Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace: The Lessons of Mao's Korean War Telegrams

Threats,Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace I Thomas 1Christensen The Lessons of Mao’s Korean War Telegrams I n Cold War history few topics have received more attention than the 1950Sino-American crisis over K0rea.l China’s massive attack on UN troops in late November 1950led to the longest retreat in American military history, an epic confrontation between the Truman administration and General Douglas MacArthur, and a polarizing domestic political debate about policy toward China. One major point of controversy was the question of how Ma0 might have been dissuaded from escalatingChina’s involvementin Korea. MacArthur supporters argued that Mao attacked out of adventurism because he was certain the ThomasJ. Christensen is an O h Fellow in National Security Studies at Haruard University‘s Centerfor International Affairs (CFIA)and a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Columbia University. In July 1993 he will join the faculty of the Department of Government at Cornell university. This article was originally written in September 1991 under the auspices of Harvard’s CFIA, and was first presented there in November 1991. For extensive critiques of earlier drafts I am indebted to Robert Jervis, Jonathan Mercer, Lucian Pye, and Stephen Van Evera. For helpful comments I also thank Thomas Bernstein, Hu Weixing, Michael Hunt, Samuel Huntington, Yuen Foong Khong, TimothyNaftali, Andrew Nathan, Ren Yue, Stephen P. Rosen, Robert Ross, David Rowe, Randall Schweller, Jack Snyder, Fareed Zakaria, and the members of the Olin National Security Group at Harvard’s CFIA. For editing my translations, I am grateful to Ms. Irene Liu of Columbia University. I also thank the O h Foundation and Harvard‘s Center for International Affairsfor finanaal and institutional support. 1. For classic treatments of American policy during the crisis, see David Rees, Korea: The Limited War (London: Mamillan, 1964), Parts I and 1 1 ; John W. Spanier, The Truman-MacArthur Controversy (Cambridge, Mass.: BelknapMarvard University Press, 1959); Robert Endicott Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), ch. 8; Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (New York M a d a n : 1973), ch. 3; Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theoryand Practice (New York Columbia University Press, 1974), ch. 7; Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Lendership from FDR to Carter (New York: Wiley, 1980), ch. 6. For a comprehensive military account of the first months of the war, see Roy Edgar Appleman, U.S. Army in the Korean War: Vol. 1, South to the Naktong and North to the Yalu (Washington: Department of the Army, 1961), chs. 29-39. For the pioneering works on Chinese policy in the crisis, see Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu:The Decision to Enter the Korean War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1960); Tang Tsou, America’s Failure in China: 1947-50 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), ch. 13; and Jan Kalicki, The Pattern of Sino-American Crises (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975), ch. 3. Intmlional Security, Summer 1992 (Vol. 17, No. 1) 8 1992by the Presidentand Fellows of Harvard College and of the MassachusettsInstitute of Tedurology. 122 Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chancefor Peace I 123 United States would not respond with attacks on the mainland. The general accused the Truman administration of appeasement for not threatening China with retaliatory air strikes if Chinese troops attacked in force.2 Defenders of the Truman administration charged that MacArthur’s massive drive north in late November provoked China, by threatening the security of the Yalu River Valley and Man~huria.~ In hindsight, civilian and military officials in Washington suggested that the United States should have left a military buffer zone somewhere between the bulk of U.S.forces near Pyongyang and Wonsan (the neck of Korea) and the Chinese border.4 (See map, p. 124.) Both sides based their arguments on assumptions about Mao’s risk analysis and strategy in Korea. But until now we have had little solid evidence of Mao’s intentions and fears in entering the Korean War. This article presents ~~ ~~ 2. MacArthur wrote of the failure of American deterrence: “I w i l l always believe that if the United States had issued...