Mao Tse-tung's approach to developing correct warfighting strategy

¶ … Mao Tse-tsung, how does one develop a correct war-Fighting strategy?

One of Mao's major points is that one has to know the actual results and circumstances based on the actions devised and executed. Also, Mao asserted that the primary purpose of war strategy and war in general is stopping the war. He also asserted that the supreme commander of a war must understand the war and how it's being executed but the same is true for the different parts of the war efforts that are led by generals and commanders. These lower commanders have to know exactly what is being done and why just like the higher ups must know the same.

Mao offered some general criteria that can and should be followed when devising a war strategy. First, proper considerations should be given to the relationship between the army you are directing and the enemy that is at hand. The next one is a proper consideration of the battle front as well as the battle rear. A look at special considerations and factors of a given war even should be taken fully into account. The factors and parts that have the most direct bearing on any potential outcome need to be identified and defined. Lastly, there needs to be a clear relationship between each actual or potential stage of the war effort.

Mao was keen on amassing all possible reasonable allies and only eschewing people that truly could not be harnessed as allies. He held that a centralized command was generally a good idea but it should not be entirely that way. In other words, the command should not be entirely top-down and has to take feedback from other parts into account. Lastly, Mao's ultimate goal was not to win convincingly, but rather to completely annihilate the enemy as a consequence of winning.

Question 2 - How did the Korean War challenge assumptions about war in the nuclear age?

The generally held fact about nuclear weapons is that they are the end-all, be-all of weaponry. Even though the atom bomb was used, and used particularly on civilians, just a few years prior, the generally held fact was that countries with nuclear weapons generally did not get into wars and other major spats because the nuclear weapons greatly deterred such an action.

In short, the major reason to get nukes is not to use them, but to deter undesirable behaviors through the THREAT of using them. In other words, the presence of the weapons alone is meant as the primary influencer of behavior rather than the use of the weapons themselves.

That being the case, the Korean War was quite vexing since you had one nuclear country, that being the Soviet Union, training the soldiers from North Korea that eventually invaded South Korea and took over Seoul. You had China on the pepriphary (who was also nuclear-armed) that eventually entered the war and then you have the United States (a third nuclear) party also entering the war.

Many assumed that no nuclear party would ever, directly or indirectly, get into a war event with another one. This has stood mostly true with the Soviet Union and the United States who have usually fought through third parties rather than directly. This was true in Afghanistan as well as Cuba, in one way or another. However, it has happened and Korea was certainly an example of that. Perhaps the new assumption is that while one nuclear country will not usually fight another, that is not always the case and a full-on nuclear conflict will never happen until/unless someone actually uses them.

Question 3 - Identify and discuss the merits of other possible U.S. courses of action in Vietnam.

One possible course of action was to not get involved in the first place. Given the massive amount of deaths involved and how clearly unprepared the United States was in many ways probably lends credence to that idea.

Another possibility is to have quit letting the politicians and other non-military leaders threatening and influencing the people who actually led the war. Doing so is problematic to stupid for a number of reasons. The first is that only the generals and other leaders truly know the conditions on the ground and the second is that there is way too much time that elapses if a general or other military leader has to sit on his/her hands waiting for a politician or other talking head to make a decision and it's even worse when the decision is clearly an uninformed and/or biased one.