How successful were the United States at containing the spread of

Communism in Korea?

Containment was a United States foreign policy adopted by President Truman around the year 1947.
It was basically the US approach to containing or preventing the spread of communism. The main
goal was to make other countries prosperous economically and militarily to avoid the temptation of
communism.

The United States’ main goal was to halt any further communist expansion in Korea. It can be argued
that the Americans were successful as they achieved this goal and contained communism in North
Korea. Not only did they secure South Korea from communist control, they also pushed back the
North Koreans across the 38th parallel. South Korea remains independent and crucially, democratic
strengthening their allied relationship with the West. America achieved its goal of
containing/preventing the spread of communism in North Korea however they suffered huge losses
as well. In addition, because of America’s success in Korea, Japan was secured as well. The “Domino
Effect” played a crucial part in the role of US forces in Korea. In short, the US believed that the fall of
South Korea could encourage a Chinese attack on Formosa (a base near Taiwan for the nationalist
non - communist republic of China) which could potentially threaten Japan’s position. Since Japan
was one of America’s key interests mainly for trading, the US wanted to protect it at all costs. By the
end of the Korean war, Japan remains democratic and independent and avoids the “domino effect”
that the US dreaded, clearly highlighting the success of containing the spread of communism in
Korea.

On the other hand, there are some counterarguments. One being that even though the US got
international support (UNO) for containment in Korea a devastating amount of damage had been
done. 54,000 US soldiers lost their lives, an estimated 3 million innocent Korean civilians had lost
their lives and an estimated 5 million Koreans were made homeless. It is then worth asking the
question, “was the war worth it?” when comparing to how many died from both sides. Even though
one could argue that the US achieved their goal of containment in Korea, was the securement of
South Korea worth a huge 54,000 soldiers and not to mention the extremely high amount of
innocent Korean civilians that got killed in the crossfire? In my opinion, the answer is probably not,
or maybe there was a different way the US could have handled the situation but not at the cost of
their own soldiers and the innocent lives of others. Therefore, in this respect I believe that the US
were not as successful.

Another argument that could be made is that China emerged as a strong communist power after the
Korean war despite an estimated 500,000 soldiers killed. Evidence to show that China as a strong
communist power is when Chinese forces drove back US and UNO forces southwards and across the
38th parallel in late 1950 to early 1951. Seoul was again captured by the communists in early 1951
clearly highlighting China as a strong power. Perhaps this was not the intentions of the US and
therefore, it can be argued that some of the negatives (i.e., China emerging stronger than ever from
the Korean war) that came out of the war, outweighed the positives.

In conclusion, I believe that although the US had achieved their foreign policy aim of containment,
they did also lose out enormously in terms of the human impact of the war, plus the fact that China,
America’s fierce rival, appeared to be stronger than ever militarily. Therefore, I would say that the
US was slightly successful in their policy of containment as I believe that the negatives outweigh the
positives here.