Japan had surrendered days after the United States dropped atomic bombs—the only two ever used in combat—on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastating the two cities and killing some 170,000 people.) The Soviet Union would accept the Japanese surrender of weapons and troops and take control of the territory north of the thirty-eighth parallel. South of the parallel, these tasks would fall to the United States. 

Temporary peace was thus brought to the Korean Peninsula after the end of the war. The political and economic situation remained complex and unstable. U.S. troops landed in Korea on September 8, 1945, following the Soviet troops, who had arrived the previous month. Because Korea had been a Japanese colony since 1910, no Korean government was in place ready to reclaim authority. The political scene was fragmented as various leaders jostled for power. One of these was Kim Il-sung, a military leader with close connections to the Soviet Union who would become the first leader of North Korea. Other contenders were ultranationalists oriented more toward the West. This camp included. Syngman Rhee, who had earned a doctorate at Princeton University and, with U.S. backing, would become the first leader of South Korea.

Korea’s economy, meanwhile, was suffering. When the Japanese departed after World War II, many companies were left without managers, capital, and other resources. This led to unemployment and shortages of vital goods. The peninsula’s division at the thirty-eighth parallel did not help. Korea’s heavy industry and energy production were concentrated in the north. This left the south’s primarily agrarian economy dependent on electricity transmission and transport of other essentials. This, along with the return of millions of Koreans from elsewhere in the region, caused significant social unrest and protests against the U.S. military government in the south.

At first, the United States and the Soviet Union shared a vision for a united, independent Korea. The foreign ministers of the World War II allies, meeting in December 1945 in Moscow, agreed that Korea would have a five-year trusteeship. Attempts to fulfill this vision stumbled. A joint U.S.-Soviet commission met occasionally in 1946 and 1947 but was unable to establish a Korean government because the United States and Soviet Union disagreed on who should participate. 

Meanwhile, the division on the peninsula remained stark. The south was disorganized, afflicted by economic instability, political differences among Koreans, and uncertain U.S. policy. In the north, by contrast, the Soviet Union smartly consolidated control. It created administrative bodies and a North Korean Workers’ Party that united various left-wing groups. At the same time, Soviet-encouraged land reform. This redistributed land from Japanese and Korean landowners to poor farmers. At the same time, it drove thousands of former landowners and Japanese collaborators into the southern part of the peninsula. 

Failing to make progress with Moscow on an acceptable path for Korean independence, the Truman administration took the issue to the UN General Assembly in September 1947. World leaders had established the United Nations just two years earlier, vesting in it their collective hopes of preventing a third world war. In the General Assembly, the United States continued to advance the vision of a united, independent peninsula. In November 1947, the General Assembly adopted UN Security Council Resolution 112, which asserted “that the national independence of Korea should be re-established and all occupying forces then withdrawn at the earliest possible date.” To facilitate this plan, the resolution established the UN Temporary Commission on Korea. This resolution would pave the way for elections for a national assembly. This assembly was to set up a government that would assume full administrative responsibilities and work with the United States and Soviet Union to clear Korea of occupying troops.

Despite the commission, the Korean Peninsula moved no closer to unified governance. Instead, politics continued to evolve separately on either side of the thirty-eighth parallel. Rhee, by now an influential, U.S.-backed nationalist leader, favored independence as soon as possible—even though a declaration of independence would have effect only in the south as long as the United States and the Soviet Union remained at loggerheads. In a UN-supervised election in May 1948 for a constitutional assembly in the south, Rhee came out in front. Under his leadership, the assembly adopted a constitution outlining a presidential system of government. The Republic of Korea, which remains the official name of South Korea, was proclaimed on August 15, 1948. Rhee took office in Seoul as its first president.

North of the thirty-eighth parallel, the Soviet Union refused to admit the Temporary Commission. Four days after the proclamation of the Republic of Korea, authorities in the north cut power transmission to the south, further reinforcing the peninsula’s division. Less than a month later, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea, was born, its capital in Pyongyang. Its first leader, Kim Il-sung, claimed jurisdiction over the entire peninsula. By the end of 1948, he had solidified control over the north’s administrative structures, military forces, and Communist Party.

The United States kept military forces in South Korea until 1949, but its support for Rhee’s government was half-hearted. U.S. officials were unsure of Seoul’s political future and doubted its strategic value. The United States declined to commit to defending South Korea even though it had made such commitments to Japan and the members of the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the immediate post–World War II years. (In a speech on January 12, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson did not include Korea in what he described as a U.S. defensive perimeter.) The South Korean government established its own army in September 1948. However, a rebellion by some army units the following month, and a purge thereafter, left the force weak. By 1950, it had fewer than one hundred thousand soldiers and lacked advanced equipment such as tanks, heavy weapons, and combat aircraft.

The contrast with North Korea was stark. Although the Soviet Union had withdrawn its forces in late 1948, focusing instead on increasing its control in Eastern Europe, it continued to provide training and arms to North Korean forces. With this assistance, by mid-1950 Pyongyang had built up a force of 150,000 to 200,000 troops. The North Korean People’s Army had fearsome Soviet weapons, including tanks and fighter planes, at its disposal.

Fueled by his military might and ambitions to control the entire peninsula, Kim Il-sung sought Stalin’s support for an invasion of the south. At first, Stalin resisted. In spring 1950, however, he relented and approved Kim’s plan. Kim also sought support—at Stalin’s encouragement—from the Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who had recently emerged victorious in the Chinese civil war and successfully pushed nationalist forces offshore to Taiwan. Early on the morning of June 25, 1950, North Korean soldiers crossed the thirty-eighth parallel. The Korean War began. The main offensive was aimed at the South Korean capital, Seoul, which fell in only three days. 

The United States, under Truman, responded both diplomatically and militarily. On the diplomatic front, it immediately secured UN Security Council Resolution 82, calling for the invasion to halt. Resolution 83, passed two days later, on June 27, called on UN member states to provide “such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary.” The Soviet Union, as a permanent member of the Security Council, could have vetoed these resolutions. However, the Soviet Union had been boycotting Security Council meetings after the defeat of its proposal to replace the nationalist Chinese delegation holding the council’s permanent seat with a delegation from Mao’s communist China. 

Truman initially gave military equipment to the South Korean army. Truman also deployed U.S. aircraft and ships. As South Korea’s military faltered, he allowed limited U.S. ground troops to enter the fight in early July. On July 7, UN Security Council Resolution 84 put the United States in command of all military operations to assist the South Koreans. Under MacArthur’s command, the UN mission initially struggled. The disorganized, ill-equipped South Korean army was no match for the invading North Koreans. U.S. personnel, still recovering from World War II, had to contend with equipment shortages, refugees fleeing the fighting, and even a lack of water. 

By the end of the summer, about two months after the war began, more than eighty thousand U.S. troops were in Korea. They were fighting alongside some ninety thousand South Korean troops and a 1,600-man British contingent. These allied forces held only the Pusan perimeter in southeastern South Korea—North Korean soldiers had overrun the rest of the peninsula. Communist control, which the United States had sought to limit since the closing months of World War II, now threatened all of Korea. 

To reverse the turn of events, MacArthur was planning a risky landing of forces at Inchon, an area on the west coast of South Korea near Seoul. He aimed to cut off enemy supply lines behind the North Korean troops, which had advanced farther south. The aim was to divide the enemy forces and break their hold on Seoul, enabling South Korea’s government to eventually regain control. The Inchon landing would be an amphibious assault: troops would arrive by sea and proceed on to land. This plan echoed the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy, in France, on June 6, 1944. Those assaults were costly but spectacularly successful and turned the tide against Nazi Germany in the European theater of World War II.

Should the Inchon landing succeed, the liberation of South Korea would be at hand. With that could come an opportunity to unify the peninsula, as U.S. leaders had envisioned since the surrender of Japan. But realizing this opportunity would require invading North Korea, which could bring the United States into conflict with the Soviet Union, China, or both. 

Inside the Truman administration, arguments over what the United States should aim to do in Korea began almost as soon as the North Koreans invaded the south. Perhaps the most critical question was whether and how China or the Soviet Union would intervene if the United States tried to reunify the Korean Peninsula. 

The initial U.S. goal, in the opening weeks of the conflict, was simply to drive the North Koreans back to their own territory. Truman agreed with an early suggestion by Secretary of the Army Frank Pace that U.S. military operations north of the thirty-eighth parallel should be strictly limited. He authorized military operations with the specific goal of restoring that parallel as the border. 

Many administration officials, though, advanced the view that U.S. aims should go further. John Allison, director of the State Department’s Office of Northeast Asian Affairs, was among them. In a July 1, 1950, memo to Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Dean Rusk, Allison wrote, “I am convinced that there will be no permanent peace and stability in Korea as long as the artificial division at the 38th parallel continues.” Other major State Department figures, including advisor John Foster Dulles, generally shared a desire to pursue full unification of the peninsula. They were more cautious than Allison, however, and feared war with the Soviet Union or China. 

Military leaders, for their part, were eager to proceed north of the thirty-eighth parallel, though their foremost goal was not necessarily to reunify the peninsula. Instead, it was to devastate the North Korean military so that it could not invade South Korea again. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Omar Bradley wrote in his autobiography “A General’s Life” that this was the military’s “unanimous” position: “We believed that MacArthur should not be restrained at the 38th parallel.” 

This view certainly pleased MacArthur, who had ambitions of occupying and reunifying the entire peninsula. In mid-July, just weeks after the war began, MacArthur told other military leaders, “I intend to destroy and not to drive back the North Korean forces. I may need to occupy all of North Korea.” On August 8, W. Averell Harriman, special assistant to the president, met MacArthur in Tokyo. MacArthur, in Harriman’s telling, was confident that elections could be held in both North and South Korea following a military victory—and that MacArthur had “no doubt of an overwhelming victory for the non-Communist parties” in both the South and the North. 

The opposite view—that the United States should limit itself to pushing the North Koreans back—was less widespread during the summer of 1950. Some officials, though, did counsel restraint. This perspective came most notably from the State Department’s policy planning staff, a unit intended to provide analysis that goes beyond day-to-day issues. George Kennan, who had established the staff and served as its first director, was one of the loudest voices warning of the potential risks of intervention north of the thirty-eighth parallel. Kennan’s successor as director of the policy planning staff, Paul Nitze, and other members of the unit shared Kennan’s skeptical view. A July 22 draft memo prepared by the one staff argued: “The disadvantages of a failure to attain the complete independence and unity of Korea after the North Korean forces have been driven back to the 38th parallel must be weighed against the risk of a major conflict with the USSR or Communist China that such a settlement might well involve.” In other words, stopping U.S. action at the thirty-eighth parallel would be bad, but war with the Soviets or Chinese could be worse.

Print these custom placards for use during your simulation. If you need to edit them, make a copy to your Google Drive.

All National Security Council (NSC) members except the president will write a position memo before the role-play. You can find more details about writing position memos under Student Resources. The president will write a presidential directive after the role-play. More details about that are also under Student Resources.

What is a memorandum?

In September 1950, the National Security Council issued Report 81/1, entitled “United States Courses of Action with Respect to Korea,” which outlined the council’s official recommendation on the question of whether to invade North Korea. It concluded that “the United Nations forces have a legal basis for conducting operations north of the 38th parallel” and that

the UN Commander should be authorized to conduct military operations, including amphibious and airborne landings or ground operations in pursuance of a roll-back, north of the 38th parallel for the purpose of destroying the North Korean forces, provided that at the time of such operations there has been no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcement of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily in North Korea.

On September 15, UN forces landed at Inchon, backed by naval and air bombardment. The landing was an extraordinary success. It stunned the North Korean forces and forced them into withdrawal. By the end of September, South Korean and UN troops had recaptured Seoul and officially restored the South Korean government under Syngman Rhee. On October 1, General Douglas MacArthur officially demanded North Korea’s surrender. Receiving no reply, he authorized South Korean forces to advance across the border. UN forces followed closely behind once they received authorization. This authorization came on October 7, with a UN General Assembly resolution calling on UN forces to take “all appropriate steps . . . to ensure conditions of stability throughout Korea.”

Within the first few weeks of their attack, UN forces moved rapidly northward. Facing little resistance from the retreating North Korean soldiers, UN and South Korean forces advanced swiftly and captured Pyongyang on October 19. But things did not continue as smoothly. On October 25, Chinese forces began operations against South Korean forces. It would be more than a month before the United States acknowledged that China was mounting a full-scale intervention in Korea. By then, UN forces were being pushed south, their gains since crossing the thirty-eighth parallel quickly reversed. Seoul fell for the second time in January 1951. Three months later, Truman fired MacArthur.

After a series of bloody attacks and counterattacks, UN and Chinese forces met at the thirty-eighth parallel in a stalemate in the spring of 1951. For the next two years of fighting, they only made moderate gains and losses of ground around the parallel. On July 27, 1953, China, North Korea, and the UN Command signed an armistice, bringing an end to the fighting. Though the agreement was meant to establish a ceasefire “until a final peaceful settlement is achieved,” no settlement was ever agreed on. To this day, the two Koreas are still officially at war, and the thirty-eighth parallel has become the most heavily militarized border in the world.

The effects of the war were acutely felt on the peninsula, where more than two million were killed—as many as 70 percent of them civilians. The United States dropped more explosives on North Korea during the three-year conflict than in the entire Pacific theater during World War II.  As a result of the bombing, an estimated 85 percent of buildings in the country were destroyed.

How was the decision made? 

The burgeoning Cold War was the most important factor in Truman’s deliberations over crossing the thirty-eighth parallel. The president sought to make a decision that would strengthen the United States’ position in relation to the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, Communist China. Ultimately, as scholar Bruce Cumings notes, “nearly all of Truman’s high advisers decided that the chance had come not only to contain Communist aggression, but to roll it back.”

Compounding this were assessments by the intelligence community that the risk of a Soviet or Chinese response was low. The widespread belief was that while there had been indications of Chinese intent to intervene, these indications had likely been bluffs. Secretary of State Dean Acheson summed up these feelings in a CBS interview in September 1950, calling the prospect of a Chinese intervention “sheer madness.”

Moreover, MacArthur was strongly in favor of crossing the parallel, saying in July, “I may need to occupy all of North Korea.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) held a similar view, writing to the secretary of defense in September that “after the strength of the North Korean forces has been broken . . . subsequently operations must take place both north and south of the 38th parallel.”

On September 11, 1950, Truman approved a National Security Council policy statement recommending that a course of action in Korea “would be influenced by three factors: action by the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communists, consultation with friendly members of the United Nations, and the risk of general war.” On September 15, the day of the Inchon landing, Truman approved a JCS directive based on this policy statement, which authorized military operations beyond the thirty-eighth parallel if there was no indication or threat of entry of Soviet or Chinese Communist forces. On September 27, following the immense success of the Inchon landing, the JCS sent new instructions to MacArthur. His military objective was now “the destruction of the North Korean Armed Forces,” for which he was authorized to conduct military operations north of the thirty-eighth parallel.

What did the decision mean? 

Though largely forgotten by—or unknown to—many in the West, the Korean War’s effects have shaped geopolitics and reverberated through history. The war cemented alliances and rivalries that endure today, ushered in policies that would characterize many years of the Cold War, and finalized the thirty-eighth parallel as an enduring dividing line on the Korean Peninsula.

Solidification of Alliances and Rivalries

The Soviet Union and China continued to economically and politically support North Korea throughout the Cold War, as the United States did South Korea. Two months after the armistice was signed in 1953, the latter pair cemented their alliance with the Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea, establishing a powerful military alliance underwritten by American nuclear weapons.

Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, these relationships are still largely in place today. Today, South Korea hosts over twenty thousand American troops, and North Korea maintains relatively close, though sometimes fraught, relationships with Russia and China.

Cold War Policies

The Korean conflict heralded many of the hallmarks of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. One of those was the concept of limited war—a war in which limited resources, forces, and tactics are used in service of goals significantly short of total destruction of the enemy. Because the United States and the Soviet Union were both wary of triggering a general—­and quite possibly nuclear—war, they became involved in limited proxy conflicts during the Cold War. The Korean War would be followed by similar conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Hand in hand with this policy was the doctrine of containment, which advocated for “containing” the spread of communism within national borders (and which had served as Truman’s primary rationale for entering the Korean War). In many ways, the Korean War became a blueprint for how the Cold War would be fought.

An Enduring Division

Perhaps the most significant legacy of the Korean War is the enduring division of the Korean Peninsula. Since its establishment as an arbitrary administrative boundary in 1945, the thirty-eighth parallel has remained the dividing line between North and South Korea.
Since the armistice was declared, relations between North and South Korea have ranged from conciliatory to combative. Particularly in the last few decades, the peninsula has seen a few near brushes with war. In 2006, after years of development, North Korea ratcheted up the tension by testing its first nuclear weapon. (South Korea remains under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, meaning that the United States has pledged to defend South Korea from any nuclear attack). According to scholar Bruce Cumings, North Korea’s generals “are still fighting the war. For them it has never ended.”

Was it a good idea? 

Many accounts of the Korean War frame the decision to cross the thirty-eighth parallel as a mistake. Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution calls it “by far the worst military debacle the U.S. armed forces suffered in the entire twentieth century” and a “catastrophic intelligence failure . . . that cost the lives of thousands of Americans.” Similarly, historian Warren Cohen writes that the Truman administration, “in its moment of triumph . . . succumbed to one of the most treacherous temptations confronting any victor, the temptation to expand war aims.”

Journalist and U.S.-China relations scholar John Pomfret argues that the United States’ biggest mistake was in underestimating the potential for Chinese involvement; he reports that General Matthew Ridgeway, who had led operations in Europe during World War II, noted that General MacArthur “‘simply closed his ears’ to the growing presence of Chinese troops in Korea.” Similarly, scholar Robert Farley argues that “the initial Chinese victories in late fall of 1950 resulted from a colossal intelligence failure on the part of the United States. These failures ran the gamut from political, to strategic, to operational, to tactical. . . . The United States also misunderstood the complex relationship between Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang, treating the group as unitary actor without appreciating the serious political differences between the countries.”

Other scholars, however, are more sympathetic to the decision’s historical context. Scott A. Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations argues that “it would have been difficult to imagine that any commander . . . would have made the decision to simply halt in the face of what looked like an open field up to the China and North Korea border.” Historian William Stueck also defends the decision, arguing that by the time the threat of Chinese intervention became credible, the decision to advance had already gained too much momentum: “to delay action would have disappointed expectations in the United States in the midst of a congressional election campaign, would have compromised a clear military advantage, and would have constituted an apparent loss of nerve in the face of Communist pressure tactics.”

In sum, scholars debate whether the decision to cross the thirty-eighth parallel represents a failure to assess intelligence and understand Chinese and Soviet motivations or a calculated decision to consolidate victory and demonstrate commitment to broader foreign policy goals. But the legacy of the war remains certain: the lasting division between North and South Korea has remained a critical foreign policy challenge to this day.

After the debate and deliberation close, the president will announce his or her decision, to be later finalized in the form of a written presidential directive. If time permits, you will participate in a debrief following the president’s announcement.

Be active in this debrief. The role-play might seem to be the most challenging part of the experience, but the debrief is equally important. It will reinforce what you learned during the role-play exercise and refine your analytical skills. It will also force you to step out of your role and to view the case from a personal perspective. You will have the opportunity to discuss any challenges you encountered as you worked through the discussion with your peers and how you felt about the final presidential decision.

The debrief will close with a reflection on the complexities and challenges of crafting foreign policy. This should help clarify your understanding of what you learned and answer any lingering questions. This exercise will also assist you in completing your final assignment, a written reflection.

The following questions are proposed to guide the discussion in the in-class debrief. This is not an exhaustive list and may vary depending on how your role-play exercise unfolded. If your class or group does not hold a debrief, these questions will nonetheless help you reflect on the role-play and write your policy review memo: 

The written reflection is your final assignment in the simulation. In the debrief discussion after the role-play, you and your peers went beyond the role you played and thought about the issue from a variety of perspectives. Now that the National Security Council discussion and debrief are behind you, you can consider whether you personally support your recommended policy given the full spectrum of arguments and considerations that arose. Shedding your institutional role and writing from a personal point of view, you will craft a policy review memo that outlines and reflects on the policy options discussed, incorporating and critiquing the president’s decision where appropriate.

If you played the role of president in the simulation, your memo should still reflect your personal opinion. You can comment on the course of action you ordered as president, further justify it, write more extensively on the options you dismissed, or suggest and support alternate options.

No matter which role you played originally, take into account all you have learned. Your instructor or facilitator will want to see whether and how your understanding of the issue and of the policymaking process has evolved from that expressed in your position memo.

More details about the written reflection are available under Student Resources.

Essential Resources

Note: since this is a historical role-play, you should only use and reference documents and information from before the fall of 1950.

Additional Resources

Research and Preparation

Sources

Note: If you are assigned the role of president, you will not write a position memo. Instead, you will write a two-page presidential directive (PD) at the conclusion of the role-play. You will address the PD, which will follow a memo format, to the NSC members and inform them of your final decision regarding the policy option or options to be implemented (see below).

If your teacher has chosen to assign you the role of general advisor to the president, you will not need to write the position memo from a particular institutional position. Instead, you will have the flexibility to approach the issue from your own perspective, incorporating a comprehensive assessment of the crisis into your argument.

Click here to see a sample of a position memo.

The format of the presidential directive is simpler than that of a position memo. A directive contains a record of the policy option or options that the president has chosen as well as the accompanying orders to various parts of the government with details on how to carry out these decisions.

Click here to see a sample presidential directive.

During the simulated NSC meeting, you will meet to debate and discuss U.S. policy options in response to the issues outlined in the case. Consistent with the NSC’s mission to advise the president, you should raise the issues that are most important for the president to consider. This will enable them to make the most informed decision on policy options. Though you may or may not agree with this decision, your responsibility as an NSC member is to provide the best possible analysis and advice from the perspective of your role.

Role-play Guidelines

Guidelines

Click here to see a full example of a written reflection.