s feet and help fight the war against communism. They thought that the U.S. wasn?t capable of a war on two fronts, and that doing so would only stretch the U.S. resources too thinly.But Cold War origins had roots in American suspicions of Soviet communism and in Stalin?s aggressive posture toward Eastern Europe and the Persion Gulf, not the Far East. In hindsight, we see that the Soviets were not the schemers of the Korean War, as we can see from the fact that that they were absent from the Security Council vote to begin ?police action? in North Korea. Plus, now that the Soviets had detonated an atomic bomb, relations between the U.S. and Soviet Union needed to be, in Truman?s mind, as cautiously done as possible; a full assault on communism may have caused a third World War. The open-ended struggle against communism gave the president expanded powers to act when unrest threatened, and only at those times.Analysis of MacArthur?s PolicyMacArthur approached the situation in Korea in a stronger, more confident manner. He saw that there was also a risk in not engaging Asian communism: an alliance between the USSR and the PRC. He acknowledges that the communist threat is a global one. Its successful advance in one capitalist sector threatens the destruction of the other sectors, and you can?t appease communists in Asia without helping communists in Europe. He insisted that when war is inevitable, one must go all out. The only reason his attack on North Korea failed was that he, as well as Truman, didn?t take into account how China would react. MacArthur feels that it isn?t unrealistic for the U.S. to confront communism on two fronts, and he realizes that crushing communism altogether is preferable to any alternative.However, when MacArthur publicly insulted the president and commander-in-chief, he threatened civilian control of the military, which is unacceptable. His plan was incredibly risky too, for what if the Communists broke...
