When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Episode 40: Shock & Awe continues where we left off last time. This was the result of the Truman administration’s months of planning and theorising, and for the sake of NSC68 and the strategy of containment, it was believed to be the right one. The Chinese had finally intervened, and thus the efforts to make this so must have been considered a success. Yet, on the ground level, it was anything but a success, as the Chinese advanced with a ferocious pace and zeal that stunned and shattered all allied soldiers they encountered. With MacArthur apoplectic in Tokyo, it remained for the soldiers on the ground, let blindly into this mess by their vain commander, to pick up the slack. Instead, sense prevailed, and a massive retreat without parallel in American military history characterised the allies action in December of 1950. Several bloody and bitter battles were still to come with the Chinese, who blended their command with the North Koreans and fulfilled the total control of Pyongyang that Mao Zedong n