2015/06/26 (Fri) Test case

THE American response to the Communist challenge in Korea has been swift and resolute. "I have ordered United States sea and air forces," said Mr Truman, "to give the Korean Government troops cover and support." That is the voice of Palmerston, speaking for the United Nations. For what the Security Council was powerless to do without American initiative, President Truman has done. The forces of the Korean Republic are being assisted by American fighters and bombers from Japan and Okinawa; weapons and supplies are on their way to the theatre of war by sea and air; American warships are to protect Formosa and the forces of Chiang Kai-shek against the attack from the Chinese mainland that is believed to be the next stage in the Communist plan. This aid may come too late to save South Korea from heavy damage and losses; but the essential thing has been done. The leaders of the free world have shown that they have the will to resist aggression, that they are ready to run risks now to stop militant Communism from picking off its victims one by one.

It has been a heartening spectacle. After a pause for thought, American opinion rallied behind the President and his reply to the Security Council appeal for action. A House of Commons that had been deep in a party debate only a few hours earlier closed its ranks behind Mr Attlee when he announced, without qualification, British support for the American decision. In Europe, opinion—save among the Communists—has proved remarkably steady, obviously relieved that a great moral and political decision should have been taken so quickly. For thirty-six hours one could wonder whether the free nations would rise to the occasion. Would it be said that neither the United States nor any other western government was bound by treaty to defend the Korean Republic? Would it be argued that this was not the issue on which the Communist bluff should be called? Would the voice of neutrality be heard from western Europe, claiming that what happens in the Pacific is a matter for the Americans and the Russians alone?

Related topics

• United Nations Security Council
• United Nations
• United States

The possibility that these things might happen must have crossed Mr Acheson's mind. It was doubtless the Communist calculation and hope that they would. They must have reckoned that a Blitzkrieg would overrun South Korea before the west could screw up its courage to the sticking point. It is very greatly to the credit of President Truman—and, it appears, of General MacArthur—that they were proved wrong. For the reasons that might have been found for doing nothing in Korea would have cast their shadows into the future, would have become arguments for doing nothing in Persia, Jugoslavia, Indo-China and Hongkong. That, surely, is the lesson of the early thirties; and to have spent the early fifties relearning it would have been disastrous. As it is, whatever happens in Korea, the warning has gone out—to the east German Bereitschaften, to the Cominform conspiring against Tito, to the would-be "liberators" of south-east Asia. The policy of creating situations of strength is serious—deadly serious—and the Security Council has, for the first time, been given the power to act in a crisis.

The western world was faced with two questions by the aggression on Korea. On both, public opinion visibly hesitated, but the governments, for once, did not. The first question was whether the Communist aggression should be met with the full measure of resistance. That was primarily a question for the Americans and at first it looked as if the President would not have a sufficient measure of support to answer it as it should be answered. But a day's reflection was enough to show that the challenge was one that the United States and the United Nations could not afford to ignore. For it was the boldest and most shrewdly calculated move in the cold war that has been seen since the blockade of Berlin. Bold, because a Communist army, trained and equipped by the Russians, was allowed—if not encouraged—by the Soviet Government to launch a full-scale attack into an American sphere of influence. Shrewdly calculated, because the area chosen for Communist aggression is one where the United States, alone among the western powers, has a vital strategic interest. Around the vast perimeter of the Communist empire, Korea was the soft spot least accessible to the combined action of the west, far beyond the range of the Atlantic Pact. There was impudence, too, in the move, a deliberate affront to American prestige; for, only a fortnight ago, Mr Foster Dulles, as Republican Party adviser in the State Department, was assuring the Korean parliament that it would have "the support, both moral and material," of the American people.

The American decision, however, still left open the second question: what should other governments—in particular the British—do? Voices were not wanting in London on Monday and Tuesday to suggest that Britain need give no more than moral support. For this also there were some temptations; after all, General MacArthur has always insisted that Japan and Korea are no concern of ours. But here also a day's reflection was quite enough. What hope of safety for the British people is there without reliance on American aid in time of danger? And how can we hope that the Americans will help us if we do not help them? By Tuesday evening it was clear that British policy was unqualified in its support of President Truman, that Parliament was virtually unanimous in support of the Government and its subsequent decision to engage British naval forces.

The purpose of the action now being taken on behalf of the United Nations is limited—that must be clearly understood. The purpose is to stifle the explosion, to restore and keep the peace, not to widen the area of conflict. The Americans have declared that their forces will not operate north of the 38th parallel that divides Communist from free Korea—a proof, if any were needed, that this is a defensive, police operation. "The United States," Mr Truman said, "will continue to uphold the law." It does not follow, unfortunately, even if the United Nations action can be kept to its limited purpose, that it can also be finished quickly. That depends on what is still the great unknown, the extent of the Soviet stake in this brutal adventure. There were no Russians present when the Security Council took its decision. The Soviet hand in the invasion has been well concealed. The most charitable and optimistic view would be that Moscow's fault lies not so much in any actual encouragement of aggression as in a failure to restrain it. If that is so—or if the Russians, though implicated in the plot, have been genuinely surprised at the strength of the resistance they have provoked—the American Note asking for their help in stopping the fighting offers them a chance not only of saving face, but also of undoing the immense damage that has been done by this aggression to the Communist campaign to pose all over the world as the champions of peace. If this is the optimistic interpretation, then at the other extreme there is the awful spectre that has so grievously troubled so many minds in the last few days, that the Soviet leaders have made up their minds to have war, knowing that it will be total and world-wide. No possibility should be excluded; but the probability is that the course of events will lie between these two extremes—that the Russians will neither call off their puppets, nor come openly to their support, nor fail to keep them supplied with all that is necessary to continue their aggression. This may, in short, be another Spain; and, if so, the struggle must not be expected to be over quickly or to be devoid either of dangers or of humiliations.

Whatever the outcome of events in Korea there will be bloodshed, civilian suffering, international tension and many searchings of heart. This is the crucial test for the United Nations; it is also the test of the Soviet Union's will to peace. No useful purpose would be served by attempting to minimise the risks that are being run. But the anxious citizen of the world can assure himself with certainty that, whatever may be the risks of picking up the challenge that the Communists have thrown down, they are smaller, and hardly even more immediate, than the risks of not doing so. With that assurance, and a clear conscience, the citizen's duty is to keep his nerves as steady as the statesmen's courage has been high.

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