Before the outbreak of the Korean War, Syngman Rhee had eight divisions of about 100,000 troops. After the outbreak of the Korean War, with the support and help of MacArthur, the first commander-in-chief of the "United Nations Army", the ROK army expanded to more than 250,000 people in 10 divisions. Although there were only two more divisions in the number, the total strength increased by 150,000 people. Rhee was so grateful to MacArthur that when MacArthur was dismissed by Truman, Rhee was sadly left in tears.
After MacArthur left Korea, Ridgway, the former commander of the 8th Army, succeeded him as commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Forces in the Far East. At this time, although the ROK army had expanded to 250,000 people, Rhee was not satisfied, and he hoped to expand 10 more divisions and increase the total strength to 500,000 people. When he told Ridgway about this idea, he was flatly rejected by the latter, and Ridgway contemptuously told Syngman Rhee: "South Korea is not economically capable of supporting 20 divisions, and at present it is necessary to give priority to the development of Japan's self-defense forces." ”
After the outbreak of the Korean War, a large number of dollars, U.S. goods, and U.S. troops poured into the Korean Peninsula, and with the expansion of troops, military spending increased sharply, and South Korea's fragile economy soon collapsed. Faced with this situation, the only measure taken by Syngman Rhee was to increase the issuance of currency, and inflation soon broke out. Before the outbreak of the Korean War, the exchange rate between the Korean won and the US dollar was 15:1, and by March 1952, that number had become 6,000:1, a full 400 times larger! At that time, South Korea's economic situation was already in danger, and it was completely sustained by the continuous injection of dollars.
Under these circumstances, Syngman Rhee went so far as to ask for the expansion of ten more divisions, and his wishful thinking played very well: I will send people, money and weapons to you Americans. This was clearly meant to take the Americans as the wrongdoer, so Ridgway did not hesitate to reject Rhee's request. When Syngman Rhee saw that the expansion of the army would not work, he again put forward the demand for the expansion of the air force. At that time, the Rokkaku Air Force had only 46 aircraft combined, of which 29 were still obsolete.
Syngman Rhee's request was again rejected by Ridgway, and he planned to cut south Korea's only air force. He bluntly told Syngman Rhee: "There is no point in maintaining a weak and incompetent air force, and such an air force that is bound to lose is worse than nothing." In Ridgway's view, the South Korean Air Force does not have any combat capabilities, but it needs to spend a lot of money on repairs and maintenance, which is really not worth it. But his remarks deeply hurt Rhee's self-esteem, which also affected his evaluation of Ridgway. After the end of the Korean War, Syngman Rhee commented on Ridgway: "If there is even one more such general, even today's truce will not be achieved." ”