the korean war has strong elements of success i would say. to do a super fast summary of its successes:

the us was NOT an occupying force in the post ww2 republic of korea (the south). they had a few hundred observer troops with very little equipment and training spread across the country.

the north from 1945 to 48 literally got at that time great quality soviet ww2 era equipment DUMPED on them including hundreds of tanks that were only a few years old afaik if not brand new. the north korean leadership had been engaged in guerilla warfare in northern china for about a decade or so already.

they had every advantage and they still failed to rush the peninsula successfully in time to prevent US reinforcements from japan (which were also relatively untrained as no one figured there would be conflict again in east asia at that time)

macarthurs incheon gambit was fucking genius and luck combined. it was one of the greatest seaborne landing successes of the 20th century if not history.

north korea failed to adapt to the situation at that point (late 1950). us reinforcements start to arrive. yup.

US and a few brit/canadian forces roll up the NKPA very fast. unfortunately china.

china committed literally 90% of its army resources to defending north korea. i can understand as they legitimately could have imagined macarthur continuing the push into china. heck the chinese civil war only ended in 1949, with actual pockets of resistance INSIDE mainland china remaining after this time.

so the US faced a massive personnel advantage on the side of the communists and the equipment quality and number was actually almost at parity. this was 1950, not the hi-tech scifi US army of today.


-2 years of back and forth fighting without much geographic change-

peace treaty that preserves south korea.


it is what it is.