Across the Parallel

Abstract

The Korean adventure brought immediate dividends for the Truman administration. The Republican attack temporarily lost momentum and the President’s ratings soared in the polls. The war was popular. There was little opposition when Truman began to implement the rearmament provisions of NSC-68 in July 1950.¹ If Korea provided the ‘springboard for a US global build-up’, however, it also posed problems of priorities.² The war was important as a symbol of US determination to draw the line against communism and as a means of mobilising the public behind rearmament. It was never intended, however, to place the main emphasis on containment in Asia. Korea was to serve the goals of global strategy, not to dictate its shape. Washington saw the war as an opportunity, ‘Not so much to build-up military strength in Asia … but to bolster the obviously inadequate defenses of Western Europe.’³ In September 1950, however, to maintain the initiative in the cold war and the domestic consensus for increased commitments to NATO, Truman authorised the invasion of North Korea. This brought China into the war, threatened a wider conflict in the Far East, and revived partisan debate about foreign policy.