"Majestic, exuberant, and crossing the Yalu River..." The Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was not only a battle to defend the homeland, but also to tell the world that China was no longer weak and deceitful.
However, at that time, New China had just been founded, and after years of war and chaos such as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, the domestic economy was in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt, which was obviously not the best state to start a war. So, how do we defeat the mighty United Nations military led by the United States in the face of huge differences in funding, armaments, and so on? Why was U.S. President Hoodison Weir at the time eager to agree to an armistice and withdraw from the war?
On July 5, 1950, U.S. forces officially participated in the campaign against Korea for the first time. On September 15, under the leadership of MacArthur, the U.S. army successfully carried out the Inchon landing, and the Korean People's Army was forced to retreat from the enemy. On the 27th, the overwhelming U.S. forces met with South Korea's Busan forces and retake Seoul the next day.
The Inchon landing completely reversed the previous superiority of the Korean People's Army on the Korean Peninsula, and at this moment, in spite of the repeated warnings of New China, the US military not only openly crossed the 38th Line, but also drove warplanes to the Chinese border to bomb china's Andong region, and also threatened to burn the flames of war to the banks of the Yalu River in our country. At this time of crisis, North Korea has also sent requests for assistance. In order to defend the country and fight against the aggressors, New China resolutely sent the Chinese Volunteer Army to the Korean War, and the Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was officially launched.
Even at that time, it seemed that there was a huge disparity in strength between Our country and the United Nations army headed by the United States, but with the support of the people in the rear and the tenacious struggle of the volunteers on the front line, they stubbornly resisted the strong attack of the United Nations army led by the United States army. However, according to the situation at that time, if the Un Army insisted on continuing the war of attrition, the war would certainly not end so quickly, and what was even more puzzling was why the US military did not move out nuclear weapons with absolute superiority. There are many factors in this.
The situation on the front line of the US army and the situation in the rear
Ridgway, the second commander of the United Nations Army, once said: If it were not for the fact that the United Nations Army had more powerful firepower and absolute superiority over the air, and firmly controlled the maritime army, I am afraid that it would have been defeated by the Volunteer Army long ago. This sentence can reveal a side message: that is, although the US military firepower equipment and air and navy had the advantage at that time, the combat effectiveness of the Chinese volunteer army and their tenacious will did make it difficult for the UN army to conquer.
What's more, the Korean War was not easy even for the United States, and by the end of the war, the U.S. military had to face heavy loss statistics.
First of all, from the perspective of casualty data, the number of soldiers reported by the US states after the war was 54,269, but then the US side came back to show that this was the total death toll of the US military in various battlefields at that time, and the actual number of deaths in the Korean War was 36,574, and the number of wounded was 103284.
Although the losses of the Volunteer Army, the Korean People's Army, and even the South Korean Army alone are far less heavy than those of the Volunteer Army, the Korean People's Army, and even the South Korean Army alone, the total number of troops sent by the United States to the Korean battlefield is more than 400,000 people, of which the number of troops in the DPRK is one-third of the total number of its total army, the number of air forces is one-fifth of the total, and the number of navies is half.
At the same time, as Chen Geng said in a post-war speech, the United States has always been opportunistically making "war gains," but this time it has encountered a hard nail, and instead of gaining a little benefit, it has also lost a huge loss. According to historical data, a year after the start of the Korean War, even if the cost of compensation for losses after the casualties of front-line soldiers is removed, the US government's expenditure on armaments alone is very huge, and the cost of war in a year's time has exceeded 10 billion US dollars, and even more than double the cost of the United States in World War II.
After the total, the U.S. spending is a huge figure of 60 billion, which means that each U.S. resident has to bear an average of more than $300. In the material-poor Battlefield of the North Korean Front, the U.S. military also consumes more than 850,000 tons of materials per month, which is equivalent to 1.5 times the total annual materials of the United States to assist all NATO allies in the same period. Moreover, the United States is too far away from North Korea, and although Japan is used as a logistics base, various materials are inevitably becoming more and more scarce.
At the same time, the United Nations army, which wanted to end the war quickly, was fierce, but it never won the final victory, and over time the soldiers on the front line began to have a war-weary mood. Not only have other countries in the United Nations military begun to have contradictions one after another, but the people of the participating countries (especially the United States) have also set off a strong wave of doubts and anti-war.
It is worth mentioning that although the United States consumed a lot of money and materials for the Korean War and sent a lot of troops, it still could not avoid feeling insufficient in battle. This is a big difference from the original strategy formulated by the United States, which was originally focused on the European region, and this time it intended to interfere in the balance of the Asia-Pacific region, which can be seen from the whirlwind of the Korean War.
However, the development of the Korean War was unexpected: the strategic reserve was only two divisions stationed in Japan, three divisions in South Korea, and six divisions in their own country, and it was absolutely impossible to send more troops to the Korean front. Not only did the rest of the UN forces feel very strained and made it clear that they would not send any more soldiers to the front, but even the Meeting of Chiefs of Staff of the United States clearly considered the war to be a bottomless pit, with no hope of victory in sight and hope of stopping the wrong war.
Looking at the US presidential election in the middle and late stages of the war, it also set off an uproar in the United States. Eisenhower, the president's favourite at the time, promised in his campaign speech that a successful election would end the war as soon as possible and return the strategic focus of the United States to Europe.
On the one hand, as MacArthur's competitor, he was certainly opposed to his war plan; on the other hand, the use of this condition as a vote-gathering declaration was enough to show that the United States at that time was indeed not in favor of continuing the Korean War, which was also a factor that contributed to Eisenhower's agreement to an armistice after his election as president of the United States.
From the perspective of the international situation, the reasons for the non-use of nuclear weapons
Any historical event is inseparable from the international situation at that time. The outbreak of the Korean War was devastated shortly after the end of world war II, and most of the countries and regions were seeking peace and did not want a new large-scale war to occur, so a hot war like the Korean War only appeared in local areas.
The international situation in this period has a very conspicuous feature, that is, the cold war pattern between the United States and the Soviet Union, which is specifically an all-round confrontation between the capitalist camp headed by the United States and the social camp headed by the Soviet Union, except for large-scale wars. At that time, the Korean War was not only a battle between the Chinese Volunteer Army, the Korean People's Army and the United Nations Army and the Rokk Army led by the United States, but also a contest between different camps and different ideologies.
At first, the Soviet side was reluctant to meet the American army head-on on the battlefield, but hoped that China could intervene in the war, so it helped the Chinese Volunteer Army at the beginning, but the assistance was not large. However, with the continuous progress of the war, the combat effectiveness and durability of the volunteer army were far beyond the expectations of the Soviet Union. In order to help China and the DPRK win the final victory, the Soviet Union began to increase its efforts to provide assistance to the volunteer army in all aspects, both overt and covert. By the end of the war, the equipment and strength of the volunteer army were much stronger than in the early days of the war.
However, in the early stage, when the US military and the Chinese and North Korean armies were struggling to fight and consume, the Soviet Union did not make any moves for a long time, and this behavior in the eyes of the US military is likely to be obscure in Taoguang, and the most worrying thing for the US side is that the Soviet Union will join the battlefield after seeing the opportunity, which will not only catch the US side by surprise but also suffer huge losses. Therefore, the UNITED States has long had the idea of negotiating with China - after all, other allies are not willing to consume troops, allowing domestic controversy over the decision to send troops to continue to ferment. Therefore, a dignified exit from the war through negotiations is the best choice for the US side after weighing the pros and cons.
But what makes some wonder is why the United States did not directly show the trump card of nuclear weapons, but chose to negotiate an armistice.
Of course, people of all countries want to live in peace, and if the United States takes the lead in using nuclear weapons, then the world that is already surging undercurrents will be greatly affected, which no one wants to see. However, what really makes the United States jealous is that the old rival, the Soviet Union, has already successfully developed nuclear weapons, and if the United States hastily used nuclear weapons in the Korean War, it will inevitably not lead to nuclear war, and this will be the nightmare of the entire earth and all mankind, and the Korean battlefield is not enough for the United States to make such a big sacrifice.
After all, from the very beginning, the purpose of the United States was only to suppress the development of socialism, and there was no need to intensify the greater contradictions in such an extreme and uncontrolled way.
On the other hand, the United States has always intervened in the affairs of other countries in the international arena as the world's policeman, just as this gathering of uncom troops to provoke a conflict is ostensibly to uphold justice and peace, but in fact to intervene in the struggle in the Far East to gain benefits. But if nuclear weapons are used easily, the so-called humanitarian name will be gone, and the face of using extraordinary means to rush to victory will inevitably be condemned by international public opinion.
To sum up, the reason why Eisenhower agreed to sign the armistice agreement is that on the one hand, the large-scale participation of the Chinese volunteer army not only directly caused a large number of casualties in the US military, but also caused the US side to pay an excessively heavy price in the DPRK, which was inconsistent with the original plan of the US military and was criticized by negative public opinion at home; on the other hand, it was because there were many forces interfering, making it difficult for the United States to win quickly militarily, and the existence of various factors eventually led to the signing of the armistice agreement.
Finally, in this article, I would like to express my highest respect to all the volunteer soldiers, and it is precisely because of their bloody struggle that there will be a bright future for the next generations. For New China, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was a war to build a country, so that the whole world would know from now on that the Chinese people were no longer weak and deceitful, and no longer deliberately provoked and coveted at will.