Source: Truman Library, Online Archives, “Prospects for Survival of the Republic of Korea,” Office of Reports and Estimates 44-48, October 28, 1948 https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/prospects-survival-republic-korea-office-reports-and-estimates-44-48?documentid=NA&pagenumber=13h
When looking at current military scenarios in the Pacific, the experiences of the Second World War tend to be the archetype for lessons learned and exploring possible avenues of approach…maybe the real historical parallel is Korea?
Analogies at War
In the book, Analogies at War, author Yuen Khong makes a similar claim for the Vietnam War. While the Johnson administration, focused on the analogy of Munich Conference of 1938, and the failure of Europe to stand up to Hitler, Khong argues for a different tack. Analogies at War makes the compelling case that had senior policy makers used the Korean War and the French experience during Dien Bien Phu as the analytical framework, the US may have had a better strategic outcome.
Over the past week, I spent time combing various primary source archives looking at the planning and execution of logistics during the Korean War. My previous scholarship in the Pacific focused on the Solomon Islands campaign in 1942-1943. From my view, the distances, austere locations, and severe environment placed unique and challenging requirements on the supply chains of American and Japanese forces. Therefore, the Solomons Campaign represented the heuristic for thinking about future problems of logistics.
The challenge of supporting South Korea
A Destroyed Society
Digging into the primary sources for the Korean War, there is much more that is applicable to the problems of logistics in 2023, than I had imagined. A good example is the source above: a page from a Central Intelligence Group overall assessment of the Korean Peninsula, in 1948, two years before the war. In this analysis, the group states that South Korea lacked economic, political, and military resources due to Japanese occupation and the devastation of the Second World War. As a result, “all weapons, ammunition, and equipment must be supplied by sources outside the country, probably by the US.” Far from being a Top Ten economy in the world, as South Korea is today, the nation lacked .
A Creeping Fatalism
The distance to Korea, the need to harness allied capability, from foodstuffs to basing, and the requirement to start from limited means, all mirror common problems in power projection today. In many of the primary documents there was a resignation, well before the war starts in 1950, that keeping North Korea (with Soviet backing) at bay, was beyond the ability of the US military. The Commanding General of XXIV Corps in Korea wrote an update to Gen Macarthur in September 1945, “The general situation in Southern Korea is compared to a Powder Keg…the splitting of Korea into two parts for an occupation by force…is impossible.”* Much of this fatalism hinged on the horrific economic conditions and the lack of a military establishment in South Korea.
In 1950, the US military would have to accomplish the task these memospredicted, supplying and transporting almost all of the allied needs for the war. Although it is cliché to call the Korean War–the Forgotten War. In terms of logistics it could be true. More to follow.
*(Truman archives, War Department Incoming Classified Message, Sep 18, 1945).