The Korean War was America’s first major foreign conflict in a century in which the United States did not seek and achieve total victory. It was also the war in which the enemy perfected the doctrine of “negotiating while fighting.”

The psychological strategy worked to the communist side’s advantage. Once the finality of the conflict was apparently in sight, the U.S. and its Western allies began thinking in earnest of the post-conflict era and relaxing their war-fighting mentality. U.S. policymakers sought to demonstrate to world that they were not the obstacle to the end of the war that the enemy had started. China and North Korea, unconcerned with public opinion, stepped up their attacks.

The prolonged stalemate affected morale among the fighting forces themselves — no one wanted to be the last man killed in a war that was about to be over. Thousands of Americans died as negotiations dragged on, generating pressure to make concessions. The tragic scenario was repeated in the Vietnam War.

Today, China and its ally Russia are finding the West’s peaceful instincts particularly useful in the new Cold War.

At the same time Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were declaring a “no-limits strategic........

© The Hill