THE KOREAN MENACE
IN going to Korea to face at close quarters all the grim and intractable problems that are to be found there Lord Alexander is setting a badly-needed example of realism and responsibility. It is satisfactory that Mr. Selwyn Lloyd is to accompany him. The one certain way to lose the war in Korea is to forget it. The nightmare quality of this horrible and persistent struggle in a remote and repellent corner of the world cannot be dispelled by neglect. It must be faced, coldly and steadily. If jt is not, then some accident of the news—the prisoners' mutiny at Koje, or President Syngman Rhee's purge of his political opponents—suddenly reveals that the unsolved problems of Korea have been steadily getting worse, so that they emerge from the shadow of forgetfulness more baffling and more menacing than ever. There is no escaping the facts that, since the truce talks began last July, the Communists have doubled their military strength in Korea, that South Korean politics are not getting less dirty or less violent, that the prisoners on Koje island are unlikely to be prevented from murdering each other and defying their guards in any near future, and that Communist pressure to conquer Korea and drive out the forces of the United Nations is more likely to increase than to decrease.
The last thing that Lord Alexander can hope to do is to change all this quickly. He has no power to do anything of the kind. His is a fact-finding mission. - What is more, the whole attitude of mind which expresses itself in mere haste to be rid of the Korean problem, at whatever cost, shows a lack of appreciation of the very nature of the Communist menace, which is persistent and insatiable and which, when it is successful in one place, is immediately switched, with in- creased strength, to a new field of action. The " home by Christmas " attitude is utterly and disastrously short-sighted. It was expressed in its most extreme form by General MacArthur, who could see the strip of land that divided his armies from the Yalu river but who failed to see the great mass of China and the Soviet Union lying further ahead. Yet only last week Senator Taft expressed his approval of the MacArthur policy for the benefit of American electors who wanted to hear just that. To anyone who has devoted some thought to the true nature and significance of the Korean problem such an attitude is scarcely credible. It assumes that the Communists can be forced to change the whole direction of their policy overnight.
Such optimism cannot spring from a dispassionate examina- tion of the facts, and it cannot lead to a realistic policy. The only safe assumptions about the Korean situation are pessi- mistic assumptions. Of these it can at least be said that if they are proved wrong nobody will grumble. All the signs are that the trouble on Koje island will go on, that it will absorb an increasing number of United Nations troops, and that the attempt to divide the prisoners into smaller groups will take a long time, while carrying no sure guarantee of a quiet future. All the signs are that the internal political situation in South Korea will continue to be unstable, for Sypgman Rhee is at loggerheads with most of the Assembly ana the Assembly is at loggerheads with most of the electors; nevertheless nobody can suggest a better President than the bad one the South Koreans now have. If the negotiations at Panmunjom ever take a turn for the better—that is to say, if the Communists abandon their present game of baiting the United Nations delegates if they attend and abusing them if they do not—then that is most likely to come about as a result of some major change in the military situation as a whole. And the realistic assumption about the military position is brutally clear. It is that the Communists have doubled their numerical strength in the past ten months, and greatly increased their fire-power, with the probable object of launching the biggest attack so far and driving the United Nations forces into the sea. From a purely military point of view no other ex- planation makes sense. And even from a wider political point of view it would be unwise to rely on any more subtle and more optimistic explanation.
What follows from all this ? Surely one conclusion is overwhelmingly plain. It is that Korea must be regarded as a very long-term problem. The defence of the present line must be regarded as a continuing duty, which can be abandoned if and when some revolutionary change in the Communist countries ends or modifies their present expansionist policy, and not before. The frontier of the free world lies in Korea. That was the fact that President Truman and the United Nations recognised in June, 1950. It has not altered since. The concept of a permanently dangerous frontier, to be manned night and day for an indefinite time, is not an attrac- tive one. Even to the people of this country, with its acquain- tance with an Imperial tradition, it appears harsh and exacting and only to be borne because it must be. To most Americans- it is something utterly foreign and scarcely comprehensible. But it is something we must face, since the only visible alternatives are an internal Communist collapse, which is un- likely in the near future, and major war, unless, indeed, with- drawal is to be seriously contemplated. The first feature of the Korean situation, the hard fact that must be recognised and not forgotten, is that it is likely to last a long time.
But acceptance of that fact is not synonymous with despair. The present situation will not last for ever. If the United Nations Governments set about the task in the right way they can turn the situation steadily in their own favour from now on. They have from the start the somewhat wry but neverthe- less real advantage that a million Communist troops stationed in Korea are a million Communist troops _not making new trouble in Indo-China or at some other danger-point. It must be repeated that a United Nations withdrawal from Korea would involve a twofold Communist gain. It would involve the sacrifice to them of territery of considerable strategic value, and it would release trouble-making forces for use elsewhere. That is the first advantage to be gained by sitting tight. Then there are clear gains to be made by tackling the prisoners-of- war question with even the minimum of care and efficiency; by attempting the political education of the South Koreans against the inevitable day when Syngman Rhee will disappear from the scene; and by employing more diplomatic skill in the Panmunjom negotiations (it has paid dividends on the few occasions when it has been used) and refraining from the rude- ness and impatience which have been much too common there.
In the -background there is one enormously powerful factor which may well work in favour Of the United Nations in the long run. It is Japan. It is true that there is great ignorance among the Western Powers about the future course that Japan is likely to take—ignorance which will certainly not be removed by facile optimism of the kind favoured by Mr. John Foster Dulles. But one of the possibilities (it is no more than that) is that Japan may indeed be on the path of political enlightenment and peaceful progress. And if that is happen- ing then the possibility that Communist expansion really may have come to a full stop somewhere near the 38th parallel is greatly strengthened. In any case there is another clear guide to action here. Anything the Western Powers can do to improve their relations with Japan, on a proper basis of democracy and enlightenment, must be done. There is no reason to believe that it will be a simple task. But neither is there any final reason to believe that it will inevitably fail.
The true aim of a positive policy on these lines is obviously not to hang on to the southern half of Korea for its own sake. The miseries and dangers suffered by the troops stationed there are a sufficient reason in themselves for ruling out any such end, and there are plenty of other obvious reasons. It is the world situation that demands, and always has demanded since the first aggression of June, 1950, that the United Nations forces must be prepared to stay in. Korea. The Communist Powers must learn, however long it takes them, that the world is not their oyster, and it must be demonstrated to all Govern- ments, of whatever political complexion, that aggression can never be tolerated. It is some measure of the public's fatal ability to forget Korea that even these elementary truths have lost some of the familiarity that they had a few months ago. But they are the springs of action. It now remains to see that the action taken is clear-cut, carefully thought out, and un- remitting. The Korean situation simply cannot be permitted to take its own course, for that could only mean the defeat and disgrace of the United Nations.
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